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THE REAL POOP ON PAINTING YOUR CAR

The reason I learned how to do car painting is because I owned a rare collector car that would have cost me $3000-$4000  minimum to have the body work and paint done- and it needed it. AND, I could not afford this.

So, I contacted one of my friends, perhaps the best expert on fiberglass repair and body painting anywhere, Mr. Vic Cooper in Denver. He regularly repairs and repaints the most expensive, the most exotic passenger and race cars, from Lotuses to Lambos to hot rods. He taught me how to do this over a long period of time. Since I am a writer and film maker (and he and other experts I knew are not), I translated everything I learned from him into a form that people could easily learn from right off the web. I further got regular advice from an exceptionally good paint shop in Denver that specializes in automotive refinishing.

I spent months learning what works, and what doesn't work- and when I was done I had done my first car, my white Lotus that you see on the book cover. It turned out perfectly. And the method I used can be applied to any vehicle, fancy or plain, big or small, boat or car, truck, bike, or motorcycle.

There are tons of BAD books and DVDs that look good on the surface, but in practical use were complicated and had stuff in there that was unnecessary. I wanted to make material available that WORKED as advertised, and was not overly complicated or poorly written.

You may find yourself in a similar position looking at painting your vehicle- but without having done this previously, or have done it making many mistakes and not having things turn out so good. You may not know anyone who knows how to do this, or has the time to show you.

I will show you, because it is my business teaching people- and I've been a teacher for 35 years.

If you decide it is best to paint your car yourself, you will need a spray gun, a compressor, the paint, some miscellaneous small tools, sandpaper, and a certain amount of patience. You can do it in a car port, garage, paint booth, or even in your driveway- you decide what is best for you.

You can borrow or rent the gun and compressor and save money that way, and pay about $100 for the paint and sandpaper, and if you read the instructions you can come up with a decent paint job on most cars. You will also need odds and ends which you may or may not have, light solvents, gloves, an air respirator, and other small items necessary for painting.

Or, you can spend about $250 on the gun and compressor, own it permanently and do lots of things with it for the rest of your life- like paint your house, air clean stuff, run other tools with it, etc.

If you have a special car or a collector car, plan on spending a lot of time sanding and re-sanding, and fine sanding, and polishing, and correcting your mistakes, and doing body work.

If you don't have an extra $3000 sitting around, this may be your only choice- AND you can do it, and come up with an absolutely gorgeous job. I will show you how, and my methods come from THE BEST EXPERTS possible.

If you just have an old car and would rather do it yourself than spend $300 or $400 at the budget shops for a mediocre job that they will do, you can do it quickly and end up with a finish as good if not better than such shops, and spend a minimum amount of time doing it- although you will still need the materials and equipment you don't already own, and a place to do it.

You can get the download or DVD (it is dirt cheap), or just read through the basics on this page  and get a good idea of what you will need to do.

Okay....you decide. No bull here. The best painting adventure to you!

THE HEART of PAINTING

Anyone can paint a car. The bodywork and dent repairs and swinging of hammers all require a little more expertise and patience, but painting  is fun... and easy. 

Here are the most basic things you need to know:  How To Paint A Car Expert Tips

1. Before doing anything else, wash the car with soap and water. This removes road salts and bird droppings and other water soluble things that you don't see. It's pleasant to eat from a clean plate at dinner, but critically important to have a clean surface to paint. 

2. Use a wax/grease remover with PAPER TOWELS (which are not a fire hazard when you throw them in the trash ... cloth is a fire hazard ... use paper towels!!!). Commercial removers are wonderful. You can also use liquid charcoal starter or house paint type mineral spirits ... these all work to remove crayon marks from things the kiddies decorated too ... because they are wax and grease removers ... crayons are wax. 

3. Now it's okay to sand something if you need to make it dull. NOTICE THAT SANDING IS STEP #3 AFTER YOU REMOVED THE WAX AND GREASE- otherwise, you  will drive wax and grease into the surface. 

4. Ground the frame of the vehicle. Find the chassis frame under the car or truck and attach any size wire to the frame and the other end to something grounded (or "earthed" if you're British,) so the static electricity can get around those pesky rubber tires on the car. The static makes the dust jump up off the floor into the paint job. Dust is quite lazy, so it would rather stay on the floor than jump up if you just get rid of the static. (Please note, my Lotus is a fiberglass bodied car, and skipped this step on this car- didn't seem to matter)

5. Make certain it is bone dry where you are going to paint. Helpful old souls will tell you to wet the floor down to keep the dust down ... say "Thank you for that idea," and then, whatever you do, DO NOT WET THE FLOOR IN THE PAINTING AREA. All urethane is moisture-cure material. Any humidity, fog, steam, cloud, water vapor, passing from the floor into the sky as it evaporates will pass through the spray mist from your spray gun. At the end of the spray gun, as you pull the trigger, the temperature of the paint drops many degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius, as you wish ... this cures some of the paint before it ever hits the car!!! "Gee, I got a lot of dirt in my finish ... duh. " No, actually, you PUT A LOT OF "DIRT" IN THE FINISH. DRY! DRY! DRY! Always paint in a dry place. 

5A. PUT UP PLASTIC WINDSCREEN if you are outside in a car port. Yes, you can actually paint outside. You could paint in your driveway , but you might have little mites and flies in your paint (although you could sand and remove these to a certain extent). I actually painted in my car port open on one side. Take a little extra time and put up that plastic sheet to keep out that little bit of wind.

5B. TAKE YOUR TIME MASKING the parts of the car you don't want to paint. This is a relatively unexciting portion of this job-- but its the difference between a crummy MAACO paint job, and a really fine looking precision job. Remember, spray will go EVERYWHERE you don't cover.

5C. USE PREMIUM BODY PUTTY. Okay, we shall assume you've had some good advice about the body work. Other than this, use the best urethane 2 part epoxy catalyzed body putty you can buy for patching . It is a million times easier to sand, doesn't shrink, and is much harder than the cheapo Bondo or other stuff out there (good lord DON'T USE BONDO- it SUCKS!!) , and dries almost instantly. You will have to go to a specialty auto paint shop for this. I used RAGE GOLD at about $30+ a gallon. It was worth it. Try: http://www.sherwin-automotive.com/products/show_product.cfm?product=29779&cat=37  if you can't find it locally.

6. After enough base color has been applied to cover whatever you're painting (10-15 minutes between each color layer), let the last coat air out (dry) about 30-90 minutes (but never no more than 60-90 minutes) before applying the clear coat.  Allow 10-15 minutes between each clear coat, applying at least 3 coats of clear.

7. UPDATED JULY 31,2007 URETHANE bumpers  DO NOT REQUIRE a flexing agent. Standard urethane paint (as I recommend)  is plenty flexible itself, and essentially the same material as these bumpers. HOWEVER, it IS recommended that you use an ADHESION PROMOTER (available from your car paint dealer) so that the paint sticks well to plastic surfaces, which is essentially a plastic primer.

Even dealers and pro paint shops will skip this step to save labor-- big mistake.

The problem is, each paint manufacturer differs in how/when and to what coats the flexing agent is added- so TALK TO YOUR OWN PAINT SUPPLIER if you are doing a urethane bumper, to obtain the correct information as to when you add the flexing agents.

8) Filter the paint as you pour into the paint gun cup using one of those cheap mesh disposable cone filters (usually the paint dealer will give them to you free). I HAVE painted without the small cartridge final filter inside the gun, as it tends to clog the gun, and I haven't had any problems from doing so.

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BASECOAT/CLEAR COAT

In the mid 1980's, cars and trucks were being made with thinner and thinner steel bodies to reduce the curb weight of the vehicles. Everything that could be done to get better gas mileage was being done. 

By folding and creasing metals, the same strength could be had without having to carry around the extra weight.

The technology of building cars and trucks that fold up around you if you have an accident also changed the way vehicles were built. 

It had become time to create a paint system that was flexible enough to expand and contract with the new thinner metals and plastics as the temperature expanded and be flexible enough to stay with the car door when you lean on it and push it in. 

The entire automotive industry adopted acrylic urethanes. These sprayable plastics have all of the flexible properties to stay on the car. They don't fade. They can be driven into whatever the weather presents them at 83 miles per hour and come out as good as before. 

We technology of applying paint changed at the same time. People wanted cars and truces with pearls and fancy metallics. In the "good days" the car painter knew how to adjust the color of the metallics by how much thinner, how fast the thinner evaporated, how far kinds of things to do to change the color. 

Except most of the time, the repainted fender still didn't look quite like the original finish- there were too many variables. 

Because the  OEM'S, original equipment manufacturers, had begun putting the color  on first and then putting clear over the top, it had become time for the refinish paint companies to make a product that would match the OEM finishes. 

Welcome to the wonderful world of chemistry. 

When you pull the trigger on your spray gun, fluid suddenly comes out of the gun as the needle is pulled back. The fluid suddenly out of the front has a lot of space to accelerate into. 0 to 60 in less than a second flat. Is that street legal? This rapid change in volume makes the fluid become very cold very quickly.

Understanding this sudden coldness, the chemical engineers at the automotive paint companies added a product to the basecoat colors that has lots of names: stabilizer, basecoat fixe, reactive reducer, etc. Everybody's product is a trade secret and they're all the same. 

By using a "bulky" hydrocarbon, sometimes called alkane or paraffin or wax, in the paint coating, when the trigger is pulled, a temporary electrical charge makes static lines run across the paint surface. 

While the paint is wet, the tiny electrical charge forces the metallics or pearl micas to arrange themselves in rows and columns just like a checker board. All you have to do is point the gun at the car and the color will become the correct color. 

It's amazing isn't it? 

And the stabilized or fixed paints can be used for a very long time as long as no hardener has been added to them. They cover like a blanket. Usually three coats only a few minutes apart and the whole car is covered. 

After about twenty minutes or so of dry time, the color is ready for the shiny top coat. You'll want the clear on top too, because when the color dries it it's as flat as asphalt. Dirt flat! We’re talkin' flat here! 

The first coat of urethane clear is applied over the top of the color. As you come back around the car, it looks as if you didn't spray the clear on it. It's almost flat again! 

That first coat sinks down into the color and makes it hard and flexible and what will finally make it dry. It just sucks right into the colored pigment and marries itself into the whole coating. 

This means, of course, that you don't want to hose the color on just because you have it in the gun. As soon as the color has covered, quit putting it on the car. Geez! You don't keep drilling for oil after you have it coming out of the ground! The clear is only going to go in so far and then it quits, so don't expect it to harden 15 layers of paint! 

It usually takes three coats of clear to make shiny happen. You've seen that bumper sticker? SHINY HAPPENS. But it doesn't happen in the first coat! 

Anyway, that's all there is to it. It's so easy. 

If you get a run in the clear and don't notice it enough to take it out while you're painting, you can color sand and buff the finish later without screwing up the metallic or pearl or color. 

A few pointers: 

1) Urethane is moisture cure. Once the hardener or catalyst or activator (all the same thing) is added to the clear, the CLOCK IS TICKING. Whatever you don't use today will NOT be okay to use tomorrow! 

2) Your Painting area needs to be bone dry. Any moisture evaporating up from the floor will pass through the space at the end of the spray gun... remember the spray gun? When you pulled the trigger, the pain/clear got real cold? The evaporating moisture from the floor turns some of the hardener into plastic beads on its way to the car. Geez! I got a lot of dirt in my finish. (Nope! You put a lot of “dirt” in your finish.) This doesn't hurt the paint and the paint store dudes win love you because you'll spend extra bucks buying sandpaper and compound to make SHINY HAPPEN. 
 

3) To avoid the problem in #2 above, ground the frame of the car to a metal conduit or water pipe or the ground wire under your electrical box. Ask your friends at ALLEN PAINT. They'll be happy to tell you how this is done. 

4)  Remember to ask about how to remove runs and sags while the paint is wet, so you don't have to do so much rubbing and compounding after the paint job is dry. 

5) If you haven't done any or a lot of previous painting, pick a LIGHT SOLID COLOR to paint your vehicle. Darker colors, and especially metal flake colors will show mistakes or less than perfect body work much more than a light solid color (like white, or other light color). A light color will be more forgiving. 

6) We hope you have found this useful and informative. If you have any questions about paint and paint applications Allen Paint (Denver, Colorado) is available 7 days a week. 

Neil’s IMPORTANT EXTRA Notes for How To Paint Your Car 

A) Sherwin Williams Automotive Urethane Paint is excellent stuff, and a fraction of the price of overpriced PPG brand paint. Same quality at Sherwin Williams, but minus the total rip-off pricing of PPG. Plus the guys at Sherwin Williams (at least in my town) were WAY more helpful.

B) DON'T - DO NOT pick your paint color from one of those little paint chips in books. They are totally deceptive. You absolutely cannot gauge what an entire car will look like from one of these little one inch squares. Find a car- a whole car- that is the color you like. Get the paint COLOR CODE from the inside of the drivers door jamb plate if necessary. Are you paying attention here? Good.

C) You CAN paint your car in a paint booth or at home in your driveway or car port.  Hurray! Yep, that's what I did, and the results were great. The key is, don't paint in a lot of wind (duh). Cover anything you don't want paint on. Final sanding can be with 250 grit if you use a sealer (see Allen Paint for details), or finer if you don't use a sealer, say, 400 grit by hand. Otherwise, sanding marks will show.

D) The best deal I found on a spray gun and compressor was at Home Depot, Husky brand HVLP GRAVITY feed gun 6 CFM (cubic feet per minute), $79; and a Husky 5 hp 13 gallon tank compressor that will handle that gun; $199. Don't get cheaper than this or problems may occur. If you borrow equipment BEWARE it works perfectly. !!  You can get a smaller compressor (2hp) and get by, but it means waiting for the tank to fill with air, and you can't spray the whole car without stopping and waiting for the pressure to rebuild. In this case, bigger compressor is better. Yeah you can use a smaller one, and my friend Vic has painted amazing paint jobs on Lotus cars with a 2hp 12 gallon set up, but even he said, easier with a bigger set up. HVLP gravity feed (paint cup on top) guns are state of the art, and use a fraction of the paint the old kind of guns use- don't get any other kind.

E) Paint your car this way, and the paint will last 25 years. By then, we'll all be riding bicycles again.