Is it, Sand, primer, sand again, paint, clearcoat?

Im confused, people are telling me that if I get my car painted I wouldnt have to primer it just sand it down to where its dull looking and then take it to get painted.

What I planned to do temporarily, was primer the front end becuase it will have mismatching parts.

Then when I get the entire car painted, whats the process with the primered front-end? I want to prep the car myself to save some cash.


Thanks, I would appreciate the advice

 

primer, dry primer, primer, dry primer, sand, wet sand, paint, dry paint, clear coat.........

 

Here are the steps my friend and I took on my car:

Perform any neccessary bodywork, and sand to get all panels as straight as possible.

Primer any bare metal or filler showing.

Block sand the primer, as well as the rest of the car, using water and 400 grit sandpaper. Follow up with 600 grit, over the entire car, again using water. After the water dries, examine the whole car very closely for any shiny spots. Shiny spots have not been sanded, and the paint won't stick to those areas, so go over any shiny spots with the sandpaper again.

Lay down base coats and clearcoats.

Wetsand all painted areas with 1200 and then 2000 grit.

Buff all areas to remove the 2000-grit scratches.

Here's a tip: after spraying the primer and letting it dry, spray on a light dusting of any old cheap black spraypaint over all the primer areas. Do this so that when you block sand, if you see a small area of black spray paint showing all by itself, it's a low spot. An area where the black is sanded away quickly but still remains all around it is a high spot. Yes it means you have more work to do before you can get to the actual painting, but in the end it will result in a better looking finish.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

thats the way it should be done exactly except i would seal the entire car first so the base is all one nice tone.</TD></TR></TABLE>

If you use high quality base and spray enough of it, it won't matter what's underneath.

Before the paint my car looked like this:




And now it looks like this, all one nice color

 

Wow, looks good.

 

thanks for the replies, but is the grey stuff primer or body filler and why on the bumper?

 

The gray is primer, which needs to be sprayed over any bare metal or filler. It's on the bumper because the rear bumper has a slight high spot in the middle for some reason, which my friend tried to fix, but it's still there. Also there was a small scrape in one spot on the bumper, which had to have a little filler put in it.