can anyone tell me the steps to painting a car?



do you sand everything? just the bad areas? one brand for primer, base, clear? just anything and everything....tips too!

sand everywhere that is painted... be carefull about the front and rear bumbers as they are rubberish, start with about a 120 grit or so and lightly ruff over everything, try not to scratch over the seals or black painted area of the rear hatch or the tailights ect. then work your way up the grit levels of the sand paper... 120, 180, 220,....ect. ect. all the way up to 600, go in circular motions. once you get to the 600 grit, thats when you start your wet sanding... get a spray bottle of water and lightly wet the area you are sanding with the 600 grit, (make sure it is a wet sanding pad). theres obviously more to that than what i have said but thats the basics and that the bland version. your car might need some bondo or some dings removed and what not. there are some things you can paint on your car that will make it look alot better. take your windshield wipers off (12 or 14mm bolts i cant remember withc) and take the wiper cowl off (4 philips head screws) sand each wiper arm and the wiper cowl down with a high grit (300-600 grit) whatevers available primer it and spray paint it with engine enamel black. if you have 86-88 tail lights with the black housings if you can tape the lenses off good enough do it to the tail lights too... its the little things that make a car look good. another good thing to paint if you have rims is your inner fender wells black or use rubberized undercoating in a spray can, makes the car look cleaner.

good tips, hopefully i can start taking some body/paint classes on the side while im at collegeg

where's rob for this thread?

I dont feel its something that can be described in a thread on the internet, maybe someone has a website somewhere for all I know?

You really can't describe it. I could NOT do what Rob did to Kev's car. It's alot of hard work. I have seen FD3Boost paint bumpers, hoods, fenders, etc. and THAT seemed like a pain.



There can be so many snags in the process you would not know what to do.

exactly, one can say to clean, sand, etc..



but once there is a problem then what?



how do you describe how even minute variations from procedure can **** up a the whole job?

Exactly, what an amateur thinks is smooth, would not even be close to what a pro expects. I want to learn it, just to learn it, the whole process. It's the same thing over and over again, but you just have to be really **** about...everything!!



I would like to do pinstriping also, is there anything I could practice on Rob? I thought it always adds a nice touch to cars, etc. (if you know what to start with that is? haha)

it's crazy. would probably take me several hours to run a single pin stripe down just one panel of a car..



i watched the body shop guy throw on a dual pin stripe down my car on just the quarter panel in less than 2 minutes... it was perfect.. amazing.

you can practice on cars if you want, those one shot enamels wipe off pretty easy with some reducer. Get some of that magnetic pinstripping guide stuff to help you out, some real good, and expensive pinstripping brushes and your set.



Keep in mind wholesale price for pinstripes is about $75, you need to get alot of accounts to make any money with it.

Don't want to make a business out of it, just want to do it as a hobby. Maybe do the Jeep, a few other odds and ends.



It's amazing what some of the pro's can do. I just watch it on Overhaulin or whatever and it takes them like(what they say) 3 hours just to prep for pinstriping. Taping every line up.

Yeah painting a car is an art. I wish I could get into it, would definatly save me some money in the future.



I hate to say it but those guys on MTVs "Pimp My Ride" do some crazy **** too. Its just funny how the pros never SEEM to make any mistakes.

I have to agree there. Especially the guy when he gets down with airbrush, it is amazing!!

I'd love to learn at least a little bit. Be proficient enough to just do fenders and what not.

ask 94 touring he had a link to a site that explains it all.. but like rob said.. its not really something that theory can teach.. much like most things, its better to learn hands on.. maybe try a few small projects after readin a write up..

regarding pimp my ride:



your also looking at the finished product through a camera.



imo it probably looks good in real life, but far from perfect. i only say this because i don't see how you can transform a car from crap to tricked out, higgety hot with a perfect paint job, body work, full interior in a matter of 2 days. granted, they do have the man power, but i bet they cut a lot of corners.. not because they want to, but because they have to; time being the issue.

the cars I had seen at the auto show a few years back from Monster Garage looked really really bad

camera's and lighting..

monster garage cars never look good....

I thought you all might want to see how a car is painted in steps. Heres a few pics of Blue getting prepped for paint. Will post the stages as they come in. The Dark blue sample against the red second gen is the color Blue will be. It's a midnight pearl. The next step is primer and blocking stage, then paint.



http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/codeblue98003/my_photos



View the perp paint slides first

Then Paint Prep 2 Slide



After opening pic. On the right side click on View Slide show

Heres the finishing product....un buffed (waiting for the 30 day wait) to wax it.







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Rofl picture 029 cracks me up.

LOL thats my painter for ya...

Id make another comment but lol maybe I shouldnt

If its unapporpriate you know we wanna hear it https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.png

I must say to paint a car is a lot of work. when they started to sand our car. There was like five layers of paint.

check the FAQ section for that as well