Also thinking about painting my car. I have a metal frame that I can cover with plastic and paint in the back of my house. I also already have an air compressor, I just need to add a second tank.
Thanks for posting.

quote Originally posted by josef644: greengoblin0129 how about an update on yours. Show us some pic's Joe Crawford Texas

Is all in primer now, and doesn't look to bad in white primer haha. When I leave and come home from work it's dark out so it's hard to get good pics of it. I'll be getting a lot of work done on it this weekend and will get better pics. It's hard to get any work done on it during the week working 50+ hours at the shop. I was going to post some pics I took in the dark, but the memory car doesn't want to read for reason...

quote Originally posted by greengoblin0129: ...It's hard to get any work done on it during the week working 50+ hours at the shop....

Got any vacation time available?

Usually if there is a primer on factory urathane parts, its the black waterbased (latex) primer. Ive seen a lot of factory bumpers with only color. Some use a process to coat the parts more like powder coating rather than paint and no primer is needed. Thats the reason you see a lot of older cars that had mismatched colored bumpers even when new. ABS parts, like a lot of newer bumpers now are made of, dont need any kind of primer or adhesion promoter...just scuff and paint. Ive had bumpers off of new Magnums, 300s and Chargers for example that have only basecoat color and clear. BMW hasnt primered their plastic bumpers for many years.

My dad and I painted my new 88 GT a few months ago. It was his second fiero paint job and my first paint job period. He handled all the sanding so I can't say anything about that, but we spent the better part of a day doing the masking. Here she is all masked and sanded and ready for the first coat of primer, also the old man getting ready to paint.



Here is a shot after the second primer coat.



Here is a shot after the second color coat.



Here it is done.



Whats strange is that the clear coat didn't really show. The car basically looks powder coated with no shine. Anybody have experience with this? I definitely like the look of it, but I'd like to know what we did to mess up the clear coat. All in all, I think we did a hell of a job for two amateur country boys.

It looks a lot like a lacquer paint finish before wetsanding and polishing. You'll probably want to do that anyway just to try to get the shine on the car, but what might have happened was that the paint was sprayed in direct sunlight ( if I'm understanding the pictures correctly ) and sometimes the paint is photo-chemically reactive and doesn't set properly which can cloud the finish. Try the sanding and polishing on a small area and see if that helps.

Mark the paint guy

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Matt
I see you changed the color of your car. How did you, and anybody else that has done this, paint the part of the side skirts that run up into the car under the door. (step plate ?)
mike

Well, I wasn't present for it, but I'd assume it was just a lot of masking. Knowing my old man, he probably just masked the door, then made a makeshift paper wall to mask the interior. Our masking definitely wasn't perfect, but its a hell of a lot better than maaco. I guess my advice is you can't really over do it with masking. Just make sure what you want to paint is visible and nothing else is, it may take you a lot longer than a pro to do it, and you may use way too much paper and tape, but it works.

Never a good idea to shoot one outdoors. My guess is the body got warm and paint dried before it had a chance to flow out. Wet sanding and buffing should bring it right up. Longer you wait, the harder the paint will get too. I always sand and buff within a day or two myself. Then some I go back over again lightly in a few weeks if they have any hazing (this is how I do my own cars).

So what's the latest? I took my small gun yesterday and did some practice pieces with the color I will use. Spraying is easy but knowing what you do is not! I wasn't sure if the paint knob was open too much or too little, if the pattern was right, if the distance I was using was the best... Oh well. Many variables. At the end I was surprised it came out so good but I would be paranoid when I do the car.

Practice scoop. This came out perfect.


Practice panel. Came out good. With the basecolor recently done it looked like it would have a lot of orange peel but when it dried it came out great.


And this is why you should use a booth of some type. One is a little bug. The other two I'm not sure.

How much air tank cap. should be the bare minimun for spraying a car?

5 gal tank, 20, larger?

How about in-,ine filters & water seperators?

Does oil from the compressing pistons get filtered in the air filter?

Just wanna know.

John

quote Originally posted by 1986GTV8: How much air tank cap. should be the bare minimun for spraying a car? 5 gal tank, 20, larger? How about in-,ine filters & water seperators? Does oil from the compressing pistons get filtered in the air filter? Just wanna know. John

I have a 20 gallon tank. It is a Campbell Hausfield with the oil-less compressor. With the old paint gun that I had it did a good job. Now with my HVLP paint gun it doesn't come on as much because I am shooting at around 30 lbs psi. I dont know if a 5 gal rig would be enough or not. Someone else might have one and be able to tell ya.
Joe

The 20 is about as small as you should go, and even that is really not enough. When your compressor runs a lot while painting, you're heating up the tank and the air in the system can then hold a little more moisture, even with a water trap and you could have issues with water at the gun. I'd recommend at least a 30 gallon tank if you can do it but run at least a 20 with at least 2 water filters inline.

Mark

quote Originally posted by Alex4mula:

Thats moisture in the line. Unfortunately a water separator can only do so much, like someone said, running the compressor hot will put a lot of moisture in it. To solve that you're going to need a dryer in the line.

Sry guys, hoping to update soon. I wrecked my silver Fiero, and have had way to much stuff to deal with lately.

quote Originally posted by greengoblin0129: Sry guys, hoping to update soon. I wrecked my silver Fiero, and have had way to much stuff to deal with lately.

Thats too bad. If it will help I can let you paint my car.

quote Originally posted by Jake_Dragon: Thats too bad. If it will help I can let you paint my car.

If you guys want to meet in Milwaukee you can paint it in my shop here.

quote Originally posted by Firefox: If you guys want to meet in Milwaukee you can paint it in my shop here.

1,285 mi – about 19 hours 58 mins Or about $195 in gas one way I wish it was an option as all of your work on the forum has looked great.

quote Originally posted by RandomTask: Thats moisture in the line. Unfortunately a water separator can only do so much, like someone said, running the compressor hot will put a lot of moisture in it. To solve that you're going to need a dryer in the line.

I only painted that little panel and the scoop so it ran very little. I drained the compressor before start, have a big water separator and used on of those small in line filters before the gun. If that's water then I'm stuck

Do you have your hose running on the ground?
There could be too much water for your filter you could try a drop leg

Great point/tip Jake!

A + for you.

John

I may be able to buy my neighbors compressor on the cheap. It is only a 5 gal tank, but could I add a hot water tank after it for additional storage????

John

Check the flow rating of your gun/tools
My 20 gal will just run some of my tools. I have also been thinking about a second tank, I have an old 10 gal compressor that doesn't work and would boost capacity. Its not always tank size, if it cant keep the PSI to the tool then it wont work.