After the many countless thread on the net about painting your car with rollers, I decided to give it a go. However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered.... "how can you make the 50 dollar paint job better?"
I mean, painting it for a few grand is the "right way", and the rollers and rustoleum is the "wrong but works way".... there has to be a middle ground, a "right way, but wrong paint" Method.
This method is sticking with using the rustoleum paint normally found at ace hardware and home depot stores, but replaces the roller with a cheap craftsman HVLP gun, and a 15 gallon compressor. And yes, a 15 gallon compressor is a little small for the HVLP gun, but I'm not painting abstract art, or the mona lisa. I just want to get paint from in the can, onto the car, without looking like a crackhead put it on with a broom.
First things first, I sanded the whole car down to primer, some places I went to metal. This takes time, and prepwork in painting is everything. I spent the whole day plus some getting it sanded and smooth.
The next step is to goto ace and get a can of rustoleum enamel primer, its white and is rated for bare metal, painted, and rusted surfaces. Clean your car with a prep solution, and mix the primer with mineral spirits, I used 3 parts primer, one part mineral spirits. I sprayed it on as per the instructions that came with the HVLP gun, going over each spray 50 percent, after adjusting the gun to spray a good pattern.
This is what you get after 3 coats of primer, and a little bit of sanding.
The next thing I did was go over everything with a 400 grit, and went to ace and picked up a can of "Gloss sunrise red" rustoleum enamel. They also have spray cans, which I plan to use in hard to get areas and to touch up some spots in the end.
I mixed it 3 parts paint, 1 part mineral spirits.
This is one coat, not sanded, just sprayed 2 minutes ago. The paint was still leveling, and there is a bit of orange peel. not worried, I am going to wait 24 hours for it to dry, and wetsand it with 400.
There will be more pictures to follow after I sand and put on another coat.
I made this thread to not hijack the other guys thread who is using rollers, and is also coming out pretty good :SNSign:
::edit
any strange anomalies in the pictures are because I resized them, and the resizing algorithm well.. sucks. I'll put higher rez versions of the other steps to show in more detail
I mean, painting it for a few grand is the "right way", and the rollers and rustoleum is the "wrong but works way".... there has to be a middle ground, a "right way, but wrong paint" Method.
This method is sticking with using the rustoleum paint normally found at ace hardware and home depot stores, but replaces the roller with a cheap craftsman HVLP gun, and a 15 gallon compressor. And yes, a 15 gallon compressor is a little small for the HVLP gun, but I'm not painting abstract art, or the mona lisa. I just want to get paint from in the can, onto the car, without looking like a crackhead put it on with a broom.
First things first, I sanded the whole car down to primer, some places I went to metal. This takes time, and prepwork in painting is everything. I spent the whole day plus some getting it sanded and smooth.
The next step is to goto ace and get a can of rustoleum enamel primer, its white and is rated for bare metal, painted, and rusted surfaces. Clean your car with a prep solution, and mix the primer with mineral spirits, I used 3 parts primer, one part mineral spirits. I sprayed it on as per the instructions that came with the HVLP gun, going over each spray 50 percent, after adjusting the gun to spray a good pattern.
This is what you get after 3 coats of primer, and a little bit of sanding.
The next thing I did was go over everything with a 400 grit, and went to ace and picked up a can of "Gloss sunrise red" rustoleum enamel. They also have spray cans, which I plan to use in hard to get areas and to touch up some spots in the end.
I mixed it 3 parts paint, 1 part mineral spirits.
This is one coat, not sanded, just sprayed 2 minutes ago. The paint was still leveling, and there is a bit of orange peel. not worried, I am going to wait 24 hours for it to dry, and wetsand it with 400.
There will be more pictures to follow after I sand and put on another coat.
I made this thread to not hijack the other guys thread who is using rollers, and is also coming out pretty good :SNSign:
::edit
any strange anomalies in the pictures are because I resized them, and the resizing algorithm well.. sucks. I'll put higher rez versions of the other steps to show in more detail