how to do the best paint job on your own. polish in the end? advice please

hello,
i'm building a car (not an hot rod) but i found that this is the best forum for ask advices.

I'm painting my car in my garage, and obvious the garage is not ready for paint cars, i'll use a compressor and a paint gun and that's it. no electric ventilation so the garage will have to be open to the air flow and that stuff...

I believe that this is nothing new to people with low budgets so i'm asking advices to make the best paint job.

i saw some tv shows (overhaulin) and i noticed that they use to polish or something the car in the end.. this is to make the paint better and remove some dust? give me advices please to make it look the best possible.

Thanks

Man, oH Man... so much to say .... do a lot of searches here and on the WWW maybe you can narrow it down a little . unless someone wants to try and type it all over again ...... good luck .

T L

Get you some plain house fans and aim two of them IN the garage and two OUT the garage. Gotta be careful, the ones that are not sealed can spark and blow up the garage from paint fumes. Then get a LOT of light. You can try to find furnace filters, etc to filter the paint but that is not necessary since that doesn't filter too much anyways. Then for the stuff you are talking about at the end.... That is buffing and waxing the car. What you do is after wet sanding to take off orange peel, runs, etc you buff the car and then wax it... This takes out scratches from wetsanding and smoothes and shines the car up. Then the wax shines it and protects the new finish.

Oh and what I just said up there is not a "In Detail" description or instructions. I gave you a basic. Get you a book on painting called "Custom Painting, how to paint like the pro's". It is VERY basic and will help the home painter out a lot.
Good luck!

One other thing. In most cases, you will need to add a hardener to the clear if you are planing to sand and buff. However...the hardeners are bad for living things, and If you don't have the right kind of respirator for hardeners, I would not use it.

hi thanks for your replys
my garage is pretty big so the fans in my case will be usefull because it had to be really big big industrial fans.
So at the moment i'm interested in that after paiting tips like FMXhellraiser said.
So after paint the car i should wet sanding all the paint? and it will give me scratches that i'll fix with the buff and the wax? is that? it should be done with hands or theres any kind of machines to help with that job? can you give me brand names and kinds of wet sands, buff and wax? I'll do some searchs about this subject anyway if anyone has pictures to post to show the diferences before wet sanding, after wet sanding and then after buff the car and wax it, would be awsome.

Thanks once again for your tips

Well I guess I will ad my 2 cents worth .

FMX you have the cut and buff right , but wax is a NO NO before 90 days as paint gases off at least that long , and waxing is a sealer and will seal off that fresh paint job and will eventually blister up , as the gases have been sealed in , with no way to evaporate .
Now make sure you use a compound and polish that is made for buffing a fresh paint job , this will make sure you dont seal off that paint job .

And like HRP said , make sure you buy the right respirator to spray these products , as they are deadly !!!!!
Also make sure you put a minimum of 3 coats of clear if using a base coat /clear coat finish , as you will usually sand and buff off 1 - 2 layers of clear getting it slick , and most paint manufacturers require 2 coats of clear for UV protection .
You would be best to get a book on refinishing a car to get some just of whats all involved , its not as easy as some say , especially if you have no clue .
Its not something someone can just type up and tell you how to go about painting a car , as every one has their own way of doing things .

Good luck :)

SprayTech

Yeah forgot, the wax thing you have to wait a while. I should have said something since we were always told this in school but I wasn't thinking too well. Anyways, get that book I told you about and it will help you to get started. It takes practice to be able to paint a car. Not that I can really say too much since I haven't done much of this but I DO know the basics and what to do and not to do.
Good luck!

So much depends on what materials you are using also. I painted my brother's Mustang and a jeep and my Corvette in my driveway...........But I was using laquer and any dust in paint was rubbed out...........all jobs came out great.........but sure wouldnt try it today with the paints they use.......not fast enuf flash for me...I worked fast and furious..............lol.:whacked:

Please someone explain me one thing..
you said to wet sanding the paint.. it wont remove the shine of the acrylic paint??the buffing will get all the shine back???

You will remove the shine, but you are using extremely fine sand paper, and as soon as you start buffing, you will see the gloss come back. Try a small spot first, to give you confidence.

that's so weird.. do the best to give shine to the paint.. then wetsanding to remove the dust and the shine together.. and then put it back but with the buff.. but ok if you say that i'll believe and try it :)
Thanks

It doesn't just remove dust, it removes dust, runs, orange peel, and it straightens the surface for that glass like finish.

do not sand were you can not get the buffer un less you like hand rubbing .keep of the edges or you can sand off the paint or buff it off.you will need air movement. it needs to be some thing to pull and push this can be done by putting a heater fillter in a window or door way and a fan to pull it out use a window or door way .the air you do not need fans blowing in unless you want lots and lots of dirt. when painting start from the farthest from the fan that pull the paint out .wet the floor down. whipe the first 3 feet of the air hose down use old tack rag.so no junk get in the paint. get a cheap painter suit and a painter sock to keep hair out of the paint make shure you have a very good watertrap and fillter. and good luck . when paint keep the gun inside and out clean wipe cup off so there is on junk on it from were you set it.so junk will not get in the paint. i tape off a spot with paper on the bench for this

I have an air compressor in my shop that I do use for paint, BUT I get water in the lines. I have a 25 foot hose coming out of the tank that goes through a container of water (Hoping to cool the air), then about 10 feet of pipe going into the side of a T, at the bottom of the T, I have a water trap, at the top of the T, I have a run that I connect my air tools to. I have a water filter connected to my paint gun.
Does this setup sound OK? Should I change it and how?
I also shut the lines off every night, and as there is a leak in the line, in the morning there is no air in the lines.

Thanks

they make line dryers but i had good luck with a filter that used a toilet paper roll .i used desiccant filter dryer on the gun. had one hose i used for paint work

A paint job done without a paint booth can end like this one on the image?
How this car shines to much? it's the wax? this isn't just the buffing that makes this, right?
http://www.rampantscotland.com/know/...s/imp2469a.jpg

The picture that is attached has NO WAX. It is just sanded, buffed and polished.

most air tanks have a fitting at the bottom of the tank. If you let it leak a little, a lot of water will exit out right there.

I had a friend paint 3 of my cars in his garage and I wetsanded and buffed 2 of them ,then I found a guy that does it for a body shop and he charged $100 and a case of beer ,from now on I will hire that part out .As far as water in the lines ,a buddy came to my shop and told me to increase the size of the line coming from the compressor ,I think my outlet was 1/2" so he ran 3/4" plastic pipe yes plastic pipe from Lowes ,3 yrs and no water even in humid Indiana summers and I dont have a dryer on it

I'm shooting my 32 with acrylic urethane. To warm up I painted the bottom and firewall first. This picture is the bottom with no color sanding or buffing.

It's not in the same class (or universe) as what hotrodpaint does of course, but it was my first ever attempt at painting. I shot it outside of the garage with no booth on a nice calm morning in Texas. There is orange peel on the bottom but I don't really care about that. But I like the reflection of the rag in the paint in the photo! There was peel on the firewall as well that I color sanded and buffed out readily.

Good Luck, Kitz

Kitz, Don't apologize for your work. The only difference between us is that I just have more practice..........(or I'm more anal). :-)

Besides, after this many years of practice, my work better damn well be shiny, or I'd be doing something else for a living!

how do you sand your works?
you sand in circles or allways in the same direction?
and the buffing and polish? circles or same direction?

It depends on the surface that I'm sanding, but the paper is so fine, it doesn't matter that much. You will get into less trouble circle sanding.

Man this is the big leagues! Brian, Henry Rifle, C9x and now Kitz are doing their own excellent paint! I know Brian sprayed his in the Canadian summer, and Tucson, Texas and Portugal are usually pretty warm but what about temperature????? I was doing OK with spray can Rustoleum on my black (Henry Ford told me to use black) frame and every non-chromed under part until about October and then the paint started to wrinkle-crinkle and although the mess won't show where I have repeatedly sanded it out and repainted again and sanded and repainted about five times, it really worries me about the effect of temperature. How about one of you pros saying a few words about temperature effects on painting? As it is I will not attempt any further painting except on chassis parts and farm out the work to a local pro. How cold is winter in Portugal, probably not too bad?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

the thinner in the paint needs to move out faster so it will not run down the floor drain. and if it dry to slow it may pull up our primer or up sand scratchs i have painted when it was be low 60 you have to make shure what ever you paint is not to cold and i have painted all my cars and trucks did this stuff for 20 +years for a living and have put paint on every but a train and got my pic in hot rodding wheeling out the holley car:LOL:

I'm in Tucson now, but grew up painting in the midwest. It was a little tougher with lacquers, as they tended to "blush" (get cloudy spots) if the temps were cold and damp.

I've never seen any paint manufacturers recommend spraying in temperatures lower than 55 degrees. The key is to use reducer recommended for the temperature of your shop. Thinner coats, and more dry time will help too.

damp is the big deal if it was damp or raining it would not get painted if if could be help i live mich so it gets damp but summer was all ways the tuff time to spray humidityis at %100. winter is not to bad any thing below 55 is pushing it but some time the shops i work in had a hard time geting past this temp.when it is be low 10 out side the air temp would drop when the ex fan was on in the both so if the car was warmer than that it work but it was fun:HMMM:

Hi
it's almost done
here is a picture after polish. isn't perfect yet even in the picture looking perfect.
I'm using only my hand,no machines, i never thought i had to repeat the polish so many times till have the car shinning again. I'ts not easy but i'll do the job!!

The weather here in portugal is not very cold but unfortunly i start the car in the summer and i'm finishing in the winter so when i painted the car was a day with rain and was about 20º celsius.

Looks good?
http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0248749101/fiat/frente_polida.jpg

(why my image don't appear? only a link... i used the img tag :/ Weird...)

Not bad, better than I could do. Just for the record, using the formula: F = (9/5) C + 32 converts 20 degrees C to 68 F so that is about what my indoor thermostat is set at and actually quite warm for this time of year; here in Virginia just across the Atlantic we have had nights at 40 F already so my frame gets pretty cold overnight in an unheated garage.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder