jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

what is the process for prepping in between cotes?

also, yes good advice with the MISTING, VERY LIGHT COTES.

Russ

wet sand with 400grit between coats. im about to primer my bumper and headlight covers ill post pics when im done.

Russ

whats the color code for brilliant black? pz? i need to order basecoat/clearcoat tomorrow and i want the stock black

red_ricer

iTrader: (3)

the process between coats is to have the first layer of paint become tacky then spray the second then so on. but it is good to wet sand if you got base coat and clear but if you have single stage its not a big deal. the main reason to wet sand is to get rid of the orange peel effect and on a single stage paint job you will wet sand if you want to put a coat of clear over it. oh yeah for primer on plastic use self etching primer the stuff works great and it sticks to plastic very well instead of some primers that will actually flake off which isnt a good thing.

apreludem

"the process between coats is to have the first layer of paint become tacky then spray the second then so on"


How can you wet sand if the paint is tacky? that means it is not dry yet correct? please clarify. thanks =)

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

He was talking about the spraying it down in layers, you're supposed to wait until the first layer is tacky, then spray the next, rinse, lather, repeat.
He should have had a break before he started talking about sanding, but if you re-read it, it does make sense (he was just talking about wet sanding in between layers).

Russ - Any paint supply store should have catalogs there, just look through Import>Mazda>19xx (whatever year yours is). You should be able to find it with no problem.

apreludem

im confused still...and its not your writting..its me :-p .. so you lay a coat down..wait till its tacky..then you lay another coat down and wait till THAT one is tacky and lay another one down and keep doing so right? so when do you wet sand? if you say in between layers well then that means that it will look something like this : lay coat down and wait till its tacky then wet sand ( i dont see this happening if the paint is still tacky and not dry unless you can sand with undried paint) then lay down another coat then wait till its tacky then wet sand ( again same problem) then lay another coat and so on.....i am confusulated =(

i guess my question is can you wet sand the paint when it is tacky? or did i just completely missed it O.o

asherwood

Having painted a few cars myself, and just recently having my 1991 professionally painted I can tell you that even the pro's get bitten when taking short cuts!

The shop that did my car did a descent job, but where they fell down was on prep. First there are areas on the car where the clear coat is a mile deep and smooth as glass, but there are other that have orange peel, either from poor prep or not enough clear coat. Some of this may go when I polish the clear.

The worst mistakes they made were on the flexible nose cap. It had been repaired before with some non-compatible filler and every time they painted this area the paint would begin to lift after drying for a few days! The other mistake on the nose was right up front, they didn't use and etching primer, or adheasion promoter and the paint lifted for almost 30" along the front!

Well suffice to say that I'm hoping that after the 3rd repaint that they finally got it right, they claimed to have stripped all of the paint off of the nose, dug out the old filler, replaced it and used adheasion promoter over the entire thing.

It's back on the car now, doesn't look too bad, not perfect mind you, but then again when you have painted cars yourself and know what to look for then the possibily of finding the "Perfect paint job" is pretty much non existant.

That's why some jobs (Macco) cost $299 and other's $5000!

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

apreludem You can't sand when the paint is tacky.. I can see where you got confused, there's a few terms that can be used interchangeably (is that word?), like layers and coats and such... the paint process should go like this for every coat (stage of paint, i.e., primer, basecoat, clearcoat):

After doing all of your prep on the old material, wet sand and clean off. Spray down a thin layer of primer, wait until it is tacky, spray another layer down, and repeat. normally you don't need more than two or three, but primer is where you fix your mistakes.

Wet sand the primer with about 1000, get it as smooth as possible, use a glazing putty (It's a thin body putty, much thinner than regular putty), and wet sand that smooth. Take your time, be sure to putty any sanding marks that the wet sand can't take care of. wet sand the glazing putty. Wash the car off. The putty surface should now be pretty smooth (you'll never get primer as smooth/reflective as normal base/clear coat.

Spray down the first layer of basecoat, go slow, put it down thin, be sure to get even coverage, and when it's tacky, spray down some more. keep going until you reach your desired thickness/coverage. I know on my car I went a little heavy with my basecoat, so it only took about 5 times over each area to give me a nice, deep looking black color.
After it dries, (I let it sit a day), wet sand the car again, using 1200 grit sandpaper. This is your only chance to get out runs on the base coat, so be very careful and try to flush them out as best as possible. respray an area if nessisary. be sure to wetsand and clean up again if you have to respray.

After the basecoat has been sanded and dried (I waited a day), spray down the clearcoat. take this Slowly, the thinner the better. keep going until you have nice, even coverage all over your car. I think I have about 6 layers on my car thick layers on the "just black" areas. I ran out of clear, but I think I have enough, on mine.

Now you just have to let all the paint dry for a few days before you take it out, and remember to NOT USE ANY WAX for about 2-3 months on it. Your paint will still be drying after this time, even though it solidifed two months ago.

I am just getting ready to do the first canuba wax on my car (painting finished ~3 months ago), I'm going to now sand the car with 1400 Grit wet sand paper, then dry it, then canuba wax it two to three times.

I think that's a pretty good summary of the painting process, anyone care to critique?

jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

letting it dry for 2-3 days after painting seems like a little too long... anyone else have any input?

red_ricer

iTrader: (3)

WonkoTheSane you just about said everything that he will need to know. I made the mistake of going single stage (no clearcoat on top of the paint) it looks good for a while but it seems everytime i wash my car i have to wax it and is a bit of a pain next time i will go with a clear.

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

Jacobcartmill - I only let it dry overnight for every stage.. well, except for the primer.. The primer was on there for about two weeks while I finished up all the small dents I could't see when it was multicolored. What i meant was "Spray basecoat, wait a day, sand and spray clearcoat" Although, since I did mine in febuary, I did literally take two days for every stage.. mine went more: spray base coat. wait overnight for drying. Sand and wash off, wait overnight for drying.. spray again..


That's what I was getting at

Red-Ricer - Have you try doing a serious buffing then a pure canuba wax? It will take about three hours to do the first wax job, but you're not going to get any shinier than canuba.. Just make sure to re-canuba it every 3-6 months, and just use the regular stuff as needed in between, that may help..

asherwood

Well I find that wet sanding with 2000 grit produces better results, takes a bit longer but I find that any sand paper coarser than 2000 puts too many scratches in the clearcoat.

I agree with the waiting time before waxing, you must wait 8 weeks before wax touches the paint. BUT, I have read that there are some people that say NEVER wax your car, only apply high quality polishes because wax will actually dull the finish because over time the wax will get into the micro-cracks in the clearcoat and turn white destroying the clearcoats luster

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

I'll have to try the 2000, See how that works I've never heard that about the microcracks, but it does make sense... my car doesn't get to live in a garage or anything, and it is my daily driver, so I'm thinking the protection of the wax outweighs the show quailty finish

apreludem

thanks a lot i understand what you mean now =)
i learned something new today woot!

red_ricer

iTrader: (3)

hey i will have to try re-canuba never used it before. every other wax like turtle say they are a once every 6 months treatment but after i wash my car it becomes a little dull. thanks for the advice.

mycarisolderthanme

hey wonko thanks a lot for the summary.. im considering undertaking the task of painting my car and this really helped me understand the scope of it all. you summarized the process of spraying, but for an amatuer like me, do you think you could give a short summary on the prep work? did you do all the body work yourself (i.e. bondo)? anyway, thanks again.

-will

red_ricer

iTrader: (3)

mycarisolderthanme, i did lots of the body work on my car and i am not a fan of bondo i liked using something called duraglass much better. there were less pits compared to using bondo which means less spot putty and plus when duraglass dries it is much harder then bondo. if you have large dents in your vehicle you can try to use a suction cup to pull them out or try and push them out from the back of the dent. if all that doesnt work you could drill holes on the dent and use a puller to pull the dents out the best you can to its original shape then use your bondo or duraglass to fill the dent in. the holes in the dent you pulled will also help keep the bondo or filler from cracking or seperating from the car. you then sand the filler smooth to bodys contours and shapes. for your smaller dents like door dings you dont need to drill holes to pull them out but use filler for them and run your hand over the dings when they are sanded smooth to check and see if the ding is still there. i may have missed several things but if i did i hope wonko could help out here and explain the rest. but after the prep work then primer and paint. i hope i explained most of it.

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

Red-Ricer - I'll bet you'll be happy with it, it's the wax that show cars have used for years I can't recommend any particular brand, just make sure it's pure Canuba wax.
Nice summery up there, I'm going to dive into a bit more detail, for those who are scared of doing bodywork, Like I was.


mycarisolderthanme

Yes, I did do all of the work between myself, my friend and my dad.. this was our first adventure into the world of bodywork. Standard disclaimer applies, I've only done this once, if you somehow blow up your car, it's not my fault, yadda, yadda yadda... Without further ado, here's "Wonko's Introduction to Bodywork!":

Phase 1 - Getting the old paint off.
Although this is pretty self explanatory, I figured I'd touch briefly on it, as there does seem to be some confusion to how much you actually have to take off and such. I know when I first powered up my air sander, with a 240 grit sanding disc, I went to down.. I took that section of the hood right down to bare metal, and I was proud of myself.... Then I realized what a mistake that was! The truth of the matter is, as long as your old primer/metal is in good shape, you only need to go down as far as the damaged layer.
For example: Say you have a nice red factory-original paint job. By now, it's faded, and the clear coat is peeling off, but there aren't any actual spots where the medal is showing through or even the primer. This means that all you have to do is go down to the old primer level, and make sure everything flushes up nicely, there is NO NEED to go down to bare metal, all it will do is necessitate another type of primer, in addition to the primer sealer you'll be using for the regular job.
There are of course some areas where it's required to go down to bare metal. I had to take one of my quarters down to bare metal because it was repainted at one point, and I didn't like weird primer type that was on it, but unless you have rust or something, there's no need for it.

Phase 2 - Body modification, dents, holes, rust, etc.:
Let's start with the easy stuff, and move on from there.
1)Small dent, like a door ding, a minor distortion in a quarter panel, etc.
Most of these can be either pulled out with a dent puller, or (my personal favorite), banged out from the inside. Dent pullers vary from brand to brand, but follow the directions, it shouldn't be too hard. I tried using one of the screw in, slide hammer type ones, and I didn't have much luck with it, but i had creases, not normal popped in dents. The banging out from the inside always works well, if you can get to the inside. Make sure to put a piece of wood on the outside to help guide it to the shape it should be.
2) Creases, or other mildly difficult problems.
With a creased piece of metal, you have to remember one thing: you will NEVER get metal back to it's original shape. It's physically impossible, and the more denting/shaping you do, the "harder" the metal becomes. This is bad because a lot of body parts rely on the fact that they have some flex for dent resistance, shock absorption, etc. For those in the audience about to stop reading and say "Nuh-uh! I can get it perfectly re-aligned...!!!", grab a paper clip. Take a section of it, and fold it. Then fold it again.. Every time you fold it, it gets harder, remember that there is a difference between strength and hardness. Lead is strong, but it is not hard, counter, cast iron is hard, but not strong (strong almost equals "Not fragile"). Eventually you will work harden any metal if you bend it enough, things like lead and aluminum just take longer because they are so far at one end of the spectrum. Where this comes in is that you have to remember that there is only so much correction you can do to a creased piece of metal, before you start to do more harm than good.
I normally prefer to heat the metal with a propane torch, then pound it as close to shape as you can get it, again using a piece of wood as your backdrop. By heating it, you make it softer, and allow you to get closer to your mark. Also remember to observe where this is pulling on, in case you need to use some "kinetic adjustments" on other supports or the like.
3) Small holes: These are pretty easy, theoretically, most small holes can be puttied over successfully, but I ALWAYS prefer to put a piece of fiberglass on it first. Preferably underneath the hole, so you can flush it up easier, but on top will work in a pinch. You don't need much glass, a layer or two will do.
4) Rust: The first key is to remove rust. This is FIRST AND FOREMOST PRIORITY. Most rust is just minor surface rust that can be sanded off and puttied up, but if this means you have to cut off half of the quarter panel, then so be it. If ANY rust remains underneath your primer, you may as well not even bother to repaint the car. It WILL eat itself back through your new paintjob and eat more metal. My policy on non-surface rust was to cut out about a 1/2 inch all around the rusted-through spot, feel the back side of the metal to make sure there wasn't any more rust on the back, the sand off the area to remove any remaining surface rust. Make sure you get this down to bare metal. You don’t need to worry about the primer-sealer sticking to this, as long as it’s not too huge of a spot.
5) Holes: You have now just cut about 10 holes into the skin of your car to remove the cancer, but now you’re stuck with swiss-cheese skin, and that doesn’t do anyone any good, or does it? Assuming that the hole is no larger than three inches wide by say, three inches long, I'd just treat it like a small hole, fiberglass in patch, preferably from the back, make sure to extend the fiberglass far past the hole’s edge (~1 inch), not only for feathering purposes but for grip. If the hole is larger than that, but not unreasonably big (I.e: it’s the size of your fist, or it’s really long, but NOT half of your quarter panel or anything), I try to rivet in sheet aluminum into the hole. Make sure you drill smallish (7/32” drill bits work fine) holes all throughout the aluminum you’re riveting into place, this gives the fiberglass something to adhere to. After you glass it, and get it all set up, you should be able to sand down the rivets until they’re flush and you don’t notice them.
6)Fiberglassing: There are times when you simply cannot uncrease the metal, no matter how hard you try. This was the case with that bulge under my passenger door. What I had to do is to take a cutter, cut a slice along the whole length of the running board (right word?), bend it out straightish, then put rivet in pieces of aluminum that I bent to general shape that I wanted it to be. Before I put on the fiberglass, I filled the whole running board with that expanding foam.. I think that was good idea, it really added to the rigidity of the area, since I had to cut such a long line. After that came fiberglass topped off with putty.

Phase 3 – Puttying: The Final Frontier(™)
1) Be prepared to sand. After you’re ready, be ready to sand some more, and better get ready to sand for good measure.
2) Putty CAN NOT be more than 1/8th inch deep. That bears repeating in bold text. PUTTY CAN NOT BE MORE THAN 1/8TH INCH DEEP. Anything more than that MUST be filed in with fiberglass or metal plates BEFORE you putty to bring it into spec. Even 1/8th is pushing it, but it’ll work if it has to. If you go over 1/8th, it WILL start to crack on you. It may not be this week or this month, but it WILL show through. So don’t putty crazy, you crazy kids
3) It gets easier from here, although more tedious.. Put the putty down, sand it as flush as possible, add more putty to level it out, since you just sanded too much off, add more putty to level it out, since you just sanded too much, add more.. well, you get the point. Keep building it up and sanding it down, until you get it to that PERFECT fit against your metal. If you do it right, after a wet sand of the whole area, you will not be able to feel the transition between the old primer and the putty that you just put down. If you can feel anything, you need more putty or a finer grit wet sand paper.

After that, follow the instructions above for the proper way to paint your car, and you too can be out there representing how sexy a well maintained Rx-7 could be!

Lemme know what question you have, I’m sure there will be some. . Oh, and I if I can dig up before and after shots of that running board, I will. I think I have them somewhere around here.

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

One more note and a product plug:

Along with what Red-Racer said about the duraglass, I have found that using NAPA brand putty hardner (it's blue) makes for a MUCH smoother mixture than the generic red hardner they give you with it. it REALLY works better, and it's only 3 or 4 dollars, for 1 gallon worht of putty, so you dont' have an exuse to NOT use it

One other thing, while I have you here: Get a tube of glazing putty in addition to the body putty/duraglass stuff. After you get the putty all smoothed out, there will still be little tiny gouges and scrapes in it, glazing putty will fix that. I talked about it in the section about priming above, but it's very useful here, too.

That's all for me tonight

red_ricer

iTrader: (3)

oh yeah glazing compound or some sort of spot putty will help fill scrapes or little scratches great like what wonko said because with filler it is a good base to work off of but isnt perfert because it leaves little air pockets in it sometimes or scrapes.

Black se7en

man, you guys make me want to go out to the garage, break out the spray gun, and start painting my car!

well, first I have to go buy a spray gun.
can you guys recommend any?

mycarisolderthanme

well that was much more effort than i expected! thanks mucho man.. i greatly appreciate it. just one more question.. how much did it end up costing you? the reason i want to do it myself is because i do not want to pay anyone 3k to paint my car.. not to mention it would be nice to learn something new. well this sure sounds like a crapload of work but im willing! thanks again guys.

-will

sosofast

some spray painting hand techniques would be nice also

or even better, a fc respraying video

WonkoTheSane

iTrader: (2)

Black Se7en - All of the tools I used are from Grizzly industrial supplies. Their webpage is at www.grizzly.com. They're a pretty big company, that has a local store, so I shop there dirt *** cheap pretty good quality equipment.. I used a primer gun, there's a link earlier in the thread somewhere, i think it costs 12 or 15 dollars, then I used a gravity fed paint gun, I think it cost about 40 dollars or so.. Seemed to work out well. I've heard there are nice differences once you start spending more money for the guns and such, but since that was my first job, I really don't know what (if anything?) I'm missing

mycarisolderthanme - Assuming you already have a decent compressor and a good water trap, here is a (VERY) loose cost estimate..

6" sander - $35 from grizzly
6 or 7 different types of sand paper - Probably about $45 total
Assorted supplies (tacky cloths, sanding discs, glazing putty) - $40ish
Puttys and fiberglass stuff - $60ish..
Primer Gun - $14ish
gravity fed paint gun - $40
Primer, basecoat, clearcoat and all activators and hardners - $400
1 jar of Green metal flake - $32
two disposable moisture traps - $6

So I guess I spent about $675ish on it.. probably a bit more, possibly a bit less. I had a lot of the tools already, and some supplies, but I'm trying to give an esitmate based on just having a compressor, and nothing else... Hope this helps.

sosofast - The only technique I can recommend: go lightly, prep well. You'll learn all the technique you need when you start spraying Just remember: As long as you use primer to experiment, you can always just sand it off, with minimal cost in time or resources. Just start spraying primer, you'll get the hang of it.