Hi, i am going to attemp to respray my entire car!!!!

I have done some spraying before but seem to have a problem when it comes to applying the laquer. Basically is just does not go shiny or glossy enough!!! i sprayed liked 5 layers of stuff on and still not that glossy. Am i using the wrong sort of lacquer or is their a technique to it.

Any help please

 

Lacquer has not been used for quite a long time. Are you talking about clear coat? Sounds to me like you are putting the color down, and then trying to make it shiny with clear coat? Or are you using a one step paint? If you using the new style, one step paint, you are going to have to color sand, cut and buff it to make it shine like a newly painted car should. Who did you buy the paint from? What brand is it? If you talk to the paint shop you bought it from, they should be able to tell you what you need to do.
Kyle

 

nah its not clear coat its actually called lacquer. The paint i am using is pearlcresent black and apparantley as it is pearlcresent paint you have to use laquer and it is a wet on wet process. The problem is that its just not glossy enough!!!

i am an amatuer and decided one day to just have a go at it myself, i mean professional sprayers had to start somewhere so i thought i will learn.

sam

 

maybe you need to lay it on a little thicker. Why not just clear coat it, then wetsand?

 

buff it up or have it buffed with rubbing compound.

 

what is Clear coat? is it another sort of lacquer and can it be applied the way lacquer is applied (i.e. no messy chemical reactions).

I have not heard much about Clear coat, i am after a mint Gloss, my prep work and base coats i thought were awesome and its so frustrating that when i put lacquer on it ruins all my work.

arghhhh

 

DO NOT mix clear coat and your lacquer base coat. To answer your question about what clear coat is...it is simply CRYSTAL CLEAR paint. Thats what is used on todays cars. Like I said, lacquer is old stuff...where did you get it? Lacquer is not intended to go on shiny...you must cut and buff it after applying it in order to get the gloss you are looking for. Your going to have to wet sand it, then buff it with a cutting/rubbing compound. As I said, go to your local automotive paint shop and talk to them...they will set you up with what you need.
As for being an amateur, good for you! I started the same way...no way in hell I was going to pay someone to do what I knew in my head I could do. The satisfaction is incredible also. Heres the first, and only so far, car that I have painted:
http://g2ic.com/forums/attachm...stc=1
http://g2ic.com/forums/attachm...stc=1
http://g2ic.com/forums/attachm...stc=1

GOOD LUCK!
Kyle - CCF

 

Fair play mate that is a good paint job and you probably did it better then a proffesional sprayer. I am going to my local paint shop on the weekend to see what they say. But i actually went to a prof spray place initially and they told me to use lacquer.

Do you have to wait for your base coat to dry then apply Clear coat or is wet on wet process??

Did you have to put some sort of rust treatment on car, then start spraying process??

Also could you let me know what exactly you sprayed the car with starting from the metal, ie primer, rust prevention, bondo, base coat etc etc

sorry for all the ques

 

You put the rust proofing chemicals after the paint.
heres what I do
Metal, epoxy primer/bondo, primer, basecoat, clear coat. Then spray teh interior panels and where rust might form with different types or rust proofing chemicals, depending on what it is subjected to.
Inside of the doors, trunk panels, front wheelwells under the plasic fenders, front fenders with wax based rustproofing.
Undercoating underchassis. Stone guard on the rear fenders, front fenders where stones may chip, same stuff to the rockerpanels.
Dinitrol is good stuff.

 

Here was my entire process:
Sand all old paint off....some say you dont have to take it all of but the original paint was FUCKED! HAHA.
After sanding it down to factory primer...I sprayed a thick coat of Featherfill G2 primer on. This was black in color. I then took the cheapo primer you get at Home Dept or something, and did a light mist on it, also known as a guide coat. After this, I block sanded the entire car with 180/220 grit paper(dry). Once everything was sanded, you could clearly see the all of the low spots in the car, because the other color primer(cheap stuff), was not yet sanded off because it was lower than the rest of the body panel.
Anyways, after this...anything that needed bondo, I bondoed. There was hardly no bondo at all in the car. I did actual metal work on it before bondoing it. Id say maybe a 4 inch circle of bondo TOTAL, in the entire car.
After the bondo was good, sanded and everything I primed it again with the same Featherfill primer. Blocked it all out two more times to make sure it was straight as hell.
After the primer...I sanded it down in stages, all the way to 400 grit wet sanding. After the entire car was done with 400 wet, it was time to apply some color. I chose to do the harder, more expensive way...a "2 step" paint. All this means is instead of the clear being mixed in with the color...you have to apply color, and then come back and apply the clear on top of that.
After applying 4 coats of color, following PPG instructions, following the flash times and all, I came back and applied 5 coats of crystal clear coat, again following the flash time procedures.
Yes there is a certain time limit as to applying the clear after you are done spraying color. If I remember correctly, after spraying color, you had a 1-24 hour window for a "flash time"...meaning dry time. So I could have come back in as little as an hour and sprayed the clear, but could not have waited more than 24 hours.
More simplistically(sp?)(is that a word? haha) here it is:

1. Sand old paint off to whatever it needs to be. Sometimes you just have to scuff it so the new paint/primer will stick.
2. Do all metal work..I shaved everything on mine myself.
3. Apply one coat of primer followed by a diff color primer for a "guide coat" to find your low spots.
4. After finding your low spots, apply bondo or do metal work to get rid of them.
5. Apply another coat fo primer
6. Wet sand the entire car...start with 220(dry), just to knock off all the high spots of the primer, then go to 320(dry), and then finish with 400(wet.
7. Apply your color, however many coats you are doing...follow all manufacturers flash times.
8. Apply your clear coat, again following all manufacturers flash times.

Hope this helps some!
Kyle

 

^^
Thats a Decent little guide.
I have a few things to add though.
Before you even do anything to the car make sure you wash the car with soap and water, and after that apply a bug/wax/tar remover. Make sure to follow the directions, usually its a apply and wipe off rite away procedure.
After applying your guide coat and if you do find low spots make sure to remove the primer of the area of the spot.
If you aply "Bondo" over the area with primer it can lift.
Lifting is a chemical reaction which will make your finish look like ***.

When applying your base coat if it happens to run, dont try and spray it off with the air, it will only make it worse. instead wait until after it dries and sand it off with 320/400. After that Clean the area off with a Tack rag and blend the area.
Spray the area/2 inch surronding area that was damaged with a light coat of paint.Let it dry and then the next coat go 4 inches out etc etc. Just until it matches the paint of the rest of the area.
Same thing with clearcoat, if it happens to run dont worry finish applying your coats and wet sand afterwards.

Any more questions? Dont be afraid to ask

 

I painted a few cars a few years ago with acrylic laquer. See the green Porsche 911 in the bottom left of this pix:

I painted that myself with acrylic laquer about 30 years ago... whew that was longer ago than I thought. The secret is a relatively cool day, and lots of thinner. I thinned the first coat about 50%, then kept spraying coats with more and more dilution until the last coat was pure thinner. I think I was up to about 8 or 10 maybe 12 coats, the finish was beautiful... perfect.

I stopped, saying to myself well done... I sat in a chair to admire it... then IT happened. All that thinner soaked thru the primer and hit the original Porsche enamel and all h_ll broke loose in the paint. It dulled, cracked and look absolutely terrible. I was a mess. Thought I would have to strip the car to the metal.

My uncle was a retired autobody man, and when Uncle Irv came to look at it, he said he could salvage it. That old timer wet sanded with 600 grit using gasoline as the lubricant... now I DO NOT recommend this, use water, I just went away and let Irv work. The next day Unc came over with his buffer and polishing compound, and buffed that Porsche to a gloss like I never saw before or after. Every one of those cracks closed up, and the finish was perfect for the next 4 years that I owned the car.

So if your finish is lacquer, and dull, it can be saved. Just use water as the lubricant on the silicon carbide sandpaper and maybee use 800 or 1000 grit after the 600 for that glassy finish, and buff it out like said above.

Good luck!

 

Yeah, all good tips. I missed those in the typing, although I did them when I did my car
Kyle

 

Thanks for all your help guys this has been alot of help and basically gives me a complete guide.

Just another quick que about bondo, and the low spot high spot process. I dont really understand what the low spot high is about. Is it when you spray the primer on too thick or is it dents in body work that need to sorted? Is bondo a spray or is it a filler which is scooped on and then sanded down to get it level with the rest of the panel?

also i dont understand how applying a diff colour primer will show this??

 

Bondo is the putty So mix with hardene to fill in dents.

Using a second primer is very simple.
You need to have 2 different colors, i usually use gray and black, you first prime the car with the main primer (gray) wait for it to flash/dry and then mist on a light coat of black on the entire car/ or where you know there will be low spots.Let it dry. then start sanding. What happenes is when you sand the primer you will remover the black in most cases but say when you find some deep scratches or small dings dents the black will stay letting you know where the problem area is.
Get it?

 

this actually should be stickied as a guide!!! great info guys!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B6tPoweredMx3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Bondo is the putty So mix with hardene to fill in dents.

Using a second primer is very simple.
You need to have 2 different colors, i usually use gray and black, you first prime the car with the main primer (gray) wait for it to flash/dry and then mist on a light coat of black on the entire car/ or where you know there will be low spots.Let it dry. then start sanding. What happenes is when you sand the primer you will remover the black in most cases but say when you find some deep scratches or small dings dents the black will stay letting you know where the problem area is.
Get it? </TD></TR></TABLE>

oh ok that is clever stuff, thanks for help