dr1

What are the biggest problems anybody whos painted a car at home encountered?
I just painted and cleared the body today and, it more or less came out like *** like i was afraid it would, but happy im done.. heh

DUST was my #1 problem, right in front of poor lighting, poor gun technique, and laziness
but the dust destroyed it, in fact if it werent for the dust it would look damn good for my first try..
i went thru all the trouble of building a booth, collaspeable even, its like 13 peices i can take apart, has hinged doors and all!! but *** damn my blower fan overpowered it..
it definately had the positive pressure thing going but i couldnt get enough air out the other side, it had some sort of whirlwhind effect going in there, just grabbing dust from anywhere it could find im sure... frusterating as all hell..

oh well so f*cking glad to be done, ill get some pics later, cam needs batteries.. next year im painting the vette, hopefully it comes out better ;0

Sonix

iTrader: (1)

hmm, thanks for the tips

If you put water on the ground you can get the dust to settle, but then you have excess moisture... I guess you want less breeze to stir up the dust, but still enough to not asphyxiate your self... no good solution...


I'd like to see it though, i'll be trying to struggle through this in the spring...

what size compressor and which gun did you use?

Angelis83LT

ok. here is an idea.. If your fan was pushing to much air into the thing, and you could not get enough air out the other end. why not use a pull through system? then all the air is pulled OUT of the booth with the fan, and air is being let into the booth through two filtered openings? that would make sure no dust was drawn inside from the inbound air, and it would make sure you always had a negative atmosphere with your bower fan pushin everything out..

dr1

I did put water down, but uhh.. not as i wanted to, go figure my hose is out of commision atm also.. heh.. anyways wasnt really from the ground.. probably fan sucking crap back in, dunno really

DeVilbiss plus gun, its hvlp compliant? not technically hvlp but uses pretty much same air requirements
60gal 7hp craftsman.. the compressor was yawning trying not to fall asleep from boredom

i was trying to avoid the negative pressure enviroment for a couple reasons on purpose, #1 because from what I was reading that would only help suck stuff into your booth from the cracks etc, and #2 i would purposely be pulling all these fumes thru my fan further trying to cause an explosion

the fans air was being filtered and it was doing a hell of a job sucking up fumes that were escaping anyways, in the future better cleanup and alot more exhaust filters

dr1

booth not big enough to get a good pic, have to wait till i roll it back out, thats ok with me the darker the better, you dont get to see the crappy work on the drivers door etc :P

R1UK

You could flat it with fine wet and dry then polish it back up with a buffer?
Better still if it has plenty of paint on it, with a bit of work you could improve it as much as you like.
And dont be too hard on yourself, not many people would tackle a whole car.

CrazyHawaiian

Not having a booth is the biggest problem.

Tricked-Out-Toy

iTrader: (1)

I did mine in a home made booth it was one of tubular car ports then I covering it with plastic, including the floor, bought two fans and set them up so the sucked air out of the booth. I positioned the fans at one end and installed filters at the other. I didnt have any problems with dust. my biggest problem was I painted it when it was to hot in the booth. or at elast thats what local body and paint ppl say. So i ended up with weird little dimples in the clear. they are impossible to wetsand out trust me I tried! but overall i was impressed with my first paintjob.

dpav

My father and I painted my camaro actually close to like 3 times. Once after I got her, another time after I missed a deer and crunched the quarter panel in and scratched / chipped the front clip and ground effect pieces. This last time, and problaby the best, my sister backed into my camaro from the garage! The door, fender, front end, and hood all had to be reshot. The biggest tip that I can give is you can buy cheaper brand paint (such as PPG OMNI) however use a good clear coat. Now PPG will say they are not compatible, but from my experience, and from people my father talked to about the paint, it works. Follow all mixing instructions properly, and as far as the dust goes, do not be lazy. Wipe EVERYTHING down, wet down the floor several times before painting. Also read instructions on temperature of the paint. Roughly the most ideal temperature to paint a car at is roughly 70 degrees F. Bugs were a problem for me the first time we painted the car. They would fly and get stuck into the clear coat which is the reason why the better PPG Clear Coat was worth the money because the "Dust-Free" time is a lot shorter than the cheaper clear coat products. Also, I'm sure you know this or else you problaby would not be even attempting to paint your car but, the prep work is the most important thing. Pull back weather stripping to mask, cover wheels, wheel wells, glass, sand really good, properly patch up rust, holes, dings and dents, etc. Oh yea, don't try to use a 100 dollar paint gun, those guns are good for maybe one paint job. I'm not sure of the model we have, but the paint and clear coat was atomised (SP?) better coming out of the nozzle. There were several minor runs with the old gun. The new more expensive (and better) gun it was almost impossible to get a run. Cleaning out the gun well after every different chemical is another must. Thats all I can think of right now. Anything else just ask

dr1

yeah definately prep work most important... prep work on the car, prep work cleaning the booth, etc.. this project was supposed to take like 2 weeks though and ended up (mostly because of laziness) taking all summer
id call myself a wanna-be perfectionist.. ill see a problem, attempt to fix.. sometimes works sometimes doesnt.. haha, i hate going back over and over again for the same problem
this one was the doors basically, there was like 12 layers of paint on the drivers door that screwed me, i did some bad work with the DA and i couldnt get it level even after like 6 coats of primer surfacer, hah..
the passenger door i had to fill in myself, from a previous accident the whole lower side was bondo'd, and I had to put it back, and amazingly that door came out great

that and the dust, that seemed mostly to just have gotten stuck in the color coat from what i can tell, the couple specs that got in the clear look pretty different and can flake off.. problem was since one of my lights died, and it was cloudy outside, and I never got around to putting up my other lighting... blah half of them I didnt even notice or wouldve went thru more trouble de-nibbing before I cleared
also I only ended up putting 3 coats of clear on, and most of it smoothed out fairly well considering but i got some dry spots on the front of the hood that I couldnt even see while i was doing it
the clear ended up causing the biggest mess in the booth out of everything, gets incredibly foggy

sellmanb

Just curious what guns you would recommend then?

I was thinking of getting a Devillbiss Finishline 3 HVLP gun, or the Devillbiss GTI Millenium Gravity Feed (that uses HVLP air apparently?).


Frankly I only want to buy a paint gun once and just want to know what my best options are

NoItsNotForSale

iTrader: (1)

SATA is what I use.

Sonix

iTrader: (1)

devebliss finishline 3 has gotten great reviews everywhere i've seen.

autobodystore.com has also been talking about a spray gun, that's quite thrifty on air consumption, forget which one it was....

FirebirdNYC

just do a little wet sanding and polishing, should take the dirt off . Dont wet sand to far now

chevymad

I've found when I try to make a "booth" I end up with more trash in the paint then ever. Think it just contains everything in near the car. Also the booth usually interferes with my movement around the car. Tried spraying water on the floor too, definately not something to do either. Besides the humidity you create you also end up with a wet hose that can drip in the paint.

When I painted my formula, I did it in a hay barn, full of hay. With the wind blowing across a gravel driveway right into my painting area. Was scared to death what this was going to look like but was under time constraints. When I was all done I ended up with 1 bug stuck in the front bumper cover just below the headlight! Here's a pic of what it first looked liked just after pulling it out of the barn behind it. Painted it in that opening to the right, the old calf feeding area. Wish it still looked this good but my gravel driveway raised hell with the paint. The Dupont chromaclear seems to chip very easily!

chevymad

Hmm.. didnt show the pic and wouldnt let me add it.. Try again.

dr1

I put some thought into the booth but overall i think the fan was just too powerful for the conditions
the filters on the fan suck up more paint then blows out the exhaust filters it seems, then at some point i think the dryed up paint works its way into the fan and gets shot back out.. which is why my hood and roof ended up with lots of crap.
only found 1 actual bug i think :P
havent been able to take it out yet, been raining alot, so I dont really know what it looks like in good light yet, but i dont think it will be that bad..