[zook_ute]

Hey guys,
I have just bought a hard top vitara, I plan on using the body on my rolled soft top chassis. I have pretty well stripped the car down, found some rust in a few spots. A friend of mine is going to plate it up for me.

the car itself is in need of a respray, it is gun metal grey and I think I will respray back that colour.

question is, what is the process to getting a decent finish?

Any help would be great

[droverdave]

How much time and patience are you interested in investing in the car?

I have done a bit of car painting with Acrylic based paint.

essentially once you get the hang of the spray gun, painting is quite easy to get a very reasonable finish.

What is damn hard is fixing dents so that you cannot tell its there. This take an enourmous amout of patience.

This finish my mate and i achieved in 7 days (drove in the garage on saturday, sprayed the paint on the next saturday, drove out the garage on sunday). Excluding cutting and buffing. This photo is about 3yrs after i painted it.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u166 ... 0sold2.jpg

Not perfect, but not too bad either for a backyard job and the first time using a spray gun. Good from far, but far from good. Ignore the bonnet, i stuffed that up...... (sun came over and heated up the bonnet, paint didnt like that). The car was multiple colours before we started so anything was an improvement.

I suggest acrylic paint, as its quite forgiving and i found quite easy to paint, sand the paint down with 400ish till its nice and smooth. get rid of all dents, clean it good with wax and greese remover, start with your putty primer, put that down, sand that back with 400, if imperfections are really small you can just put more putty primer down and sand it back again, else get out the car bog. once its pefect and all been sanded with 400 give it a few coats of colour 2 or 3 (mix it with thinners as per the tin can), dont try and put too much on at once, you can always put more on, but once you get a run its game over. If you are doing metalic paint you put clear over the top, do as many coats as you can in my opinion as then you have more paint to buff back. Just keep going around and around the car with clear untill you either run out of thinners, paint or patience.

I painted some speaker boxes with acrylic paint, was just gloss black, but i put like 10 coats of clear on it as well. I Got that nice piano black finish relatively easily.

Acrylic paint dries dull looking, you need to then wet sand it back with 1500-2000 grit, then you need to buff it with cutting compound. this is also time consuming. But you can get the mirror finish if you work hard. Be VERY VERY VERY careful when sanding near edges, its very easy to take all the paint off a corner.

My spray gun i got from the paint shop, about $80 (is a gravity fed one). The paint itself for a whole car was around 300-400 (metalic paint, clear, thinners). Pluss some other stuff like sandpaper, safety gear (masks), tape, drop sheets etc. its prolly $600 by the time you finish.

The absolute number 1 rule for painting is that paint will NEVER cover imperfections. In fact paint will magnificy imperfections 10 fold.

This is just my experience as an amateur in his backyard weilding a spray gun.

[kuta]

2X The absolute number 1 rule for painting is that paint will NEVER cover imperfections. In fact paint will magnifies imperfections 10 fold


hey I am a backyarder 2. I usto plaint with acrylic now I have had a go with 2k (2pac) I would not go back either way its all about the prep you do if it looks like crap when you have primed it it will look like crap at the end. take your time with all prep don't rush. as droverdave wrote acrylic dries dull and you will have to sand and polish. 2k you spray your primer light sand (I use 800) spray base coat (so gun metal grey) then clear it (gloss out of the gun) hard thing is to keep the dust out of the clear till it dries. well worth looking into 2k let me know if you want me to go into any detail if I don't know I can ask the painters at work and let you know

[zook_ute]

Thanks for the replies

I think I will paint the car with 2 pack paint, the car has 5 dints I am hoping to fix them up myself.

I am planning on using a electric sander, I am going to set the shed up as a book using drop sheets to prevent to much dust settling on the paint.

[atari4x4]

maybe shoot greenzook89 a pm as he's a spray painter up your way & i'm sure he could offer a few good tips & pointers.

[zook_ute]

Thanks atari, I will pm him about it.

I wish I could afford to pay someone to do it, but I am out of work for 12-24months from the accident. My right arm is completely out of action so I will be sanding with my right, few mates are going to help out also.

I plan on starting prep monday

[droverdave]

The reason i like acrylic is that its basically dried by the time the paint hits the car, minimal chance of getting imperfections in the paint while its drying.

2 pack does give a nice finish off the gun though.

How do you deal with the safety aspects of 2-pack at home? my limtied understanding is that its much nastier than the ol' acrylic.

I've never tried 2-pack, i hear there is an "iso free" 2 pack out these days, which is supposed to be not as nasty.

[want33s]

Zac, go have a chat with Les and have a look at my ute while you're there.

[zook_ute]

want33s wrote:

Zac, go have a chat with Les and have a look at my ute while you're there.

Hey jas,

Tried to po over there tuesday, couldn't open the gate. Ill pop in over the weekend