Just finished painting my car...few pics.

[lrb_2000]

Daytime pics tomorrow.

Just fininshed. Paint has sat about 24 hours..First time painting with a real gun and air compressor. Turned out pretty good i'd say. There's a link to my build in my sig with previous pics.

This time last year, white rattle can primer



Painted



Overspray for the win! haha. I'll get that off with steel wool.

Any questions, comments?

Modified by lrb_2000 at 2:11 PM 9/27/2009
Modified by lrb_2000 at 2:11 PM 9/27/2009

[Fibre guy]

Not a big fan of white but it looks very clean.

[E7-S14]

have you cut and buffed it?or are you

[Future_gohan]

Not a big fan of white but it looks very clean.

everyone says that till they see pearl white. :]

And it looks good man! i wish i could paint.

[duffman1278]

Looks almost exactly like my car except a few minor details. Good work though, at least you didn't stick to shi*ty rattle can garbage.

[tchurch]

love it looks great, thats the same color i'm going to spray mine when she'd done. how was using the spray gun for the first time. i'm debating doing mine myself or taking it to a shop. so let me know the difficulty on this. thanks and good job

[jeff420]

threads like this make me want to go paint my car. i have the gun and compressor i just havnt painted anything before. looks good.

[Kelbizzle]

That does look nice. I'd like to see some shots in the day time.

Where on the car did you start prepping? and what grit paper did you start out with?

I plan on painting my s13 soon. I want to take my time and cut in everything.

[lrb_2000]

I'll just answer all the questions in one post lol.

I did most the prep work about a year ago, then just covered it with a white primer. It looked like crap, went through the winter as my daily driver. So it got kinda beat up. I just did random dents/dings and such as I saw. Remember, everything i've done on this car, has been my first, I just can't handle someone else working on my car, you know?

Anyways, Last saturday we fixed the drivers fender, then the holes in the hatch. That's it. So after a year, we did 3 hours of prep work. Used 80 grit on the bondo, 220 on the rest of the car to sand away the rattle can primer. Then went over with 600 grit. Blew all the dust off and wiped it down, then sprayed the primer/sealer. Sunday I sprayed the roof black (4 coats) and let that settle for a few days.

Then yesterday I sprayed everything else. My dad showed me a little, but for the most part, it's pretty simple. Just look up what the paint dealers recommend for each gun type, how many psi to run, mixtures and such. We mixed 3 color, 1 reducer, 1 hardener. I did 4 passed around the car and bumpers/side skirts. The minute I finished painting I just closed up and walked away, don't want to stir up dust.

Then today I went back over and put it back together. So that's all i've done. Next weekend i'll wet sand the roof and see how that turns out. It's like orange peel city on the white, but the black on the roof looked like that a week ago and it layed down gooood. It's like a mirror. I think it just has a lot of paint on it. Gotta give it time to settle.

Overall, for the cost and time put into it, i'm very happy. I got a full single stage setup from napa. That was Primer/Sealer, 1 gallon of White, 1 quart of Black, Reducer, Hardener, paint buckets, sandpaper... It came out to $191. We got a good discount though, about 25% from my dad's work.

The only reason I picked white was my car was stock white. I didn't want to bother with engine bay, hatch area(stripped down) and etc.. Rather it be one color, plus i'm not easy on the car, and white shows less imperfections lol.

Next is a new turbo manifold/downpipe in a few weeks. It's getting tough as a daily driver, but for a full build ka-t, making the power I am, i'm freaking surprised at the reliablity. I hit 14psi on a gt35 daily. Over 8,000 miles on it. Be sure to check out my build thread for all the info, my body work was last on the list. It's been a long 5 year journey, but it's finally coming together
Modified by lrb_2000 at 4:24 AM 9/28/2009

[duffman1278]

For the first time DIY'er though I would suggest taking your cars to a body shop if you want metallic or pearls cause more than likely, especially if you run a cheap gun, it's going to come out like poo for your first paint job. Best thing to do, and I don't regret it, was to shoot a simple basecoat/clear coat.

[mattblancarte]

Looks good!

[lrb_2000]

Oh yeah, next time I will do a base/clear. We borrowed a decent gun, $300 for the gun, and detailing gun is what the guy paid, and it was brand new.. Problem was our air compressor died after one coat. So we had to wait 3 days, then stand back down, and rent a compressor. I guarantee my next paint job will be 10x better. This was a spur of the moment thing before winter. $190 isn't bad for less than 8 hours of work. I didn't find a single run on the car, after 4 coats, that's pretty good.

For reference, I only used half a gallon of paint (2.5 qt) for the entire car, and half qt of black. I do it all again if I wanted.
Modified by lrb_2000 at 2:07 AM 9/27/2009

[wannahdawg]

looks good buddy. like the white and no rear piece. looks like you took your time.

[180sxblack]

ive been looking for bumper lights that size. zenki right?

[lrb_2000]

Yep, got them off ebay.

[lrb_2000]

Daytime pics!













I can't wait to see what it looks like after wetsand and buffage. It's so bright in the sunlight it hurts my eyes.

[jeff420]

i think im gonna have to try to paint my car myself. yours looks pretty good. im not worried about my paint bein perfect, hell its an old car. i just want mine to be one color lol. everyone would freak caz my cars known locally for bein the tritone 240 lol. itd be like im in disguise lol. plus the cops wouldnt be able to spot me as easy.

[lrb_2000]

Haha, that's kind of what I was thinking. For the price I couldn't complain how it turned out. I just wanted it all one simple color.

[Fibre guy]

I'm still rocking all 5 colors from my silvia conversion.

[White Comet]

at least you didn't stick to shi*ty rattle can garbage.

car looks good, but in some shots the paint looks flat

[lrb_2000]

yeah.. the orange peel will do that lol.

[Kelbizzle]

That white is looking good. Like the old 90-94 Z's. I hope it doesn't take me years to paint my beater. I'd like to get the prep work done before it gets really cold out.

I'm aiming to get it painted in the spring time.

[fender-startocaster]

everyone says that till they see pearl white. :]

pearl white is luxury

[superman29]

do you put a clear on?? if you don't i think you can't wet sand it.... am i wrong??

[lrb_2000]

do you put a clear on?? if you don't i think you can't wet sand it.... am i wrong??

its single stage, clear is mixed in. I can wet sand it just fine. it has 4 coats of paint so got plenty to work with. if it were pearl or metallic i couldnt though.

[nevertheless]

Looks good, are you going to get a rear bumper?

[lrb_2000]

yeah, probably just get that one that goes with this kit here in a few weeks.

[madmeg323]

one word

T I N T

[daconkiftador]

friday.

[lrb_2000]

black tint would look badass, i should do it..is it hard to do yourself?