Body & Paint
Masking & Preparation
To begin this venture we need to clean the metal on the car.
After we clean the metal, make sure it's dry before we begin to
mask the car, also do a last minute check to be sure it's free
of all dirt grease and other contaminants.
Now it's time to mask the car, and be sure to mask all that you
don't want painted leaving no masking hanging of the car, that
would get in the way of a nice paint job. The main idea of the
whole thing is to produce the best quality paint possible with
the given surroundings, it is preferred that you have a paint
booth, but if not, make sure that the area that you use to
perform the work is ultra clean and dust free.
After the car has been masked it's time to get ready to spray
the primer, once again make sure that you have cleaned your
surroundings, it's best to have some water on the floor to keep
the dust down, once you are confident that the area is clean
then you can begin checking the spray guns to be sure that they
are clean. This is a very important step especially if they're
not your guns, dirty guns will make an ugly paint job there for
wasting all of your time.
Now that you have determined that the paint guns are clean, make
sure that your respirator is in good working order. Now be sure
that you have all the products that you need to perform the
primer job on the car. You will need primer, reducer and
catalyst, you will also need strainers, stir sticks and a
measuring device. It's best not to have to leave the paint booth
during the time that your priming the car. Reducer comes in
different temperatures and you need to know what temp is best
for your working conditions. The temps are as follows, their is
a high temp that is designed to dry slower when it's hot in the
area where your working, high temp is good for 80 degrees and
up, theirs also a mid temp, this probably the most popular temp
used this is best used from 55 to 80 degrees and is designed to
dry faster to make up for the colder temp, due to the fact
primer will run easier in the cold weather. Now we have low temp
reducer this will dry extremely slow therefore for giving the
primer a better chance to run. I tell you all this in an effort
to help you better understand the products that you are working
with, the more you know the better armed you are for problems
when they happen.
Now it's time to enter the paint booth, and as you do pay
attention to the booth filters and be sure that they sure clean
also. Now get your can of primer and read the instructions on
the side, usually the mix is 4:1 or 4 parts primer to one part
reducer and a cap or two of catalyst and for the best results
follow these instructions. After you spray the first coat of
primer, you will need to wait 15 to 20 minute before you can
spray the next and so on, the way I like to do this is to give
the body work areas a coat or two first to build them up. The
whole reason we use primer is is to give the paint a smooth
surface to stick to and give the metal some protection from the
elements, it's usually a good idea to get 4 or 5 good coats on
the car.
If you are really serious about the way that you want it to look
the you might want to take the primer one step farther and use
an etching primer before you spray the urethane or epoxy primer,
an etching primer will give the top coat just a little more to
stick to. Etching primer has no building qualities there for
it's not used for smoothing out waves in your work, but it will
make the primer stick allot better. I do suggest that you always
use a urethane primer,and not lacquer type,as lacquer can and
will shrink urethane or epoxy is recommended for best results.
Epoxy is a very hard primer to sand but it's extremely tough,
and urethane is I think probably your best choice,because it's
high building and easy sanding, their are a lot of brands to
choose from, I use DuPont euro myself but it's all up to you to
choose that.
Now that your card is primed, it's time to remove the masking,
and I like to do this while it's still a little wet for the sake
of ease, just be very careful about how you do it, you don't
want to screw up all that nice work, so just take it slow and
easy while pulling the masking off your car.
(Sanding)
Well now the hard part is here, before you start to sand the car
you'll want to be sure that it's been guide coated, this will
make it easier for you to get an ultra smooth finish. Heres
where we weed the boys form the men, if your trying to do a show
finish on the car that your painting, you will want to sand it
by hand with water running on it all the time. This is the hard
part,and you will have lazy people that will want to use a
machine to do this, this is just a word to the wise, you have
allot better control over a hand block. The best way to produce
this type of high quality work is to have the best control over
it that you can, offten a machine will go through your primer.
If your trying to produce show quality work this would mean
priming that area again I.E. more time spent, this is time that
could be spent better doing other things.
Now I will explain a bit about what a guide coat is, this is it
in a nut-shell. The guide coat is the step right after the car
has been primed, you should do this before you pull the masking,
what this in tails is misting a light coat of black paint over
the primer so that you can see the low spots in your work, and
no matter how good you are, you will have low spots. The idea
behind this is to sand all the guide coat off with out going
through to the metal on your car.
Now it's time to start the actual sanding of the car, you need
to pay close attention to detail on this part of the paint job,
the better you sand it, the better it will look. I usually start
with 320 grit wet paper on a medium hard block, this grit is
good for getting the guide coat smoothed out, their will most
likely be some small low spots that will require either spot
filler or more primer. This is one of those areas where you need
to pay a little attention to detail, here you will need to look
at the depth of the low spot and think about it, how low is it
will primer alone fill it, or will it take spot filler and then
primer.
Now that you've finished that part it's time to move on to the
next grit of paper, I usually move to 400 grit on a medium- hard
sanding block from here, you don't want to move up to far
because it can leave scratches form the previous grit of paper,
so a word to the wise, don't get in a hurry and move up to far a
once this will leave seeable scratches in your work. After
you've sanded the whole car with the 400 grit wet paper then
inspect it for bare metal and guide coat still there.
The whole idea with sanding is to make the primer look the way
that you want the paint to look, I sand my primer until it has a
smooth shiny finish on it, as if it were the paint on the car.
You need to have a vision of how you want it to look, the one
thing that you need to know is, the better you want it to look,
the more you will pay for materials. Just a word of caution
cheap paint materials are just exactly that cheap!!!!! and don't
use them if you want a nice paint job. You might save some money
but you will not save the agony of a crappy looking paint job.
Think about this before you go and buy cheap primers and paints,
do I love my car or is it just some turd to push me to work and
the old ladies and back, if you love your car then don't put
cheap crap on it.
Now that I'm through with my little lecture on low quality
products, it's time to move on to the next sanding step. From
400 grit I usually move up to 600 grit wet paper, this is where
I usually stop unless requested to go one more step, this is
really as far as you need to go with the sanding. After you
finish with the 600 grit do one final inspection of the work
before cleaning it.
Well now it's time to clean the car, for this just use soap and
water, just like washing a car normally. You should blow it dry
though, this being the main difference between this and a
regular wash job, be sure to blow all the water out of the
little cracks in the car, like the cowl area, under the hood,
between the doors and in the trunk lid. Believe me this will
blow water on your paint during the actual painting of the car,
so be very through about this step. If you miss some and it
happens to get in your paint during the spraying process it will
bubble the paint, the paint will look horrible so be sure to get
all of the water out of the car first.
Now it's to mask for the actual paint, for this refer back to
the top of this page. Masking right is an art and you better
take this part very serious if you want a good job.
Now that you've masked your car it's time to put it in the paint
booth, hopefully this is a temperature controlled booth, in any
case when you roll that car in the booth all you should have to
do is clean and spray, again before you put your car in the
booth make sure that it's ultra clean in there and ready to go.
Now make sure that you have everything you need in there to
paint the car I.E. paint, reducer, catalyst, stir sticks,
strainers and stir sticks and a measuring stick. Once again
check your respirator and be sure that it's working properly,
tie your hair back and if you have a beard cover your face.
Follow all instructions on the back of the paint can to the
letter or it could cause problems with the out come of your
paint.
Now that you have the car in the booth, be sure to double check
the masking on it, what you are looking for here is perfection
and nothing less. This means everything that if you don't want
it painted it must be masked for sure, their is no room for
error here. Now you need to take a look at the supplies that you
have to do the job with, and inventory them to be sure that you
have everything you need to complete the job, the last thing you
need is to find that you don't have something right in the
middle of painting the car. Here's a list of what you will need
for the job. Supply List
1) Paint.
2) sealer.
3) reducer.
4) Catalyst.
5) Tack Cloths, preferably designed for clear coat.
6) Measuring Cups.
7) Stir Sticks.
8) Measuring Stick.
9) Strainers.
10) Respirator in working order
Now I will give you a few things to think about, if your
painting with metallic paints then you must pay allot attention
to the settings on your paint gun. Metallic paints will tend to
get lighter if the pressure goes up and darker if it goes down,
your fluid flow and fan on your gun will also effect this.
Now I will give you a basic mixing chart, most paints will
follow this chart.
Instructions
1) get your paint ready to pour.
2) make sure that your mixing cup is clean.
3) Get your strainer and sticks.
4) Put a strainer in the top of the measuring cup.
5) Now pay close attention to the level of paint in the cup.
Paint Mixing Table.
Recommended Air Pressure At Gun Head. Paint Mix Ratios. Paint
Product. 25-40 PSI Mix 4:1:1 Base Coat
25-40 PSI Mix 4:1:1 Sealer
25-40 PSI Mix 4:1:1 Clear Coat
25-40 PSI Mix 2:1:1 Primer Coat
When using a paint gun, you try to achieve a certain spray
pattern without any heavy or light areas, in the pattern chart
above you would try to achieve pattern (A).
Now a lesson on gun angle. Their are only two angles you should
ever need to use when holding a spray gun, and they are 45 and
90 degrees angles to the surface of the car that you are
spraying, these angles will give you the best outcome possible,
and also you should try to keep the spray gun at about 6 to 8
inches from your work. If you get much closer you will more then
likely cause a run in the paint and, much more distance and you
will get a dry look to your paint job, you also need to get a
feel for the speed that you need to move the gun according to
the air pressure and fluid flow of the gun.
To see the images that belong to this artle click here Muscle car resoration