I'm planning on respraying my car with a rattle can and want an idea of about how long it should lastor any tips.
Why rattlecan? Because I'm a cheap bastard.

 

It will not last long. It will not look good. It will hardly protect your sheetmetal. It will still cost you a considerable amount of money to paint with rattle cans.

Tips: Don't do it. The price is almost the same as having Maaco spray it (the cheapest job).

 

all depends on the prep work and how well you do the job.. but you get what you pay for

 

Change of plans. Still going to paint it myself but found a paint gun, what brand of paint should I buy for it and how many coats should I lay for a semi gloss black

 

Many paint companies make a hot rod color. smartshoppersinc has some good stuff from kirker for dirt cheap. thecoatingstore is good as well.

 

50 dollar paint job?

 

Why in the world would he do that if he found a paint gun and has a compressor?

 

if your gonna paint a car and have never used a gun. get yourself a single stage paint. will be alot easier to spray and dries in 20 minutes....it will not look as good as a base coat clear coat but will be alot better then rattle cans.

 

Unless it is metallic. Single stages are much, MUCH harder to spray but if mistakes are made it is easier to correct. I learned with single stage and a cheap HF gun and that is when I learned how to buff the hell out of everything. You cannot or at least should not buff single stage metallics and pearls, ever. Once sprayed, you're done. Cutting and buffing will make mettalics steaks, lose luster, stripe and other bad things. You also should never cut or buff a flat black paintjob. It will give it gloss. Cleaning flat black paint is tricky as waxing is generally unadviced, as is claying with abrasive clay.

 

Alright, well its probably not going to be perfect, but I'd rather be the one to mess it up rather than maaco or somewhere else cheap. Do I have to lay multiple coats of the single stage paint? How many and how many gallons should I use? I appreciate all the help so far

 

Yes, multiple coats. One gallon should be good enough to give you three coats which should be good for coverage.

I recommend using a primer surfacer prior to painting. You'll need a gallon of that as well.

Kirker sells a primer-color-clear kit for ~220$ on smartshoppersinc.com. If you are doing single stage, a job could be had for ~160 (but remember, you need to buy masking tape, w&g remover, bondo, sand paper and a straight block at the very least.) thecoatingstore sells a 380$ kit which is of slightly better quality with epoxy primer, surfacer, color and MS clear and ships free. You would pay ~140 for a gallon of primer surfacer and a gallon of flat black.

Be sure to wear a good mask and try to limit the amount of dust in your environment.

 

go for it haha

 

Did you read any of the rest of this thread?

 

Just make sure you properly prep the car... sand it down and primer it first.

Then you can spray away.

It will not cost as much as a Maaco job and you will learn a lot along the way.

The best thing you can do to ensure a relatively decent spray job is prep work. Make sure you take your time and mask everything off properly.

I recently spray bombed my car and it gets a lot of attention. It may not last long, but I will simply redo it again when the time comes.

 

You would rather re-do a cheap paint job every few years than use decent quality materials and do it once? After the second or third time of rattle canning, the real paint will be less costly (and look better).

 

If you rattle can it do it on a nice day before it gets really hot or as the sun is going down. If you spray it in the sun you'll get tiger striping. Prep is always a must but if you have a gun and compressor get some PPG from your local parts shack and go to town

 

Meh. Figured you'd reply right away.

Don't know where you're getting your costs for a rattle can job, but it's cheap.

You must be doing it wrong.

 

Yeah, perhaps. I painted a bigger vehicle using rattle-can krylon once. I used like 13 cans at roughly 4$ per can, 2 rolls of painters tape, 20 bucks worth of sandpaper and 20 bucks worth of bondo. I also used filler primer in some bad areas, adding another 12 dollars for the 3 cans.

So total I came out to like
$52 for paint
$7 for tape
$20 for sand paper
$20 for bondo
$12 for filler primer
Total of: $111
This isn't tremendously expensive, you're correct. But I was not at all satisfied with it. I ended up spending hours on the job, doing the body work correctly, masking properly, ect. And then add on a few hours afterwards of cutting and buffing to make it look anywhere near passable. It was a good experience but that experience has taught me not to use rattle can paint again. For ~80 dollars I can get a gallon of single-stage urethane with a hardener. It isn't top shelf paint but it will last longer than spraypaint does and I can shoot it from my gun. But I am lucky enough to have a compressor that can keep up with an airgun and a space to work with. But with the new LVLP guns, almost anyone should be able to find a compressor capable of doing a car. I used a grizzly LVLP the other day that used 3.1 CFM. That is incredibly low! My other gun uses 13cfm! It turned out pretty well actually, perhaps not as smooth as my air-hog gun but not bad for a 40$ gun with such low requirements.

 

For me, it was a matter of instant gratification.

I have buddies with garages, compressors and guns but I simply wanted the car sprayed instantly.

Primer gets old after a while.

My buddy Lyndsay went with me, we picked out a color and I shot it over the span of the next three days.

Is it perfect? Not even close.

Does it look better than primer? You bet ya.

I had fun doing it, and the car looks alright so that's all that matters.

Props on using a gun and single stage though. I may look into that for next time. Flat red seems appealing.

Edit: I only used 7 cans of Krylon so it was 7 x $3.48 = $24.36.

Car was already prepped and ready with primer and I had tape in my tool box already.

 

Hah, trust me, I have been in similar situations. Did you do any prep at all? A good wash and a scotchbrite?

 

Yeah, lol.

I wasn't that ghetto.

Even though I did paint it outside, I made sure the surface was clean and scuffed.

The roof needs redone again though. Very odd angle to paint on.

 

Did you post pics? I wouldn't mind seeing how it turned out.

 

Yup.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/appearance-build-threads-122/psus-eh2-2850212/

Basically a theft recovery that I use to commute.

I throw all of my money into my other car.

 

Flats look much better (for a while) than glosses do when coming straight out of the can. You have to look at an angle to see the uneven paint. But props to doing it yourself and sprucing up a daily.