Thread: Garage Painting for Dummies

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Wow you guys seem to pay a lot more than we do for primers & paints, for example i pay £12 for a litre of epoxy primer which is about $15, straight colour is around £25 ($33) per litre

Originally Posted by IC2

I didn't even touch on the cost of supplies. Just to spray paint cost me in the neighborhood of a thousand plus bucks - and that's only the equipment which included a 50' copper line and valving, two dryers, a supplied air personal safety system, two separate paint guns(primer and finish), shoot suits, face masks. Then there was the 7 quarts of DuPont BC paint at ~$150/quart, the 6 quarts of CC at $50/quart plus the required reducers for more $$. A gallon of Rage Gold plastic filler was ~$40 then the 4 quarts of epoxy primer at~$50 quart and the dozens of sheets of sandpapers at $1-$2 a sheet (80 - 2000 grit). Then there's the cut and buff materials - a 7" buffer at $250, pads at $12-$15 each and the Presta 1500 and swirl removers at $25 each. And of course 3-4 rolls of 3M 'green' masking tape at $7 each. And that's just the big stuff I can think of right now

Every time I walked into my supplier, his big smile told me that he was going to be able to pay the employees out of the gross that day instead of his pocket

Originally Posted by roadster32

Wow you guys seem to pay a lot more than we do for primers & paints, for example i pay £12 for a litre of epoxy primer which is about $15, straight colour is around £25 ($33) per litre

Perhaps the California initiated low VOC laws that every other state seems to eventually adopt hasn't made the trip across the Atlantic. BC depends on color. Anything with red or pearl is out of sight. My Ford Venetian Orange color on my '31evidently has both. If it has 'flake, that's also an adder. We can buy white, gray or black in single stage fairly reasonably in off brands

Thanks Roadster32! Just the process I'm looking for, though I realize this changes for different paint types, it's close enough for me.

Dave I guess I did flunk the 8a.m. test. Last November I called summit to see if there was a problem with buying and shipping their one stage to California. They said no, and nothing they new of, so I held off buying paint for it. Called them today, and got the news you've already shared. So I guess non volatiles are now on the menu!

Originally Posted by roadster32

Wow you guys seem to pay a lot more than we do for primers & paints, for example i pay £12 for a litre of epoxy primer which is about $15, straight colour is around £25 ($33) per litre

Yep Steve, I just picked up a quart of DP90LF primer today so Dan can shoot some more parts this weekend, and the primer was $ 49.00 and the hardener was $ 49.00. (It would have been $28 for the hardener but they were out of the pint size so I had to get a quart.) We figure he will have about 6 quarts total of DP90 spraying the cab and bed, so that is about $ 600 in primer alone. Then we have to spray high build primer, and finally color. Even doing a paint job yourself, using good stuff, the tab is very high. Makes a person understand how Jay (Hotrodpaint) and others need to get $ 10 K or more to make any money painting one professionally.

The guys like Steve in California really have it tough as they are banned by law from buying and using products some of us in other States use. I watched a show where Jay Leno was having a Deusenberg (sp?) restored and the shop owner said he had to use modern paints that are ok to use in California. He said if they come in and find a trace of other stuff in his filters it is a $ 10K fine. Won't be too long those restrictions will migrate across the country...........everything starts in California and eventually happens everywhere else.

Don

Along a similar line, when I buy a new car in New York State, which is almost as far from CA as you can be in the US, it will have CA emissions controls, which of course somewhere in the price I pay extra for that 'privilege'.

So far NY doesn't require the water based paint, but they are on the way

The September 2010 Street Rodder Mag did several articles on painting prep and painting.

One of the fellows in our car club just painted his glass 34 Ford in his garage. I was quite impressed with the way it came out. He even two toned it. This was his first try also. He had been doing body work on it for a while to get the fit right. He spent 3 months or more on finish work and painting it. He is still finishing up a few boo-boos but it sure looks nice. I asked him what he spent and he said between $2000 and $2500. The quotes he got from the local painters were all North of $10k for the job. He said he could screw up and fix a lot for $8000. His philosophy was to take his time, make sure he understood what he was doing, then if he did make a mistake be sure he fixed it right. He is also in CA so he had to deal with the water based paint. Good luck with your project, I will also be following.

Pat

I painted my first car in my dads woodworking shop. The biggest chore was to first keep it clean of dust. We put plastic up on the ceiling and wet down the floors with a mop, it seemed to work pretty good. We used all shopline products from the local abs. Once we got the body were we wanted it the first coat was a sealer primer that was dark grey, about three coats with 15 minutes in between for dry time. The it was a surfacer primer that was light grey, three heavy coats with 15 minutes between again. Then we sanded and sanded with 600 or 800 to get things a little smoother and then it was time for antoher 3 coats of the dark grey sealer. After that it was 3 coats of the topcoat(color) with drying time in between again. We wet sanded with 1000 grit then and painted our clearcoat. The way we did the clear was 3 coats that were probably too heavy(runs) more wet sanding and then 3 more light coats of clear. Once our clear was on we waited about a year to do the scuff and buff, big mistake. The clear coat was like concrete. We had to use 400 just to start leveling things out. It took a while stepping up from 400 to 2000 grit but it had to be done. After that we had to use a wool pad and heavy cut compound from 3m to get rid of scratches. Then it was a couple different pads for rubbing compound and then finishing compound. There are still scratches in the clear but i'm done pissing with it. Its still a smooth and shiny finish and i suppose a good job for the first time. The savings were nice too, about $900 to DIY it compared to $4000 to have someone else do it. P.S. don't try to cut cost on materials, just buy the spendy stuff and do it right the firsttime.

i painted for many years. many of the paint jobs i did were not done in a booth .some were in a body shop with a dry wall room with a door with some filters in the room and a fan . much more were just shops were stuff was cover up so no over spray could get on the stuff you could not move out of the shop wet the floor lock the doors and shoot .over the 25+ years many of the cars .trucks . air planes . boats .race rims . painting of many race parts for casting shop .alot of show car paint jobs were never done in a so called booth alot of them were in a open shop or a lean with plastic up on two walls with a roof and a side wall to make a small booth this worked very well and shot many in a lean like this. this was nice to most the shops where i shot cars trucks at .it was my shop after work so it very low voume so it work.. i was never happy about the air pump in the booth but never ran it when i was putting a finsh coat down and never put any thing near the air movement of the pump . slow air movement of the fan help alot with dust this 1/2 ass booth was not much to look at. but i really do not know how many things i shot in hear or at other many shops with less then this .i think someone told me i shot over 300+ rims in hear for indy lite race cars some GTOs .BMW were the big jobs .. many more i just never counted. but some of my helpers like to BS about the good old days and all the stuff they help out on

Much like Pat, above:

My booth:




Some of my 'equipment':







The (almost) finished product (licensed and driven now):

yep good pre work and clean dry air you can do alot....I seen alot of jobs very nice jobs .that did not come out of real booth .i had guys pay me to come in and shoot paint out. that was a sweet gig when my arms and back would bend

Thanks guys this is great info. My biggest fear is getting the bed to look flat and smooth! Everytime I think it looks good, I move it into different light and see a bunch of stuff that was hiding while I was working on it!

Jesus IC2 you must have arms like Mr.Universe.
That gallon jar on top of that gun must get heavy. HE! HE! HE!
Just kidding I know thats a standard size, it just looks big in that picture.
Kurt

Originally Posted by vara4

Jesus IC2 you must have arms like Mr.Universe.
That gallon jar on top of that gun must get heavy. HE! HE! HE!
Just kidding I know thats a standard size, it just looks big in that picture.
Kurt

Kurt - you are right about that cup on the gun. It's the 1000cc version, but well balanced. This in real world (US anyhow) is 34 ounces, or just over a quart. I didn't think when I bought it (CRS), and really wanted the 750 size. I seldom fill the gun more then +/-half way, so it does work fine.

IC2,
What type and flow (SCFM) fan did you use in your booth? I like the "variable damper" to adjust the flow!