Paint and Body Fox Body Painting 101
- Thread starter Davedacarpainter
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Dave what do you recommend for guide coats? I hear some using spray paint from a can etc... And you mention a difference in going solid black, as not necessarily requiring up to 800; I going medium gray - low metallic on my job, would that require 800 grit wet..IYO. I'm getting ready to do some practicing on my old van...
First, the guide coat. It's best if you use one of two things. Either a dry powdered guide coat that comes with it's own applicator, or a spray guide coat that is specific for that.
You can use most any rattle can black for it, but some paints will ball up on your sand paper when you're trying to block.
I mention 600 being good enough for black with thought of it being a solid color. Metallica and pearls I personally would go to 800.
You can use most any rattle can black for it, but some paints will ball up on your sand paper when you're trying to block.
I mention 600 being good enough for black with thought of it being a solid color. Metallica and pearls I personally would go to 800.
Dave, thanks for all the help. I figure I would ask my questions on here versus pm in case someone else has the same issues and so you don't have to post in two different spots. Thanks for the tips on laying a smoothing high build primer. I found that my pressure was too low and causing it to lay too blotchy. I adjusted the pressure and it laid out much smoother. I need to play with the material knob a little more and I'm sure it will be fine.
My question/scenario to you today is this:
I took my hood down to metal and it wasn't fun. The reason I did it was because there was a lot of peeling and it had 80's decal pen stripping on the hood and on the sides. I figured it was best to take it down to metal best I could. For the rest of the car can I just take those pieces that are flaking to metal and primer those? Then block the whole car and paint? Or should I continue with sanding down to metal on whole car since the paint is all crap?
My question/scenario to you today is this:
I took my hood down to metal and it wasn't fun. The reason I did it was because there was a lot of peeling and it had 80's decal pen stripping on the hood and on the sides. I figured it was best to take it down to metal best I could. For the rest of the car can I just take those pieces that are flaking to metal and primer those? Then block the whole car and paint? Or should I continue with sanding down to metal on whole car since the paint is all crap?
You don't have to strip the whole car unless the paint is fubar'd. Meaning large areas of clear delamination (pealing).
So, if it's just small areas that the clear has delaminated, feather the clear coat back until it stops pealing. If you had exposed substrate layers for any length of time I would feather those down to metal myself for at least the exposed area and maybe an inch past.
The lower layers are more porous than clear and will absorb any crap the environment might bring by. If you don't remove the exposed substrate you will still have that under your new paint.
It may not cause you an issue, but then again, it could. Then imagine how thrilled you would be to have to go back and fix that.
Once you have it feathered out, treat it just like you would a patch of bondo that you've already blocked. Primer it and block it flat.
Post a picture of what you mean by, "the paint is all crap" if you would please.
This photo is just to show the clump of crap under that door molding. It was awesome. Going with new moldings anyways.
In this photo you can kind of see where area toward the center of the roof has a line of paint chipping or missing. it has areas just like this on several areas due to the intense heat here in Az and the car being parked for so long. When I hit the hood with a da some paint would stick and then there were spots where it basically flaked off. The primer underneath though took a good beating to get off which was surprising.
Yeah Jon, I would strip that roof if it were my mustang. If other areas are like that, get rid of the paint. Probably will just be the top surfaces, so, like the fenders, just strip off the top. There's no need to do the sides unless that goes down there.
The other issue is these damn decals I tried to peel them off but they are so old and nasty and have to be scrape or sanded off which goes into taking them down to metal. Of course the sides have two stripes too and bottom.
You can see in the second photo how sun just ate these A pillars. Window moldings coming off this weekend.
Old stripes suck. Eventually their glue eats into the paint.
You'll want to strip the area where the stripe was and primer and block it or you'll see where they were when you repaint.
You can get a stripe removal wheel to take off the stripes. There are two kinds.
One is solid and is essentially like a big eraser. It's more aggressive and will likely eat into the paint.
The other is a stack of soft floppy disc.
You mount either one to a drill and run it along the stripe, they're really handy and quick. You can have all those stripes off in twenty minutes.
The a-pillar looks in great shape other than the paint. That's good. Just surface rust there.
You'll want to strip the area where the stripe was and primer and block it or you'll see where they were when you repaint.
You can get a stripe removal wheel to take off the stripes. There are two kinds.
One is solid and is essentially like a big eraser. It's more aggressive and will likely eat into the paint.
The other is a stack of soft floppy disc.
You mount either one to a drill and run it along the stripe, they're really handy and quick. You can have all those stripes off in twenty minutes.
The a-pillar looks in great shape other than the paint. That's good. Just surface rust there.
That's the way to do it. look at one panel at a time and worry about making it nice. Then go to the next, forget the rest of the job or you'll begin to realize how much work it is.
That's how i'm making it through my blue car, I know my next step is to get that driver's door. But for right now, I have several little things that need to be finished. Replacing the floors is in the distance somewhere.
That's how i'm making it through my blue car, I know my next step is to get that driver's door. But for right now, I have several little things that need to be finished. Replacing the floors is in the distance somewhere.
So I've been working on trying to get my engine bay stripped and ready for either primer of filler (was hoping to epoxy prime it to seal it since I work so slow). There's a lot of tight spots where I can't get anything mechanical in, and 80 grit by hand seems to barely touch the 3-4 layers of paint/primer that are there. Can I just feather out what I can and then prime/fill over it?
Sure, as long as rust isn't an issue. Post a picture somI can understand a little better.
With the eb area you don't have to worry a lot about UV light, or road grime. So damage is limited to engine grime and inner rot working it's way into that area.
Finished taking a lot of trim off and to start working on both fenders. Arizona heat takes its toll on plastic and rubber. Both lower windshield trim pieces broke at the tabs. The rear bumper is pretty shot. Probably be better to grab one in decent condition and ditch the old one. Here is a pic of it:
All that yellow used to be black and sands down to a fine dust. Not sure it is worth saving and working.
The plastic is pretty thick, so it probably could be saved. Use some 80 grit on a DA and see how far down its dried out. AZ sun is tough, it may have dry rotted it too far to fix.Here is a close up of the rear bumper.
What do you think Dave? Worth saving?
Mine were the same. The ones from LMR are under $20 though. They are raw plastic, so you'll need to paint them.
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Arizona heat takes its toll on plastic and rubber. Both lower windshield trim pieces broke at the tabs.
This is one of those clustereff areas, right around where the booster sits. I can still get in there a bit more with the 2" grinder, but all those lap joints are being problem areas. Theres also a bunch of tight sports around the headlight area that I tried to take a quick pic of, but failed (way too blurry and I'm too lazy/tired to try again right now).
And while I have your attention, I was really close to pulling the trigger on this gun set on summit today, I think someone in this thread has asked about them before, but I'll ask about them again anyway
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/dvr-802343
I did get a cheap harbor freight gun a couple weeks ago just to kinda play with (it was $10, figured i might could find something to do with it), don't know if I want to try to make that a primer gun or
