I read thru previous threads but was unable to find out the nitty gritty of car painting. My friend had a door replaced. The new door is red, the rest of the car is gray. There is no way it’s going to a body shop and she wants me to help her do it. Any tips or how-to that anyone knows?
Well if you don’t own the equipment, I suspect that to buy the stuff that it would take to do the job right will cost at least as much as a trip to a body shop. Here in California you can get a whole car painted for $129. Not going to buy much equipment for that.
If you are talking about using a spray can. it will probably come out looking like it was sprayed from a can.
To do a presentable job with no experience or proper tools? Not really.
Bare minimum, buy some automotive spray bombs and primer. Don’t buy paint at a hardware store because it will look like you did! Prime one still morning and paint the next good morning while there is little dust (or bugs) in the air. I have seen a couple of “OK” jobs that way(and I use OK very loosely), but a cheapo Maaco job would’ve even looked 1000% better.
Otherwise, prepare to spend several thousand dollars on a compressor, spray gun, sanding material, clear, building a paint booth, you name it… and thats not counting the experience you lack.
No slam to you or your friend, but if you must, experiment first before you apply paint to her car. Try and get a technique down first. Overlapping is your friend.
Good luck!
Make sure you gets enough orange and yellow.
(For the flames.)
This doesn’t have to look super professional. She already has the spray cans which were bought from Pep Boys (or maybe it was Advanced Auto). I’m wondering now how much of the red paint needs to be stripped? Or can I just use some sandpaper to roughen up the paint and then prime over top of that?
Briefly (and oversimplifiedly)use wet sandpaper and try to remove as much of the red paint as possible. You’ll probably get to bare metal in a few spots, but it isn’t necessary to completely strip the door. You’ll put primer over that, and then paint over the primer. The better job you do at the sanding/priming stage, the better the job will look in the end. Smooth=good. When spraying, you want to go back and forth and build up lots of thin layers. If you spray too heavily, the primer/paint drips and looks horrible. I second the advice that you just take it to someplace like Maaco or Earl Scheib and get a bottom o’ the line spray job on it. It will still look better than what you are likely to get from a first timer job with spray bombs.
Just one more vote for going to the neighborhood Maaco.
Paint is a chemical process. The wrong paint over top of old paint could cause reactions, bubbles, and just plain ickiness.
You HAVE TO PRIME. You also have to sand. Lots. Wet sand it with 1000 grit until you see your happy smiling face real clear. And you probably have to get some glazing putty. This stuff fills in the really small scratches so you don’t have to sand through the door to get it smooth. Use several primer coats. The more iterations of priming/sanding, the better the end result.
Spray in a garage if you can. Dust and bugs are your enemy and even if you can’t see any, they will find the paint. But make sure you’re well ventilated. Wet down the area under where you’re going to paint. This minimizes the dust that will be stirred up in the process and get stuck to your paint.
And read the instructions on the paint. Scumpup is right in that most paints like several thin coats. But some need to be sprayed on thick to get the correct finish.
And you probably will need some polish (and a real polisher, I can’t imagine hand polishing) to smooth out the finish and get rid of the dust and bugs that do end up stuck there.
Just go to Maaco. (or wherever…)
It won’t.
I’m sorry for being this blunt but there’s no other way to say it. Spray bombs will give a thin coat that will dull or rub off over time, especially if the door is washed or polished.
Others have given the details, but I would recommend not polishing the door after painting. Wait at least a month before polishing (personally, I’d wait until summer.) Better paints dry to a harder finish, and professional job would be done with catalyzing paint and/or would be baked after spraying to further harden the finish. Spray equipment also applies a lot thicker film of paint than you could ever get with a can, so there’s less chance of rubbing through the paint when polishing.
That’s odd, it if was a NEW door, it would have been gray, which is primer. If it’s red, it must have been a USED door…
Sometimes primer is red, but then it would be more a brown red & matt.
There was a topic posted here once about how to use a can of spray paint to do the job. Spray, sand, spray, sand etc But you need a matching paint, find the paint code on the door or inside the hood & get some paint from an auto paint store.
If the red paint is good, there is no reason to remove it. Just roughen it up with some fine sandpaper, so that the new paint will stick to it better.
Boy, is it gonna look crappy, though!
Actually, thats a good point. I assumed when you meant “red new door” that it was red primer, but as Handy mentioned it’s usually a darker, dull red.
Is that what it is or did you by a “new to you” used door already painted red from a junk yard? If so, there is a lot more prepwork involved in painting it.
I used to work in a paint lab for PPG/Chrysler.
The original gray panels are not primer, they are e-coat. If it is a passenger car the paint is water soluble paint, hence the clear coat. Trucks and buses use solvent-based paint. I’m guessing that she got a door from a junkyard.
Anyway, if you paint your own car, it will always look like you painted your own car. If you want it to look even moderately professional take it to a professional.
If you insist on doing it yourself, you can go to a auto shop and order matching paint. Or you can order the paint on line. The color code should be on a sticker on the car click here to find it.
I have seen some jobber sheetmetal come pre-primed, not just an E-Coat. It even said “Pre-primed” on the boxes they came in… although the primer is usually crap.
I painted my own truck. I have an air compressor, the paint sprayer and a charcoal resperator.
I bought a couple hundred dollars worth of paint and went to town.
It looks like shit.
bernse, the pre-primed panels were generally used for older cars. Solvent based paint is shiny. That is why older cars didn’t need a clear coat. The EPA determines how much Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) a company can produce. VOCs are produced when you spray solvents which is why the auto manufacturers went to water based paints for passenger cars.
The crappy matte gray doors you see on older cars is indeed primer, as solvent based paint sticks much better than water based paint does. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a new car naked, but they too are gray, but it’s a shiny gray that looks like it already has clear coat. These are e-coat panels.
E-coat, for those who don’t know is an electrocoat which causes the paint to stick with electrostatic forces (chemically) instead of physically, like it does when you sand and paint.
Really it isn’t too expensive to have you car professionally done, and as NurseCarmen can attest, no matter how hard you try, if you do it yourself, it will still look bad.
Just as an aside, the e-coat panels, which are provided by the manufacturer are already prepared rust-proofed, is why you should never pay for post manufacturing rustproofing. Often this will void your paint warranty.