Piece of mind=More $$$. I don't have an extra $500+ to pay someone else to do this. I was quoted $1200CDN to "do it right" by one shop! lol. I'm starting tomorrow. I have patience and I will put in the time and effort to do it right. Latex paints need to be overlapped the same way automotive paints would be. I have some sheet metal scrap to do some tests on.

There are no guarantees that a shop will do an amazing job. By doing it myself, I can at least put in the time and effort to make it meet my expectations as much as possible.

 

im partial to ppg, ppg shopline works good for me and is not terribly expensive and matches good

 

I got PPG stuff. I think I paid ~$85 for a pint (1 quart sprayable) of LBM base coat.

 

just do a mist coat man ull be alright. Do your overlap passes, do 2 coats of them. Then go the opposide direction on your 3rd coat and kinda fan it around. Its called a mist coat. Hard to explain how to do it but its just like a random pattern you spray with to make sure everything is covered

 

I have put about 4 hours into this so far. Another 2-3 and I should be ready for base coat. I have 2-1'x4' scraps of sheet metal to practice on before I hit the trunk with base coat. I watched a few vids on Youtube to get an idea of how fast I should go and what my spray pattern and flow rate should look like.

The quarter panel scratch will be repaired and blended using an airbrush. I'm not spraying the whole quarter. I'm not using a spray booth, so I have to keep the spraying to a minimum.

 

just pinpoint the fan on the gun and spray at a low airpressure for the 1/4

 

My paint data sheet says to spray with 8-10psi "at the cap". What does that mean? Isn't that pretty low? The one vid I watched on Youtube said to spray base with ~27psi. The paint I am using is reduced at 1:1.

Googled it. The pressure "at the cap" is about 1/5 of the inlet pressure.

 

20+ hours of labor later (including waiting for paint to dry), I pulled it off! My paint looks damn near as good as the factory paint despite only having a 1.4mm tip. I just cranked the pressure and filled the shop with a nice fog! lol. I kept the door closed while doing the last few coats because I kept getting fruit flies in the paint. I ended up having to do quite a bit of wet sanding on the first 2 base coats and a little more on the 3rd due to a fly in the paint, so I had to do a 4th base coat. I ran out of base color just as I was finishing the final pass with the gun! lol. I don't even have enough left to touch up stone chips!

I did the fender repair 1st for practice. The color blended in perfectly and then I feathered the clear coat out a little further with each of the 3 coats. I did all this with an airbrush at about 35psi. I had to do a lot of wet sanding on the clear to blend it in (no pictures). I went down to 2000 grit. There is no line or roughness that can be felt. Now I just need to wait a few days for the clear to cure more to buff it out.

Day #1

The deep scratch ground down and ready for etch primer


Primed, filled with glazing putty, and primed again.


1st base coat. Good color match!


Clear coats done. Looks rough at this stage, but 1hr+ of wet sanding smoothed it out. Buffing should complete the blend-in.


Trunk lid primed and filled. There was one dent and a few deep scratches at the back edge and a couple of low spots in the middle.




Day #2

I forgot to take pictures for a while because I was too busy pulling my hair out! lol. I had few headaches getting the spots primed and wet sanded prior to starting base coat. I had to do a lot of spot spraying and wet sanding after the first 2 base coats to to get rid of some low spots and scratches. I thought the 3rd coat would be the last base coat, but a F$&#ING FLY thought the wet paint looked like a good place to land. I had to wait for that coat to dry, pick the fly out, and put a tiny amount of glazing putty in the crater that was left behind. I was freaking out because I didn't think I had enough paint left for another full base coat. The gun sputtered on the final pass along the bottom of the lid! lol. Thankfully, it still ended up fairly smooth in that area.

My first clear coat looked amazing! I went pretty heavy and fogged the whole thing after spaying normally first. I didn't go quite as heavy on the second coat and it shows along the back edge a little, but I am fussier than your average person. Other than that, It came out really smooth!

I'm happy with how the trunk turned out. Hopefully I will be happy with the fender too after I buff it out.







Better pics to come once I get done buffing and give the whole car a MUCH needed wash!

 

damn good job man i didnt expect it to turn out as good as it did no offence

 

Thanks. I understood the skepticism! I am a fussy bugger though! 20+ hours labor should tell you just HOW fussy I am!

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to give me advice! It definitely paid off!

Notice all the blue on the cardboard? That's how much wet sanding I did on the first 3 base coats!

 

thats nothing ill get you a picture of my garage tomorrow lol and yeah im the same way with my stuff man

 

I don't think I could paint for a living. It's too nerve racking! lol