DIY sort of: My roller paint job (56ktryitidareyou)

[playbass311]

So I had been reading up for sometime now about that $50 roller paint job and decided that my 16 year old oxidized car needed some paint and cheaply. I figured even if all went to hell it couldnt possible get much worse.

So heres what i used.

Paint: Interlux Brightside Gloss Black

and Interlux Brushing liquid 333

I also used 3in High Density Rollers and a foam brush for those hard to reach places. And a crap load of sand paper, 220, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000

First I took off any trim i could (tail lights, side markers, etc, and taped up the rest of the trim

Next, sanded my paint down with 220 and then 400 to prep it for paint

I also repaired any large dents and what not by heavy sanding and then using filler, on dents like this



After all the prep was done, i washed off as much of the dust and crap off as i could with water and dish soap. Now onto the painting!

I layed down the first couple of coats really thin, thinned about 10% so that it wouldnt be so hard during wetsanding to get out orange peel. (ugh, more about that later)

I layed on 2 coats with about 12 hours inbetween, then I let it dry for about 17 hours and then wetsanded with 600 - 800 grit, and repeated the process with thicker paint with 1000 grit and then 1500 grit and then 2000 grit. Since my car was already black I only really needed about 5 coats, which came to be a little less than a quart. Here are a couple of pictures with the paint still wet.





I then whipped out the random orbital buffer and these 3M compounds: Rubbing Compound, Swirl Remover, and Final Glaze to bring out the shine.

After that I hand waxed the car with Meguiars Tech Wax and here are some of the finished pictures, sorry, the lense on my camera is pretty dirty.









Overall, it came out okay, I think it would look much better had I more experiance with wetsanding to even out the paint, as I ended up with A LOT of orange peel, I also may have been laying on the paint too thick on my last 2 coats. I think one of these days when I have more time I will wetsand the heck out of it to get it nice and smooth. But really, for the price, it came out really well, I spent probably about $60 or so on supplies and spent about a week on it (I'm on my spring break). This was great for what it was, as I couldnt see myself spending more on paint than I did on the car. It was really labor intensive though, and I suggest undergoing this project with a friend, as it makes it a lot easier. Also, I would suggest thinning the paint as it makes the wetsanding process a thousand times easier. Well, thats all I got, hopefully this is useful to someone out there!

[XingYu]

Looks good! I wish I had the time to do this to my car. Congrats =)

[playbass311]

thanks man, yeah it was a lot of work, mostly the wetsanding, whew.

[karmakaze]

yeah i am sorta doing the same thing, except i don't feel like doing all the sanding right now so i am rolling on rustoleum flat black.

[le_ryan]

sweet, Im still working up the muster to do this, hey, do ya got any bigger pics to show the result a little better?

[travisn]

fyi, you arent supposed to wax fresh paint for a month. i know this is true with base/clear so i assume regular paint too...

you have to give the solvent time to evaporate out before you seal it in with wax... i hope nothing happens to yer paint

[playbass311]

fyi, you arent supposed to wax fresh paint for a month. i know this is true with base/clear so i assume regular paint too...

you have to give the solvent time to evaporate out before you seal it in with wax... i hope nothing happens to yer paint

Yeah I've heard that too, but people on the moparts forum (where I found out about this) did both, some waited and some didnt, I too am hoping nothing happens to it, haha. Its okay though, Im not reaaaal happy with my outcome and plan on redoing it this summer as I have 2 extra quarts, hopefully I will have better results when I do this again.

[zerepdivad]

i tried this on my 240 hatch. How the heck do you reduce orange peel. The paint was nice and shiny but there is a crap load of orange peel. so if ya got any tips on how to reduce the peel would be bad to the bone.Thanks

[playbass311]

sweet, Im still working up the muster to do this, hey, do ya got any bigger pics to show the result a little better?

I'll try to snap some tomorrow for ya.

[playbass311]

i tried this on my 240 hatch. How the heck do you reduce orange peel. The paint was nice and shiny but there is a crap load of orange peel. so if ya got any tips on how to reduce the peel would be bad to the bone.Thanks

From what I understand, you're going to want to thin the paint more, and then wetsand thorougly between coats, starting with after the first one. If you dont wetsand out that orange peel in the first coat it will just keep building up with your following coats and be that much harder to get out. I found that out the hard way which is why I plan on redoing mine from scratch this summer. Also, prep is important too, a nice surface to start with is going to treat you better.

[sip]

Do you have any bigger pics?

Yeah, the paint needs to be very thin.

[le_ryan]

Do you have any bigger pics?

Yeah, the paint needs to be very thin.

sweet, Im still working up the muster to do this, hey, do ya got any bigger pics to show the result a little better?

I'll try to snap some tomorrow for ya.

[eds13]

lookin sweet man! love the tail lights, i want some so bad lol

[boj240]

got closer pic of paint ?

[SketchyRollin564]

From what the tiny pics allow me to see, it looks REALLY good, for how it was done. Good job. No before pics?

[mangabay]

did u have any roller lines? for the life of me, i cannot get them to go away!

[tintingkc]

I am in the process of doing the same thing. I am taking a lot of time on it since its black paint.

The roller lines are due to the paint being to thick or you are putting too much paint on. You also don't need or want to use a lot of pressure. If you put it on real light and thin then you wont have near as much to wet sand. I am going to try shooting the paint on this weekend with a cheap gun and acetone to see what the paint does.

The final product is only as good as your prep.
Modified by tintingkc at 6:09 AM 4/7/2007

[dsc4130]

playbass311 looks really good. btw i like the t-1 logo avatar. i love me some bicycle riding

[playbass311]

playbass311 looks really good. btw i like the t-1 logo avatar. i love me some bicycle riding

damn skippy!

BTW, i do have some roller lines as my technique wasnt great, which is why I plan on redoing it sometime when I have time. I'll try and snap some closer pics today, if I get a chance inbetween my shifts at work, although right now I am very confused because there is snow outside in April? Good thing my car is in the garage

[hungryjoseph]

i can't beleive it SNOWED today like wtf i just washed my car last night =/ ur paint's looking really good.. lol i'm going to be painting my chuki bumper, hopefully it comes out alright

[lbrowne]

Brightside FTW. I heard that is the easiest of the roll-ons to do because its meant to go on boats with a brush.

I think you may have not thinned it enough. Get a good buffer like a porter cable. All that labour, you must have scuffed the body up by hand? Most jobs I've seen on the mopar page they didn't scuff up the original paint.

I'd be more like you though, just to be sure the paint stuck. Good job!

I think you're only a good 1-2 days of wet sanding from what you want.

[le_ryan]

bigger pics or fail !

[bt2s14]

Looks like it came out pretty good. I think I am going to try this when the weather

clears up.

[EKA]

from the pics it looks real good

[playbass311]

Thanks a lot everyone! I'm not totally done yet though, I have a day off work and time after school on wednsday and am planning on spending a solid amount of time wetsanding to help it come out better. Hopefully itll do the trick.

And yeah, Brightside is the easiest to work with because you dont have to just play a guessing game with thinning like with rustoleum, and from what I've read from people who did both was that Brightside came out glossier and harder. Well, I'll snap some more pics on Wednsday night or Thursday after I wetsand more for an update, I really appreciate the feedback

[playbass311]

Well here are a couple bigger pics, as you can see I'm not too happy with how thick I layed on the paint because of the MASSSSSIVE amount of orange peel I have. Also, if you look closely, you will see that I still suffer from some roller marks

ewww, orange peel

uneven paint FTL! haha

[dsc4130]

yes but did you land it? i see people try fly outs all the time at work and they try to count it as a tailwhip

[playbass311]

ofcourse I landed it, tailwhips are my absolute favorite and I do them day and night. They took me about a year to get dialed though, but now I do them really consistantly, and off and onto everything, box jumps are my favorite to do them off though, they just flow so efforlessly compared to banks and hips.

[dsc4130]

ha sounds like the sad state of bmx right now, hwy ive you ever come through st.louis let me know, i work at ramp riders(you prolly dont know what that is) but we can def have a fun ses together

[playbass311]

most definatly man