paint advice

swamp_ratt

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Gonna be painting my truck here soon. This will be my first time painting and could use some advice. Gonna be using an enamel paint i think and would like to clear coat. Shoot me some tips and tricks. Should i clear coat or no? Is clear coat put on most vehicles?
 

rc4wd

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Not a painter myself but have several buddies that do paint and body work and they all started out spraying a single stage base clear and most of them turned out pretty good. But personally i just prefer a rattle can, say it with Krylon :)
 

chappy

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I'm no expert but have done some painting. The hardest part about painting is actually getting the body ready for paint. Any flaws in the body will show thru the paint and you will not be able to see a lot of them before painting. It will still look good but not perfect. You might have some waves and such but it will still look good. Do not spray the floor or ground with water. It evaporates and gets into the paint as you are spraying the body. An old trick is to ground the body since your not using an actual paint booth with ventilation. Stick a steel rod in the ground and run a ground cable to a secure metal spot on the truck. it will help to keep the truck from attracting dust and dirt like a duster. If you have a harbor tool and freight aropund they actually have a decent paint gun for $25 bucks. Its a hvlp gun gravity fed which you want. If you have a sherwin williams around they actually have decent paint as well and can hook you up with a good paint for really decent price. You will want to primer it first then paint and clear. If you do go to sherwin williams they will answer a lot of your questions about painting like time to wait before wet sanding and between coats and such. I like 2-3 coats of paint and 5 coats of clear. You don't need 5 coats of clear but I like to be able to wetsand and buff and not worry about thining the clear to much.
 

chappy

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Also primers are a whole different subject as well. There are many types and everyone has there preferance. Do some searching on google and there are some nice articles out there. You pretty much want to match your primer with what your doing. if you are leaving old opaint on then you use one primer and if its bare metal you use another and there are still different types for each. You can ask your paint supplier you go to and they should be able to help as well. You should have a paint supplier somewhere around you and that is where I would go. If you go to your local napa then they will have paint but they will not be able to give you the advise you need so I would not buy from a autoparts store.
 

chappy

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If you have a Carquest around they also have some pretty decent paint.

I've always got bad avise on paint from the local napa,auto value,carquest stores. They know some but not much because its not there thing. And western paint is what alot of them sell and I've had bad luck using it.
 

rc4wd

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We always buy Dupont paint from Carquest and one of our old mechanics does paint and body work so we always just use his advice over the parts guys, half the time they dont know what they're talking about parts much less paint lol
 

chappy

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We always buy Dupont paint from Carquest and one of our old mechanics does paint and body work so we always just use his advice over the parts guys, half the time they dont know what they're talking about parts much less paint lol

Exactly, and duponts good stuff.
 

swamp_ratt

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Just a bit down the highway from me in baldwin is a place called pro paint that i will be going to to get my paint. I will ask a lot of questions when there without a doubt. I appreciate the advice guys. Never can have too much
 

John

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PREP! PREP! MFin PREP! and also read the labels on the materials you are using. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Get the body work finished first, assuming its done correctly and has been feather-edged....

To paint:

Remove anything you can easily remove that you don't want paint on. The best way to repaint your truck would be to disassemble it down to nothing. Remove windows, door handles, mirrors, trim.. etc etc. You can also tape it all off using fine line tape, but the results are much better by just doing a tear down. You don't regret it.

Then wax and grease remover on everything being painted. Using one rag to clean, and one rag to dry. Don't use the same rag to do both. Sand with D/A 120grit.(Assuming your body work is good). For deep paint chips, feather edge with 80 grit then follow up with 120. Hand sand areas you can't get the D/A at with red scotchbrite. You want NO gloss left after sanding, your basically making it so that the primer will stick to the substrate. Wax and grease remover again.

Prime the parts(If you've never painted use a 2K primer). Follow directions on label.

Read the label to find out how long until you can sand, then block sand parts. I use 220 wet to sand the primer. Block sand parts until flat with no orange peel. Clean again with wax and grease remover. Prime again with 2K, if everything is good, a second coat is all you will need, if not a third coat may be required. If you need a third coat, you will need to sand again (with 220 grit wet) after the second coat to apply the third coat. If the second coat is enough....

Again, sand when the label says you can and block sand again. Use 400grit(wet) to sand the last coat of primer. This is your base, and mistakes(runs, deep sand scratchs etc) will show through. Again, sand until its flat with no orange peel.

After that, guess what you get to do....Clean with wax and grease remover, after this cleaning DON'T touch the panel with your hands where you are painting. Try to touch places that are not important. For example inner side of the fender. (oil's from your hands can cause fish eyes in the paint, google it to see an example)

Now wipe down the panel with a tack cloth, again DON'T touch the part getting painted.

Spray sealer on the panel. 2K can usually be used as a sealer as well. You can also get a dedicated sealer, which I like. Now you get to finally paint.

Spray the paint of choice, I like Duponts Chromabase(2 stage). I personally prefer a 2 stage over a single stage paint. Clear coats are more durable, and scratch in clear coat is easy to remove, in single stage its a bit tougher. I would stay away from tri-stage paint, you will not be able to lay it right as a first time painter. Whatever you do, read the label as to how to apply the paint and clear. The manufactor has tested the paint and knows the most as to how to apply it. After the panel as flashed with the color, you will need to clear coat it if you used 2 stage paint. If you used single, no more spraying is required. As for clear coat, ask the paint store what they recommend to use with the paint you pick out if they seem like they know what they are doing. If in doubt, stay with the same system your paint is. Example Chromabase with Chromaclear.

Next you'll need to wet sand and polish the parts. If you want it to be really nice and clean, start with 1500 wet sand paper to get it flat(no orange peel, and minimum sand scratches), then 2000 wet to pull the scratchs, then 2500 to pull scratchs, then 3000 if your really anal. If you want something decent, start with 2000, end with 2500.

Then polish with a body shop safe medium cut polish, followed up by swirl remover, then hand glaze.You will have to wait a certain amount of time until you wax, or paint failure can occur. The paint will continue to "dry" even after its dry to the touch. Whenever its a nice sunny warm day, take the vehicle outside in the sun to help the curing process.

There are variations on certain parts of this, this is just the way I spray LOL.
 
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John

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Thought about this after I posted last night, and figured I could have added more, so....

Your going to want to practice first. Just get a piece of sheet metal and spray it out. When spraying, there is a fine line between dry spray, good, and flooding/runners. You don't want dry spray or flooding. When spraying, you want a wet even coat. If its humid outside, avoid painting. Your atomizing the paint when it leaves the gun, if its humid out, the paint will pick up the moisture in the air, and can cause blushing of the paint. This will create a fog look in the paint, and without being able to heat the panel you may have to re paint it again.

I don't know what your budget is, but if you need a gun, get at least a decent priced one. A buddy of mine had a cheap one, and I just plain didn't like it. I'm not saying to buy you need a bad ass Sata, but a devilbiss is a nice mid priced gun that sprays well. I use a Devilbiss JGA, but they have other guns also. You will also need different tips to spray the primer and paint to make it flow correctly. I have sprayed with the same tip, and yes its possible but, the correct sized tip makes it easier. When you get done spraying, clean the gun, everytime you get done. For example, first session of primer, clean gun. Next session, clean gun. Keep it clean, and clean it right when you get done. Take the gun apart to clean it, piece by piece. Use lacquer thinner to clean it since lacquer thinner is cheaper than enamel reducer and the special gun cleaner. Use a air line water seperator/dryer in the line heading to the spray gun. You don't want wet air atomizing your paint.

This is currently what I have been using for projects, and I like it.

Nason SelectPrime 2K Urethane Primer
Nason Selectseal Urethane Sealer

Dupont Chromabase Paint
Dupont Chromaclear Clearcoat

For coats,

Priming
2 coats,then Sand. Then a coat(judging by how good it looks after one coat, if not, 2) then sand. If you only sprayed one coat the last time, you probably don't need to spray primer again, if you did need 2 coats, then you may need to prime it again, in this case, just one coat.Then sand,

Sealer
1 coat

Paint
3 coats
Clear
3 coats

Too much clear can crack, and fixing it isn't pretty.

Nason is a "budget line" of Dupont. For priming and sealing, it worked well for me. If you have bare metal spots, your going to want to use an etching primer on it first. Dupont or Nason(I forget) sells an aerosol can of it and it allows you to just spray the bare metal first, then spray over it with the 2K. It will be a 1K etch primer, it needs no activation, just shake the can and spray. Try to only use aerosol for small little bare metal spots. Use the activators and reducers designed to go with the product you are using. Don't use Valspar activator with Dupont products, Sherwin with Valspar etc. I would also avoid high pearl and high metallic paint since its your first time. Using them makes mottling(strips, bloths of metallic) way easier to do. Overlap according to the directions given by the supplier. With anything you buy, ask for the Material Data Sheet. Its basically all the information you will need to use the product. Air pressure, flash times, overlap etc etc.

If I think of any more tips, I'll post them up. If you have any questions post them up!
 
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swamp_ratt

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Ok heres what im doing... im building an electrolosis tank to remove all rust and paint frome my frame, cab and bed so everything will be bare metal! For whatever reason there are some really thick spots of paint on my cab that sanding just wont cut it for me! The frame im not too worried about, im just hitting that with valspar ih red brushed on. But that body i am trying to make look factory in the obs metallic blue! I love the color and thats what i want. Can i bed line with herculiner over bare metal? Im doing the whole underside of my body with that, inside and outside of firewall, and floor of cab.
 

ewils35

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chris you can do bed liner over bare metal. its all about like john and chappy said its all in tthe prep work. bare metal shouldnt effect the liner. when i was spraying liner at the body shop there were always spots in the bed especially along the bed ribs where i cut through paint to bare metal. just lay it on thick and you wont have a problem. just scuff it real good so it could adhere well.
 

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