Hey all, I bought a compressor, bead blast cabinet and paint gun and disided to paint my mirrors gloss black. I picked up the paint base/clear from an autobody supply shop and it turned out great! Im so surpised how nice things look.
My question is: I have one little piece of dust, in the clear coat, how can I remove this? Wet Sand? What grade? 2000?
Let me know.
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10:56 PM
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FieroJoe Member
Posts: 2314 From: Southfield, MI Registered: Nov 2000
1500 or 2000 will remove small dust and all your orange peel. Then rub out with a high speed buffer with medium rubbing compound and then use finishing compound.
I just painted my mirrors too, single stage black and then sanded and buffed as described above:
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11:57 PM
Jul 9th, 2002
David Bartlett Member
Posts: 1090 From: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada Registered: Aug 2001
Great job dave. Im thinking my new fiero could use Gloss black mirrors and A DVD player. How much would you charge for a job like that anyhow? The DVD that is??
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05:36 PM
David Bartlett Member
Posts: 1090 From: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada Registered: Aug 2001
I have never painted before and I assumed the orange peal happened on the base coat but is it really part of the clear coat? When you wet sand are you just smoothing out the clear coat?
Is it possible to do a good paint job a car with a 6HP 30 gallon air compressor?
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02:58 PM
David Bartlett Member
Posts: 1090 From: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada Registered: Aug 2001
Its possible to do a great paint job at home. Its not cheep though. I found a really good body shop supply store with helpfull staff. Bought all the equipment and paint (which isn't cheep) the paint will cost more then going out and getting them done professionally (even in the smallest amounts)
I didn't get any orange peel, just dust, but I have a plan next time. Mainly buying a cheep tent and painting in it. I'll hose it down first and install all the safty equipment.
Good Luck
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06:22 PM
Jul 11th, 2002
erikred Member
Posts: 246 From: columbus, OH USA Registered: Nov 2000
Originally posted by David Bartlett: Its possible to do a great paint job at home. Its not cheep though. I found a really good body shop supply store with helpfull staff. Bought all the equipment and paint (which isn't cheep) the paint will cost more then going out and getting them done professionally (even in the smallest amounts)
I didn't get any orange peel, just dust, but I have a plan next time. Mainly buying a cheep tent and painting in it. I'll hose it down first and install all the safty equipment.
Good Luck
Uhh..where are you buying your paint? My buddy just painted his Integra for $130 and had paint left over.
I had the same idea about using the tent. I was going to buy some galvinized electrical conduit and bend it into a tent shape big enough to cover my car, and then use some of those cheap plastic blue tarps to cover it. Then I could fold the whole thing up until next time. You could use the same idea for a sand blasting tent. Also, I have a really good book on painting and it shows how to vacuum and hose down your garge before you paint.
Another idea I had was to suspend tarps from the ceiling in my garage to make a paint booth. I could hang the tarps from hooks or pemenatly attach them to the ceiling and roll them up like an awning when finished.
Originally posted by erikred: Uhh..where are you buying your paint? My buddy just painted his Integra for $130 and had paint left over.
I had the same idea about using the tent. I was going to buy some galvinized electrical conduit and bend it into a tent shape big enough to cover my car, and then use some of those cheap plastic blue tarps to cover it. Then I could fold the whole thing up until next time. You could use the same idea for a sand blasting tent. Also, I have a really good book on painting and it shows how to vacuum and hose down your garge before you paint.
Another idea I had was to suspend tarps from the ceiling in my garage to make a paint booth. I could hang the tarps from hooks or pemenatly attach them to the ceiling and roll them up like an awning when finished.
You will find that much of the dust is attracted to your nice paint job via static generated as the paint leaves the gun. Hard to avoid totally but with base/clear you can wet sand as low as 600 (for really bad runs) then 1000 or 1500. Then, get the high speed buffer out as mentioned above. Just wanted to add that there are very good knock off clear coats and paints on the market. If you find that the paint costs as much as to have someone do it, you are paying way tooooo much for product. There are good paint and body forums and supply sites on the net. Ask and look around. I went through all this and learned as you are, the hard way or slow way. But it's neat when you are done and it looks good. I also found that my local paint store guys were really helpful as you said. BUT, they didn't tell me about their less expensive lines like 5 gallons of laquer thinner for $25. Great for cleanup and much less then their $18/gallon laquer thinner that they first sold me. Good luck Jim
In the Fiero secrets site, there was the plans for a paint booth, it really was a small green house constructed of sheet plastic and PVC tubing and 4 way connection joints. The jest of the article was to make a ridge pole using 4 way conectors and short 2 foot lengths of pipe, then making it quanset hut shaped by putting 10 or 20 foot pipe lengths on each side of the ridge pole to form the roof arch. Then of course the plastic sheet covering. It could be fitted with ventilation filtered air and all of the safety features you would want in a paint booth. It looks like it could be set up temporary and taken down until the next paint project. Really slick design that looks effective and fairly cheap to keep bugs and dust down, plus its portable.
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