Im planning to strip off most of the paint on my car since its pretty bad. Think this process is okay?

- Use a DA sander and remove most of paint
- Wet sand with 400 grit until its pretty close to metal/until everything is smooth
- Fill in dents and dings with bondo/filler
- Wet sand with 600 grit to get smooth
- Primer the car (either the whole car or just some spots that were fixed)
- Wet sand with 800 grit
- Maybe apply sealer
- Bring to a shop to be sprayed

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Joe-G &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Im planning to strip off most of the paint on my car since its pretty bad. Think this process is okay?

- Use a DA sander and remove most of paint
- Wet sand with 400 grit until its pretty close to metal/until everything is smooth
- Fill in dents and dings with bondo/filler
- Wet sand with 600 grit to get smooth
- Primer the car (either the whole car or just some spots that were fixed)
- Wet sand with 800 grit
- Maybe apply sealer
- Bring to a shop to be sprayed

</TD></TR></TABLE>

as far as your paint being pretty bad what do you mean ? is the clear peeling, is it rusting in places. is it just faded ?.

also you need to make sure to clean the car/degrease it with the proper stuff before sanding on the car. sanding a dirty car and incorporate old crap into your surface and cause problems.

rule of thumb here. unless your going to use some sort of liquid rust converter(i would suggest ospho) and an etch primer, you shouldnt bring your car down to bare metal if you dont have too as when bare metal is exposed to atmosphere it can start developing rust invisible to the eye within 15 minutes and comeback to be the devil later on. If spots are rusted you should bring them down to metal and think about replacing them with another metal piece,do your welding/repair wipe on your liquid converter and then spray etch primer, come back later and put a urethane or epoxy primer over after bodywork . please dont use body filler to fill in rust spots as it will sink and come back worse later.

i would also reccomend NOT wetsanding exposed body filler(bondo, z grip, fiberglass), whatever it may be. Do the bodywork and blocking .Primer the car/body repairs before you do any type of wetsanding. if you wetsand before primer chances of having even more moisture trapped in is very high and can come back to haunt you. You can be my guest to wetsand primer with 800 grit. not sure what primer you are using but if your using a 2k urethane or an epoxy primer and you wetsand with 800, you will probably be there for 3 weeks. blocking primer with 320-400 and then wetsanding afterwards with 5-600 will suffice.You need to block your primer. After you spray your primer, spray a guide coat and then block the car to check for low spots that need more work. after you block would be when i reccomend that you can wetsand.but just go lightly with wetsanding cause you can defeat the purpose of blocking if you sand to hard.

As far as applying sealer, you can, but the paint shop will just have to sand it down afterwards. if sealer sits for more than 12 hours it should be sanded and reapplied. plus if you spray sealer, than drive it, its gonna need to be degreased and prepped again, if the paint shop your using already plans on seaing the car during the paint job i would just bring it to them primed, prepped and ready to spray with sealer.

 

Its been repainted but there was too much material and it has mad orange peel. The previous body work was not that good as well.

I took it to a shop and this is what he told me to do:
-Wetsand with 180 grit until i hit the primer
-Bring to shop and get sprayed with new primer
-wetsand there with 400-600grit
-Spray single stage black again.

Would anyone agree with what he told me??

Also, there is minimal body work, but if i had to apply filler, id have to sand down to bare metal then apply correct?

Any help is appreciated

 

hitting it with 180 grit to get off all the old material is a good idea.and going back to get new primer is definitely a must after using 180. do your bodywork first and then get it primered. if you have to do bodywork you dont have to go down to bare metal. Laying filler on the stock primer that is properly prepped is perfectly fine, after you get it primed you need to block your primer. dont just wetsand it or your gonna have waves. after priming, spray a guide coat and then lightly block your primer to reveal low spots. trust me with a black paint job your going to want to block your car down, do bodywork and primer, block it down again with 320-400, than lightly wetsand with 500-600 grit paper. just wetsanding is gonna leave your car with high and low spots varying, if you block your car than get it primered and then block the primer with a light wetsanding afterward your car will come out alot nicer. considering black is a magnifying glass for imperfetion, you should take the proper steps to make it look as nice as possible.

 

Thanks, i appreciate all the help.

So i assume black is pretty tough to paint then? If I were to go Milano Red would there be less visible imperfections? I dont need a perfect paint job, just one that can improve my current one. I also like Red anyways so if i decided to go that route, would high and low spots show very well?

The plan was to get it primered once, then re-spray since i dont have much to play around with. Would i be able to sand the car with 180, do any visible body work, spray can primer it, block sand with 180 again, spray can of different color primer(light coat), block sand also with 180, view the high and low spots and do body work, block sand again with 180 until i get most of the spray can primer off. I would then bring it to the shop, get primer sprayed, block sand with 400, lightly wetsand with 500, respray the paint.

Sounds alright?

 

Black and any solid colors in general are easy to paint, but the darker the more noticeable the imperfections and bad body work will be to the average person.

If you have DA, I assume you have a compressor, or borrow one. Ditching the spray can idea and going with a quality 2K high build would be a lot better. A cheap gun will do for priming. Do the metal work, body work then prime and wet sand/ level the repaired areas. Then repair any minor chips/imperfections ect, prep and prime the whole car. Use a powder guide coat to help you spot imperfections before you wet sand. When sanding primer for a solid color color finish around 5-600, metallic 800, start w/ around 300-360, seems like your more on track with the correct grits now. Make sure the primer flashes/cures correctly also when your spraying and before you sand.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Joe-G &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thanks, i appreciate all the help.

So i assume black is pretty tough to paint then? If I were to go Milano Red would there be less visible imperfections? I dont need a perfect paint job, just one that can improve my current one. I also like Red anyways so if i decided to go that route, would high and low spots show very well?

The plan was to get it primered once, then re-spray since i dont have much to play around with. Would i be able to sand the car with 180, do any visible body work, spray can primer it, block sand with 180 again, spray can of different color primer(light coat), block sand also with 180, view the high and low spots and do body work, block sand again with 180 until i get most of the spray can primer off. I would then bring it to the shop, get primer sprayed, block sand with 400, lightly wetsand with 500, respray the paint.

Sounds alright? </TD></TR></TABLE>


black is perfectly normal to spray, its the visibility of the imperfections and bodywork that is the cause behind so many ugly black paint jobs. red will be better than black as far as covering imperfections. but youll still be able to see them. the best color to hide bad bodywork and imperfections in the prep surface is a bright *** white. dark colors bring out the imperfetions(black, dark green,dark blue), light colors tend to be less noticeable.

As long as your not using a spray can primer for the final primer coat your idea of using a spray can primer for blocking purposes is good for saving money. just dont use it as a final primer.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by powerflow &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Black and any solid colors in general are easy to paint, but the darker the more noticeable the imperfections and bad body work will be to the average person.

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yep yep..to me black is just like every other basecoat to spray. its the underlying surface that will ruin a black paint job if its not perfect. AND SUPER DUPER DEFINITELY. do not use a spray can primer. no matter what primer use you use out of a spray can its gonna be inferior to a real automotive sprayable 2k primer. spray can primers like u-pol which claim to be true urethane primers are not. they still rely on vapor release to dry and are not chemically cured thus they have to release all there solvents before they are cured. And they provide no waterproofing protection at all.

 

sorry to butt in but what is blocking?? is that were you use those little flat pads that you wrap the sandpaper around and it hooks into little flaps on the backside??

or is it where you use the long straight air-powered sander??

 

Blocking only refers to sanding w/ a block to correctly level/straighten a surface. Not wet/dry, type/size of blocking tool, attachment method, ect.

 

so its okay to use cheap spray can primer as a guide coat? which after filling in high/low spiots i would block sand everything down again past all the cheap primer painted on?

 

There is no point in priming something if your going to sand it all off on purpose. My advice is to ditch using cheap spray can primer all together and use a decent quality 2K high build primer. Black powder guide coat is what I prefer, but any common black spray paint will also work over gray primer.

I've seen cheap spray can primer wipe off w/ wax and grease remover, which is used before spraying primer, sealer or base ect. Its just a big fail in most cases, if used on outer panels that need to be prepped as perfect as possible.