How do you paint a car? and how hard is it?

[StreetDreamsGT]

I'm not all that experienced as far as painting goes, i've painted the interior of my car and that looks pretty damn good, looks like it came stock black instead of the grey it once was, but I need to paint the body now and I really want to do it on my own but I want it to look really good. I know you need to sand it down, prime it and paint it but I don't know anything about what grit sandpaper to use, or which type of paint, or how many coats of paint to use. Idk if i'm even going to do it yet but I was kinda lookin for input from any guys who might've done their own cars or anything like that.

 

[TC93]

If the paint on there now isn't in bad shape, I would start with some 400 grit. But if it is faded and chipped I would 180 the whole car and make sure to feather wher you sand the chips out. After the 180 prime the whole car and mist coat it, then wet sand with some 400 grit. If it looks good then spray it with some sealer, then 2 or 3 coats of paint, and 2 or 3 coats of clear. Then if you feel like it color sand it and buff itout for a deep shine.

I used Dupont Chroma Base when I painted my car, but there are a few quality paints out. Nason 2K is a decent paint for a reasonable price.... I painted my car last Nov and it came out pretty good for my first time. Check it out in my sig..

 

[jrichker]

It's all in the prep work. Any imperfections in the primed surface will be magnified in the final finish. Adding paint to poor prep just makes the flaws more visible.

If you have lots of spare time and patience to carefully sand and fill any damaged areas you’ll do OK. Rusty places need to have the rust removed, chemically treated to prevent rust return and then filled with body filler as required. Then you get to sand it off to match the contour of the surrounding metal. Http://eastwood.com has lots of supplies and rust killer for painting it yourself.

 

[Iowa91LX]

If you want a good high quality job, take it to a shop. It took me about a year before I could honestly walk into a paint booth and have complete confidence in spraying.
Theres a lot of things that happen when you spray and most of the problems that you have can easily be fixed by someone who knows what they are doing. If you have no clue how to fix it your going to have a bad looking paint job, and possibly a repaint.
If you still want to do it by yourself then hang out at a local shop and watch and learn. Most shops will be more than willing to help you out.

 

[larrendeuce]

One important item that hasn't been mentioned. Aside from all the supplies need to paint a car, the cost of the paint. If you do all your own prep work, it might be cheaper to have a shop paint your car than it would be to buy enough paint to do it yourself. One quart of Dupont chromabase in Ford Bright Red was $94.

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

Yea I know it's expensive and all, and I don't really have a booth or anything that I could do it in, I know it would probably be a lot better to have a shop do it but I still want to learn and someday be able to paint a car myself. I figure what i'm going to do is just take my old hood (now have a 1.5" ram air hood) and practice on that to get some experience and all. I've heard it's really hard to paint flames n all. I don c how it'd b harder ta paint flames on a car n have em look good than it would to paint a whole car n have that look good. Ne1 flame their car?

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

*slightly off topic, sry guys but i gotta say it* mike i gotta say tha blu gt u had has to be one of the hottest colors i've ever seen a mustang have. Wut iz it? I've been tryin to decide wether or not to get my stang repainted red or change tha color n get it blu instead, that was tha kinda blu i waz lookin for too.

 

[TC93]

*slightly off topic, sry guys but i gotta say it* mike i gotta say tha blu gt u had has to be one of the hottest colors i've ever seen a mustang have. Wut iz it? I've been tryin to decide wether or not to get my stang repainted red or change tha color n get it blu instead, that was tha kinda blu i waz lookin for too.

The Blue on the old 88 was Bright Atlantic Blue, factory ford color...

And back to the topic,, The ohter guys were right about PREP Work, it has allot to with the quality of the job...

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

o n i waz wonderin, for tha most part the paint iz in really good condition, one of the reasons i need to get it painted thou is I had my rear left fender slightly clipped, to make a long story short it's not dented or anything just got scraped deep enough that it reached bare metal and there's a bit of rust on it, also I was looking along the rest of the body has a little bit of rust on the driver side front fender, if i brought it to a mako (cause that's the only place I know of round here who paints cars) would they do a good enough job getting rid of the rust and all or am I going to need to look round ta try n find some place better?

 

[StreetDreamsGT]

The Blue on the old 88 was Bright Atlantic Blue, factory ford color...

I feel kinda stupid seeing how i've seen a lot of mustangs and not a single one with the factory blue paint on it. that's one hott color, mine is the factory red not too sure wut color it iz