How hard is it to learn to paint?
 

Somebody scratched the shit out of my rear lip and bumper, and I don't want to pay a body shop to fix it. I am considering tackling this myself and was wondering if anybody had any advice. I also have a few questions.

How hard is it to get the paint to match? I was just going to order GM victory red paint.
What kind of primer and clear coat should be used?
If I take my time do you think I can get it to match?

I've done some research on the process and it looks like something I can handle but is it reasonable for me to think this is something I can do on my own?

you could most likely do the job on your own.... specially if you are mechanically inclined... however to get factory results maybe a task you may not achieve.... its too hard with a spray balm and a garage to get it exactly... with a bodyshop they have all the proper tools to achieve high quality finish.... also to find a high quality clearcoat in a spray balm.....

Its not gonna cost that much for a shop to fix it if its just scratch maybe $200-$300 or even less depending on the shop. Spray Can will look terrible.

It's multiple scratches and possible even very light gauges that need to be filled which I can do. I have parts to practice on, and I am mechanically inclined.

I wasn't going to rattle can it, I have a spray gun, compressor, and an air dryer.

What are these special tools that they have to do the job?

its actually not as hard as most people thing, some of the supplies youd need are

sandpaper, 320, and 600 grit,
paint, can get it off your paint code in the trunk and take it to a paint store for the right color
reducer for the paint
primer sealer
high build primer
thinner for the primer
clear coat
hardner for the clearcoat
wax and grease remover

all that you can get at a paint store, but will cost you about 2-300 bucks cause they dont make it in small quanties. But its a good thing to have if you want to do more painting

their are two ways to do this,
1 mask off the car around the bumper, or take the bumper off, if your limited on space, pull the bumper off and spray it, but make sure if you pull it off, you set it up so like its sitting on the car, the color will match better.

once you have the bumper off, sand it down with some 320 and get it nice and smooth, and knock off as much paint as you can, spray on the high build primer after mixing it to the proper mix, take some paint of any color and mist it on the bumper, this is a guide coat, now you can start block sanding everything out with 320. and get as much of the guide coat off that you can. once your done with that and are happy with how smooth it is, its now time to seal it with the primer sealer, than hit it with some 600 grit, and clean it all off with the wax and grease remover, than spray the color, once its dry, spray the clear, let it dry, mount on your car, and enjoy

so you would recommend spraying the paint with the part on the car?

Is there anywhere online where I can get this stuff in smaller quantities? I am trying to keep the cost down.

you can, you'd jsut have to also get masking tape and a drop cloth to cover the whole car, and you'd honestly have to go to the auto paint store and see what they can do for you, you might be able to get the stuff in some smaller quanties, or stop buy a auto body shop and see if they can help you out and get you some stuff in smaller quanties to do what you want to do, I've done that a couple times before. just throw them like 50-100 bucks

i was mainly refering to a booth.... however sounds like you may have a good grasp of what needs to happen so maybe your results maybe better then most.... just make sure its warm and dust free and it has chance....

I think there's a learning curve to.painting, from my experience. I picked it up rather quickly, however I did a lot of research and emailed a few people for advice. My best suggestion if you want to get a good idea of what's entailed. Look up swrnc on YouTube. His names Pete and he does videos about building hot rods and autobody. He has a channel directed straight toward the layman doing autobody repair at home and he covers blendong and prepping and the whole 9 yards. Its called diyautobody or something similar. He is always happy to answer questions via email and even sometimes by phone. He is a little rough around the edges and cusses a lot in his bids but is a pro and helped me out a lot when I painted my bike, which was the first thing I'd ever painted that wasn't rattle can. And Brian ollson seems to be pointing you in the right direction. But like I said check out Pete on YouTube, you cannot go wrong there.

TCP Global - Quality & Service Since 1974 sells paint online and you can buy quart kits. I believe they even color match from yourVin, however ppant stores don't always get the color mixed right and if it was off that would be a big hassle to return.

What size of air compressor do you have?

yeah, the paint itself isn't too expensive, all youd' really need is half a pint, be about 30 bucks, but the reducers and other stuff is what starts running up the costs, cause you can usually only get them in half gallons and their about 60 bucks, for the primer, you can get away with spray can primer to cut the costs, it wouldn't look totally perfect to the perfectinst, but honestly you take your time with it and do some really good prep work, and you honestly won't even notice

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This is a valvecover I did for a friend using spray can primer, auto paint color matched, and spray can primer, I think it turned out pretty well, and it matched the car perfectly

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My first ever paint job using a hvlp gun not bad for using a $50 harbor freight gun if I do say so myself! Paint was hok tangerine candy, even though the camera couldn't pick up the color right.
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This is after I wrecked her :'( my Kodak can shows the color much better.

I think it's around a 20 gallon

Ouch! I started with a 25 gallon and it wouldn't E.ven Keep up with my hvlp gun. I made 2-3 passes with primer on a fairing and it was out of breath. I found a 80 gallon on Craigslist for a steal and it had no problems.

lol ur ass is crazy pay the money and call it a day

Some people like to do things themselves. It makes it that much more worth while to know you did in not someone else. I myself enjoy doing paint work. Its nice to see what something can be with a little paint.

ya but im a professionallist and sorta like my paint to last. Shit is rough to come out looking good with a good both when u know what your doing. When u dont and ur just spraying it who knows where... god damn

huh, I"m confused,

but painting is not hard at all, its all in the prep work, and all paint can last, just depends on how you take care of it after you paint it.

yeah theres a knack to painting, experiment first on a large piece you dont care about, if you have a buddy with a shitbox tell him you'll paint his door or somthing if he pays for paint.

a guy in my local club got an SS bumper and painted it himself.. and trust me... he didn't have to tell us he painted it himself :r:

Well done rght anyone could paint a car. Ya'll talk like what you buy from a paint supplier is completely different from what paint shops use. Its not really, however there are different qualities of paints. And a lot of paintshops are switching over to water based paints. Anyways I refer you back to the above pictures of my bike. It is not perfect, however for being my first ever paint job it came out amazing. Everywhere I went people stopped to look at it and asked me where I had the paint done. It felt good to say I did it myself. I did not do it outside and I took my time. Put in a lot of prep work and definitely took my time while painting.

right i'm not bashing because yes you can paint it and by the grace of god it might turn out decent but i've seen cars painted by someone who knows what they are doing turn out like shit because they did it outside. also idk if victory red is but a lot of GM colors are actually pearl. so painting a single piece would stick out even if you knew how to paint unless you blend it. and thats not accounting for the fact that the bumper is plastic vs the metal of the car so that makes it even harder

sorry if i sound negative but you need to know what you're getting into before you get into it.

right but you painted the whole bike right?

And that's where your wrong. Painting isn't hard but painting good is hard. It takes a lot of practice especially with metallic.

Prep work is 100% key but even with good prep if you put the paint on wrong or too much room soon, or mix it slightly wrong you are prone to failure. If you don't clean the surface it will fail, using the wrong materials for the atmospheric tempature your spraying in will cause failure. Using garbage materials with fail even with good prep.

That's where I have found people are wrong. I see the prep statement all the time and all it does is confuse people. Its a combination of both good prep and good materials....also its a combination of patience and practice.

As far as the guys that want to do ghetto whole DIY thing. It depends....if your meticulous and care about your car and never painted before just pay a good shop to do it and save yourself the headache. If you don't care how your first few projects look then go for it.

Yes I painted the whole bike and I understand what your getting at. I have seen professional shops that don'teven seem to get the paint blended enough to not show. And metallics and pearls are harder to spray I know this, however refer back up to my bike, maybe I'm just good at picking up stuff like that but that was my first paint job and it was a candy and it turned out great . I just had a screened in porch that I sealed off with visqueen.
Also I am quite aware if temperatures and humidity and its roles in how paint lays down and sets up. That's why they sale different temperature range reducers. I also posted a link to a YouTube channel where he shows you how to do all these things at home and he is very good at what he does. He helped me out when I was getting started with a lot of advice. If you don't think he's a professional look at some of the cars he has done.

right and i totally agree that just because its a shop it wont be perfect either... not all shops can be classified in the same level. It boils down to getting the paint and prep right the painting conditions right and the skill and or talent of the painter.

Yep and it now boils down to solvent or water based. It requires an even cleaner atmosphere then solvent based paint. 1 piece of contaminant will ruin the whole panels paint. Also there's no tinting with water based. So you better be damn good with blending now if you weren't before with water based

Painting is not hard.. Putting the clear coast on is the hard part. Clear goes wrong the project goes wrong. I painted my rocker moldings at home and they came out good. Just good prep work and good compressor. And stay hand lol..If you never painted before you might wanna practice.

They look good right?

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nice job Crav!

I think all necessary information has been supplied by other users. The OP seems to have a grasp of what is needed but I do think as well that a 20 gallon compressor may be too small. It depends on your gun though. I'm fortunate enough to be close to one of the premier restoration shops on the east coast and that is Eastwood. Eastwood ships so if your looking for quality products for reasonable prices I would check them out. I bough a lot of product through them. I tried painting once with a untested paint brand and shoddy compressor, shoddy dryer and shoddy gun and it came out bad.

I've since upgraded to an Eastwood evolution spray gun. Eastwood single stage polyeurathane paint kit, Devilbiss QC3 dessicant dryer, in-line air dryer, in-line digital air regulator, and an 80 gallon Ingersol Rand compressor. The temperatures this time of the year are colder so be sure your paint won't have a problem in your area weather before attempting. I plan on painting again beginning of summer next year.

Take your time, buy some paint mixing cups and a quality brand paint your comfortable with and you should be ok. To blend it takes some skill though. Remember never to start spraying while your gun is aimed at the product, always start spraying before you aim at the product otherwise you may get paint splotches. Overlap 50% and paint in a sweeping motion. Also, make sure that you have the correct spray size tip for whatever paint and/or primer you intend to use. If you don't have the right tip on the end of the gun the paint will not atomize properly. Too much paint and it will run. Think light coats and you will succeed.

Thats bought all I can add. I hope you got good weather though, as it is cool this time of year. Hope it works out for ya man.

Don't forget to check out Eastwood - Auto Body Repair Tools | MIG Welder | TIG Welder | Plasma Cutter | Auto Body Supplies & Accessories

Yes, you can do it yourself, don't really need a spray gun or a booth either, just prep it right...

If you're going to clear coat from a can, make sure you get the 2K clear (two-part) with the button on the bottom of a can that releases the hardener into the clear... from that point on, you have 48 hours until the can goes completely solid, but the results are way better (than regular 1 part rattle-can clear that is, NOT better than actual spray gun).

I rattle canned the Mopar lip kit for my Neon R/T (one of my previous vehicles) and the clear coat made quite a difference. The kit was silver (only one of the two available colors at the time), and my car was yellow, so I sanded it, painted the center part with flat black exterior trim paint, masked it off, painted the rest of the bumper yellow (ordered spray cans of matched up paint on Amazon IIRC), and clear coated it with 2K two part clear from a local professional paint shop. Then removed the tape to leave the part in the middle (right around the exhaust tips) black. I'll let pictures do the talking:

First, I sanded the whole thing down, painted the middle black, let it dry 24 hours or so and masked it off:

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Then I painted it with matching spray can paint (matched by paint code) (2-3 coats):

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Then sprayed it with 2 part clear (another 2-3 coats) and removed the masking tape in the middle:

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Front lip installed:

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Rear lip installed:

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Hope this helps...

What springs are you sitting on?

hard to tell if they look good....anything can look good from 5 feet away....especially black.

not trying to bash you and im not trying to say they dont look good but i know 20830548435823 people that take pics from 5-30 feet away and then never post angle shots, close ups, sun shots, etc etc and then when you see it in person your like yeah that dude definately did it him self.

good results can be achieved through even a crappy gun. ive done... my subaru engine bay is a perfect example of it. with that build i made one point with it and its still in the works because of money. HOWEVER the goal was to do a "budget" build without cutting corners that you see a million other "budget" builders do. thats not how i am. so the car will be done 100% correct to what i want and no corners were or will be cut imho.

there were things like shooting the engine bay with por15(but i did it for function) that helped saved cost, using a cheaper paint but its the best out for what yuo spend(havent done it yet but i have all the stuff). but for instants i used all OEM subaru parts when replacing panels and no aftermarket(keystone, automart etc etc) replacement panels.

heres the bay... this was done ina garage with plastic hanging up and a wet flow with a pos paint gun i bought for 20 dollars about 5 years ago and used 5 or 6 times until i bought a real gun and its been sitting collecting dust and get thrown around the garage for years. i can explain the prep needed if people want it.

before
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during
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after(mind the dust)
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i have steps of all the primer and eveyrthing too if anyones interested.