Anybody here know anything about painting a car?

[patgizz]

DO NOT STRIP TO BARE for peeling clear. just sand the clear off. stripping to bare metal is a BITCH and you have to use the correct etching primer or the paint will fall off in due time.

[TazMan]

DO NOT STRIP TO BARE for peeling clear. just sand the clear off. stripping to bare metal is a BITCH and you have to use the correct etching primer or the paint will fall off in due time.

I'd rather not have to strip the car bare, but there are a couple of spots that need some bondo. There's a small rust spot right above the windsheild that water actually leaks in from when it rains, and a dent on the door I want to pull out and smooth over. Can I still just sand the clear off?

[patgizz]

yeah, you don't have to strip the whole car just to fix a couple spots. just hit those spots with a sander and take them down, and feather the filler out into the painted area

[TazMan]

So I'll just need to sand the clear coat off. Sounds great. Any Ideas how much paint I'll need and where I can get it? Also, what about the compressor? If I get a dual action sander that requires 8 CFM @ 90PSI and turns at a max of 10,000 rpms, can I get a compressor that puts out say 5.6 CFM @ 90PSI and just use the sander at a slower speed?

[DEI37]

Go electric on the sander.

[TazMan]

I didn't think I could use an electric sander. Can I use any old vibrating sander or do I need something specific? Someone told me it should be a DA sander, but I haven't seen any electric ones.

[DEI37]

Home Depot has 'em. I got a Ryobi deal, and it works nice. I used it to sand my wheels.

[patgizz]

i use a porter cable 5" random orbit. the ryobi worked fine for 6 months before it puked. the porter cable is 15 years old.

[IsaacHayes]

Hmm, I sanded my stuff by hand when I did my door. lol.

[DEI37]

i use a porter cable 5" random orbit. the ryobi worked fine for 6 months before it puked. the porter cable is 15 years old.

Yeah, mine did too. I got another one. This one has lasted longer.

I hand sanded my door, too. That was a mistake.

[TazMan]

I assume when I buy the paint it comes buy the gallon? The nearest Carquest to me is almost an hour way and I want to call in advanced to find out about availability and get some prices. Does anybody have any idea approximately how much paint I will need for a job like this?

[Coyote_Rage]

Go with a NAPA paint if you can. I painted a Plymouth Relient with it and had no issues at all, and the color match was awesome. (it was even my first paint job!!) I used 3/4 of a gallon on on that plymouth. It had the same clear coat peeling that alot of the 80s-90s cars have. I just sanded down the clear, wiped down, painted, wet sanded, painted, wetsanded, touch up , drove around for a few days in the nice 100* weather to bake the paint, and then clear coated, wetsanded, clearcoated took me about a week or so before I was done.

Just a tip, remove the masking tape between the paint and the clearcoat, it is a mutha to get off after it bakes on there for a week.

We use the Aircraft Stripper alot in the military, same can and everything that you can get at the parts house. We use it to remove the paint in areas where we think there might be a crack in the aircraft structure so we can better evaluate the problem. It is powerful stuff removes layers and layers of the durable coatings in use on the B-1.

[TazMan]

Go with a NAPA paint if you can. I painted a Plymouth Relient with it and had no issues at all, and the color match was awesome. (it was even my first paint job!!) I used 3/4 of a gallon on on that plymouth. It had the same clear coat peeling that alot of the 80s-90s cars have. I just sanded down the clear, wiped down, painted, wet sanded, painted, wetsanded, touch up , drove around for a few days in the nice 100* weather to bake the paint, and then clear coated, wetsanded, clearcoated took me about a week or so before I was done.

I'll have to check out Napa. There's one close by so it would be good. What grit sandpapers did you use for sanding off the old clear coat and the wet sanding?

I plan on painting it a different color than it was originally, and I have to fill in a couple of rust spots and dents. I'll need to use a primer right? How many coats of primer/paint/clearcoat do you guys recommend?