Paint - Can I do it?

[DDY RCKT]

Ok, I want to paint a car, specifically the LeManiac. I know I'm a ways off from it, but now is the time to prepare. So I have a 8.6 cfm at 40 psi compressor, and no gun yet. I rent my house, so I can't add a 220 V outlet, and I have the higest flow 110 compressor that I could find. So given my equipment and restrictions, can I actually paint a car?

[2Bad4Ya]

Not a pro, but I would look at the tech sheets of the paint you plan to use. Those sheets tell you tip size, cfm at compressor and gun tip. Example from a House of Kolor tech sheet:
GUN SET UP
• Conventional Gun = 45 to 55 PSI
• HVLP Gun = 10 PSI at the cap
(Refer to spray gun manufacturer's recommendations)
• Needle/Nozzle = 1.3 to 1.5
(Depending on the size of object being painted)
• Trigger Pull = 50% to 75%
• Air Brush: Follow gun manufacturer's recommendations

The paint gun will have requirments also I think. The cfm advertised on air compressors are based on short intermittant(sp?) use, and not extended use I think, but someone may correct me.

[DDY RCKT]

Ok, well, if anyone can suggest paint and guns to be able to use what I have, I would like that muchly!

Anyone know about water based paints?

[Spiffav8]

Of course you can paint the car! The real question is how well can you paint the car. :lol: I've wondered how good of a job I could do. Please post pictures as you do this. Crossing my fingers for you. :thumbsup:

[kennyd]

yes you can ! the biggest problem would be what color you try to spray .and how patients you have .
your compressor is fine . i would not recomend you go buy a 600 dollar gun to spray with . if you were doing alot of painting then buy a nice gun . you can shop for a sata look-alike and do just fine .

what color do you want to spray ?

[DDY RCKT]

:lol:

I've got patience, for sure. I just worry about the requirements. This month, all the car mags have their paint and body specials, and they're calling for a lot of cfm.

I rest easy knowing my purpose for this build is a drivable car, not a weekend show circuit car. I want it to look nice, for sure, but I don't need a flawless paint job.

I was considering black, with some form of accent stripe. But I'm thinking maybe a yellow with black stripes of some sort. I've never had a yellow car.

Or maybe orange....

[kennyd]

i would not recomend painting yellow unless you can have it in a booth and have painted yellow .
black you can paint in your garage because you can paint it in panels , then color sand and buff .
orange is a little harder than black but easier than yellow .


this is for a street car , you will have flaws , you will have dirt in the paint .you probally have runs . all this can be fixed .

[awr68]

Yes you can!
I painted the bottom and frame of my car last summer and I am very pleased with the results. Don't get me wrong here, to do a near perfect job takes a pro with many years of practice...that's why I didn't shoot the rest of the car. But for a driver there's no reason you can't do it...no better time to learn! :cheers:

[DDY RCKT]

But can my 2 HP 26 gallon compressor keep up with the painting? :willy:

[J2SpeedandCustom]

But can my 2 HP 26 gallon compressor keep up with the painting? :willy:

Nope. Color maybe and single stage maybe, but when you get to spraying clear you don't have the equipment to make it lay down correctly.

If your looking at black just do a single stage black you can poor it on and if the compressor is running out of juice stop and wait for it to catch up and keep shooting.

[Garage Dog 65]

Great thread Daddy ! I was wondering if it was possible to paint a car in a home garage with today's chemicals and dust and lack of temp control. I've also seen some of these guys bake the finish and be done in like 24 hours.

Anyone have an idea what something like this would cost in a 2 stage system ? I've seen other threads where it looks like about 4 - 5 K just for materials needed.

Are we talking forced air hood/resp in a homemade type booth - or does anyone use or recommend using a non-external air supply respirator ?

(I've budgeted 10K for my minor body work and paint - I won't have any metal work or panel alignment to do)

Daddy - are you planning on some type of temporary booth in your garage ? (something like the PVC pipe and plastic deal ?)

Thx !

[DDY RCKT]

Nope. Color maybe and single stage maybe, but when you get to spraying clear you don't have the equipment to make it lay down correctly.

If your looking at black just do a single stage black you can poor it on and if the compressor is running out of juice stop and wait for it to catch up and keep shooting.

:( :(

[DDY RCKT]

Yep, temp booth in my garage, lots of plastic, a few box fans, a couple of fliters, and potentiall one of those portable AC units, or at the very least a dehumidifier. gotta love Virginia in the summer, man. :faint:

I was seriously considering going with the Duplicolor Paint Shop (http://www.duplicolor.com/products/paintshop.html) products. Premixed primer, color, and clear. Not going to say it's the best product you can buy, but for what I need, I'd think it'd be perfect. Unfortunately, if I can't spray the clear, then there's really no point in it, hmm? Though they say that because it's a lacquer there's no re-coat window. If that applies to the clear as well, I may be able to get through it a section at a time, letting the compressor rejuice. I need to get out and read the label, find out what the flow requirements are.

Is it possible for me to use a smaller detail gun, rather than a big gun, to maintain higher pressure and flow rate, even though I'll have a smaller coverage area? Just a thought. Remember, I'm a total novice when it comes to painting.

[69bird]

I just finished doing body work and priming my car. Unless you do it panel by panel I don't think your compressor is going to cut it. I bought a 80gal 5hp
and it ran alot. Maybe get two compressors and link them together twice the air. I've heard of people doing this. As for painting have you thought of renting a booth? If you plan to use a da sander or air grinder then your compressor will really be working.

[DDY RCKT]

I can do it panel by panel and section by section. That's really not a problem. The car is nearly all apart, and it will be pretty soon. I gotta get the doors and trunk lid off when I get back, then remove the body completely to get that suspension cut in.

[XcYZ]

I rent my house, so I can't add a 220 V outlet, and I have the higest flow 110 compressor that I could find.

Maybe you could borrow a friend's 110V compressor and T the two together. Twice the volume and capacity.

[DOOM]

You really need to keep the air preasure up! If you doing base/clear ,mainly for the clear.You do'nt want the preasure going up and down to much it could be a disaster:mad: :cheers:

[DDY RCKT]

Maybe you could borrow a friend's 110V compressor and T the two together. Twice the volume and capacity.

But I don't have any friends... :(

:rofl:

[2Bad4Ya]

"Anyone have an idea what something like this would cost in a 2 stage system ? I've seen other threads where it looks like about 4 - 5 K just for materials needed."

You can spend 4k if you want on dupont or ppg, and some do because they get used to a paint system and stick to it and never try anything different. However you can spend around 1k on SPI or even house of Kolor and get as good if not better paint job imo.

The BIG paint co's cater to the automtive refinishing system as their bread and butter, smaller co's like SPI & HoK are not bound to the refinish industry as much and are perfect for the small shop or shadetree.

Then if you want to spend even less you can hit tcpglobal and get the restoration shop brand and come out around 500.00, these paints are similar to the omni, nasson line of paints.

" was seriously considering going with the Duplicolor Paint Shop products. Premixed primer, color, and clear. Not going to say it's the best product you can buy, but for what I need, I'd think it'd be perfect."

Dont do it, look at SPI single stage or hell even Eastwood co. single stage. Duplicolor is laquer that has been reforumulated so it passes environmental rules. SPI & even Eastwood are acrylic urethane paints. Urethane is alot more durable than laquer in my opinion. I mean clearcoats are urethane after all.

He could get away with shooting a SS as base then come over it with a 50/50 mix of clear & SS with his little compressor perhaps? I know alot of guys will do that for the last 2 coats simply to add more uv protection.

As for a paint gun you can get away with a northern tool/lowes gun for doing solids, but I would not risk that on a metallic shot. The issue with your compressor is your tank is only 26 gal, that will empty pretty quick so you may get a panel done at a time, but doing long spray runs across an assembled car from bumper to bumper would not happen.

It it were me and I was going to try it with your compressor...
Disassemble the car (front end, doors, trunl lid, spoilers, ec.. off the car) and:

shoot driver quarter/door jamb
shoot rear valance
shoot rear deck
shoot driver sail panel
shoot roof
shoot pillar arms/cowl area
shoot passenger sail panel
shoot passenger quarter
shoot parts you removed

Repeat process until full coverage and done. Since its disassembled you take care of door jambs, cowl, trunk edges when painting car. However for the things like underside of trunk/hood/inside doors/etc... I would shoot them a day before I did the car.

Now someone else may correct me, but if in a pinch that would be how I would try to tackle your problem.

[70TWO NOVA]

Here are some pics of my first real BC/CC paint job on a friends truck. It is kinda intimidating, but youll never know until you try it for yourself. Granted I did have access to a good paint booth i think my first one turned out pretty good.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/ffed.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/efe.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/fdsa.jpg

[DOOM]

Looks great!! How was it to spray the clear??:thumbsup: Here are some pics of my first real BC/CC paint job on a friends truck. It is kinda intimidating, but youll never know until you try it for yourself. Granted I did have access to a good paint booth i think my first one turned out pretty good.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/ffed.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/efe.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/fdsa.jpg

[Garage Dog 65]

Thanks very much for the info ! Much appreciated.

Jim

[70TWO NOVA]

Looks great!! How was it to spray the clear??:thumbsup:

Thanks! To be honest i thought spraying the clear was very easy. The entire BC/CC system is much easier to work with, it does take longer than traditional single stage paint jobs since you do have to deal with the flash times between color and clear, plus cleaning the guns multiple times as well, but once its all layed out I liked it much better than single stage. Plus I was able to learn to wet sand which was cool. That turned out good for my fist time I think too.
Iam going to be painting the air bagged truck below tomarrow (my second BC/CC job!) Ill post some pics of the finished product. Thanks again

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/asdfccds.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/asdf.jpg
Here is the color its going to be (GM Arrival Blue);
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/sd.jpg

[DDY RCKT]

Now someone else may correct me, but if in a pinch that would be how I would try to tackle your problem.

This is great info! :cheers:

Since I'm willing to learn, willing to redo, and willing to wetsand and take a few weeks to do it if necessary, I think I'll be ok. I'm still not sure about the clear. That seems to be the sticking point right now. What do you think if I go to spray the color, and just get a shop to clear it? I need a shop to spray some clear on some aluminum hoops after I polish them anyway. Will they spray the clear a panel at a time?

Or can I get away with spraying clear in panels? Or do I just not have the pressure for clear? Can I use a smaller gun and just take longer?

Like I said, I'm willing to sand and buff and go to town if that's what it takes.

[67rstbkt]

I've sprayed two cars in my garage so far, the first one with a little craftsman 30 gallon compressor. Just take your time and prep, prep ,prep. Your'e space can never be too clean. You may want to practice on a spare panel. Use some kind of air filtration for your air compressor and get an HVLP gun. As for the clear, it needs to lay down wet, but not so wet that it runs/drips. This may take a little practice. You will need to wetsand and buff the car out after your'e done. I have always used 3M products (compound and hand glaze) and a high speed buffer with really nice results. I'm not a proffesional and basically taught myself. If I can do it, so can you. It just takes lots of patience and a little research. Good luck!! :thumbsup:

Here's some pics

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd290/jcrazy28/IMGP0587.jpg

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd290/jcrazy28/IMGP0588.jpg

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd290/jcrazy28/123753058821_3300.jpg

[70TWO NOVA]

Well I wish I had some cool finished pics of the truck, but there were a series of unfortunate things that lead to the truck not getting done and now needing a respray(not trying to scare anybody thinking of trying this lol) It all started with my base coat gun spitting extremely bad and blotching up the base. I stopped and finished out the base with my clear gun which worked great. Once I went to lay down the clear that gun decided to start spitting as well, and on top of that I added way too much pearl to the clear causing the blue to get way too light. Now iam at the point where I need to respray the base on the cab and start over. (not a huge deal since I did not even start the bed) Unfortunately my friend who owns the truck just wants to go and have somebody do a quick fix job on it so he can sell it! I felt really bad and even offered to buy him another gallon of color and clear and shoot it to make it right, but hes not sure if he wants to. Anyways here are some pics before the pearl and gun sptting disaster!;
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/11/web/371000-371999/371580_146_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/11/web/371000-371999/371580_147_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/11/web/371000-371999/371580_148_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/11/web/371000-371999/371580_149_full.jpg

[67rstbkt]

Sorry to hear that.The same thing happened to me - that's how I found out how important it was to clean the gun meticulously and replace the gun filters often.

[70TWO NOVA]

Well, I finally got the truck painted right this time. Bought myself a Sharpe Razor LVLP gun. Worked awsome! Here are some pics of the finished product, let me know what you think.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_2.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_7.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_9.jpg

[70TWO NOVA]

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_15.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_14.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_21.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_18.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Cams_Truck_repaint_May10_2008_22.jpg

[70TWO NOVA]

Here is a crappy cell phone pic of it with the 22s and tailgate back on it;
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/imagejpeg_1.jpg

[whytry]

Nice work! I am going to try to paint my Nova once I get to that point as well.... I have been watching this thread... The truck looks pretty good!

[70TWO NOVA]

Painting is really not as hard as some people beleive. I have only been doing it for about 2-3 years now. The bodywork is the more difficult/time consuming part i think. Let me know if i can help.

[70TWO NOVA]

heres some more updated pics of the truck;
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Picture002.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Picture003.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Picture004.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Picture005.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/Picture006.jpg

[whytry]

It's on air, right? How about a pic of it laid out for us sport truck guys.. :unibrow:

[70TWO NOVA]

Yeah its on air. This is the best pic i have of it laid out. The front doesnt go too low cause the fenderwells and bracing are still in place, but the back tucks pretty good.
Up
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/ll.jpg
Down
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/l.jpg

[70TWO NOVA]

another from the rear;
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/lll.jpg
and here are a few pics of it before;

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/asdf.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/asdfccds.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd45/70twoo/asvee.jpg

[elwaupo]

A 2hp compressor is a little small for what your doing, unless you do a panal at a time. I use a 7hp compressor, and I've done my jobs at home. Color will be a factor. Single stage colors are easy, 2 stage colors (basecoat/clearcoat, metallics, pearl base and candy based) are more time consumming. I would spend sometime with someone who paints, or watch a car getting painted before you try to take on the job yourself. Remember, 90% of the job is in the prep. You can spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in matierial, to just have it wasted on a poor prep job. The actual painting is relatively easy. I've been an automotive painter for 35 years, painted the most basic colors to multi color flames, faded multi color stripes, and every imaginal color scheme, and the biggest lesson I've learned is being patient. Good luck on your first paint job.:thumbsup:

[Taylor1969]

I am doing mine at home - here are some pics of the progress:


I am doing it piece by piece... started with the sails... then stripped and painted the tailpanel and then moved onto the roof and quarters...

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb172/taylor1969/DSC00003.jpg
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb172/taylor1969/DSC00011.jpg
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb172/taylor1969/DSC00009.jpg
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb172/taylor1969/DSC00012.jpg

After that is all done I plan to do the bodywork where necessary, block the whole car and then spray the entire thing with dp90 again... Then on to the doors, fenders, hood, trunk, etc.

:wow:

[70TWO NOVA]

lookin sweet, always loved the look of a first gen in dp90!

[rich-allen]

I wouldn't even think about painting a car with a 2hp compressor.
You need volume and the same constant pressure at the gun through out the paint job.

You will need a water filter / oil (desiccant) between the compressor and the gun, you can find them with a pressure regulator attached if not then you will need a pressure regulator as well.
Don't trust the crappy gauge on your compressor to tell you how much PSI your pushing to the gun.

If the pressure drops at the gun while you are painting you will see it in the paint.

I've painted a few cars and tons of bikes in my day.. One thing I learned is not having enough air flow will kill your paint job. Paint it very expensive, screw it up once and you just lost enough cash to buy yourself a much better compressor.

You can buy a 7hp 30 gal compressor at lowes for $300.00.