you're going to want to wet sand that before you polish it.... I repainted the bumpers on my GTP (with color matched rattle can paint no less), and the difference before/after some 2000 grit was amazing.... I finished up with the same steps you mentioned though, albeit with 3M stuff. Good luck, the FC looks great!!!

 

Becareful with that box fan, the paint fumes can ignite in the motor.

PaulC

 

Looks great, I like your home made bumper especially. Ive been reading through most of your threads and i got to say its come along ways and it looks awsome!

-Tyler

 

Enough people have said that now to where I think I will remove it from the spraying operation because of the danger. It is brand new so there will be minimum arcing on the brushes but why risk an explosion?

I just hope I remember how to spray enamel. The way I remember it from my last big paint project is to get it as wet as possible without runs for the best gloss . . and that is just like when going through a turn at speed when you have to be as light on the brakes as possible to keep the rear planted when entering . . but not too fast to where you plow off the line . . a delicate thing it is. Here is a picture of my last paint project, a Meade 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope painted with Auto-Zone Dupli-Color rattle can enamel (it used to be blue):

 

looks good.

thats the way to paint it - strip the interior as well

my car was painted roughly black over burgundy - didnt turn out so good (well at least xx years later )

im repainting my car, and time/situation permitting, i would like to strip out the entire interior and paint EVERYTHING black.

 

Losta $ and good prep work- definately keep us posted! That thing is gonna rock in yellow!

 

That engine bay looked like some scary work..

How did you make that front spoiler?

 

Yeah the engine bay was definately the most challenging part of the masking and sanding / acid etching and it is also pretty hard to spray all the nooks and crannies, but still very doable. I made the bumper with a cardboard original form, hot-glued to the polypropylene bumper skin and laid up fiberglass over it all . . . with some spackle and bondo thrown in the mix as well.

I showed how I did it all in the thread "Home-built bumper grille ducts".

 

Hey Bro, like its said above good job with your
project, I wish I had half the dertirmination you
do, **** all my projects might be done. Lates matt22

 

SWEEEEEEEETTTTT, looking good! i gotta get my t2 painted too!

 

Hello again, Rx7club. I have some pics of my 10ish hours of work today on the project.

First order of business was filling in the old scratches that showed through the primer from my rough sanding stage, using spot putty:

 

Then, five hours of wet sanding. The primer dries to a raspy finish but can be sanded glassy smooth with 600 grit:

 

it seems to be coming along.
keep up the good work man.

al

 

The wet sanding was seriously tedious and I felt mildly insane after I finished it. Then I prepped the wet rag wiped, sanded primer with an alcahol wipe using paper towels, and then wiped it down with a tack cloth to remove dust. Then I mixed the paint and gave it a go with the sprayer:



This shot shows why you need to wear a respirator when spraying. Remember I stopped using the ventilation box fan out of concern for igniting paint fumes . . .



A couple shots how glossy the enamel is when sprayed reasonably well:

[IMG]http://home.att.net/~jeff.g.quinn/paint21.jpg
[/IMG]



Here are my spray tools. The sprayer is an Ebay special, basically a cheap generic sprayer that cost me about $30 including shipping. It seems to work fine. I use a stainless steel wisk for mixing the paint and a glass measuring cup for getting all the parts correct:



Here is my compressor.



Another generic Ebay special which cost about $90 shipped. Just a 2.5hp 6 gal. with a 7 gal air storage tank hooked up to the unregulated output line to give a total tank capacity of 13 gallons. This way I will be less likely to run out of air when spraying, as the spray gun uses more CFM than the compressor can keep up with for long periods of time.

Also, a water trap and air filter with a regulator and line pressure guage are mandatory equipment.

 

In closing, I have learned a few things about spraying today.

1. Enamel likes to go on reasonably wet. It does not work too well with a bunch of light coats like Lacquer.

2. The paint gun must be exactly 90 degrees to the spray surface and about 12 inches away.

3. The gun stroke that I found to give the best result was a tad more than a foot per second of movement with about a third overlap of the spray paths.

4. Set the air regulator gauge to read the correct psi. when the gun is spraying air, not when sitting idle because line pressure goes down about 5 psi. when air is moving through the hose (on my compressor at least).

5. Spray door jambs, wheel fender edges and the engine bay first so that you will lay down the outer surface paint over thes areas' overspray, instead of messing up a super coat on the body with overspray from a door jamb painted last.

. . . well that's about it for now. Painting your own car is really cool. I am f@#king stoked about how the car looks and I really like the yellow. I can see a mirror smooth reflection of myself in the enamel . . .

 

As soon as its done i want to see that bad boy with your kick *** front fender, that think is going to look amazing. Thanks a bunch for this thread, with this info I don't feel as nervous about painting my car.

 

nice when ur done i want to see the beast!!

 

Im painting my car this summer, Ive done it before so im getting the hang of it.
Once you have done it a few times it gets easy, Its the prepping that takes the most time.
Benefits: Cheap and funny
Downs: Messy and timeconsumeing

 

Today I wet sanded the orange peel texture and a couple of runs off yesterday's first coat of yellow. The coat was very thin and the gun's vent tube to the paint can was plugged so it was spraying very thinly at first, causing the orange peel. Here is a pic of a run I sanded out:



With the entire car resanded with 400 grit I proceeded to do another quick wipedown with clean paper towels and alcohal. Another quick tack rag wipe and I was ready to spray. Here is how the second coat turned out:







These pics aren't close enough to show the problems I had with this session. Since the gun was unplugged this time, the paint was gushing out fast and I got a huge run going across the length of the right front fender before realizing that I had to back off the paint flow ****. Not until after the session was over did I realize that I was turning the **** the wrong direction . . . and so I got more runs elsewhere. I will have to spend some time sanding them down before the next coat.

I did get the orange peel problem solved however. Now I just need to improve my spray booth to keep insects out; they seem to like the paint after it has been sprayed. A spider and another small winged insect are stuck to the fresh paint! I also figured out how to get the gun to spray less paint . . . and I got a really good coat on the left front fender (last pic), which was the last part that I sprayed.

 

that fender looks really shiny!!

man, I'm really thinking about trying to paint my car this summer, after I saw this. I just don't think I have enough patience.

this thread is great, and I can't wait to see how it ends up.

 

best thread, ever.

 

indeed. I so enjoy looking at the process of this

 

no, MORE!!

This thread is awesome.

 

this thread IS awesome

i would archive it - the whole process is documented well

 

Thanks guys! The project is coming along well and I am no longer having to force myself to go out to the garage every day to work on it. It is getting involving enough to where I actually want to work on it again, other than all the wet sanding.

Looks like I am going to have to buy more paint though because of the learning process. So I am shooting for a gallon of color, total, for the body, door / hatch jambs, and engine bay. I have used about a quart and a half so far. The stuff is two hundred bucks a gallon so I really hope I get good with the sprayer soon~!