Project: Sleepy Turtle Pt.3 Painting; the tour for beginners

So if you missed part 1 or part 2 you can find them here.
http://frivolousmotorsports.blogspot.com/2011/02/project-sleepy-turtle.html
http://frivolousmotorsports.blogspot.com/2011/02/project-sleepy-turtle-pt2-some.html

If your up to date lets move along to the painting process, which is lot like watching grass grow, except for the insane amount of manual labor thats involved.

So let our magic school bus journey begin.

So first you sand everything with 120 to 220 till you get a nice smooth surface, and at some point you start taping stuff up.

Then you bondo more, and more, and more till everything is perfect.You may have a lot of work to do you may not. Since I always paint cars that are old as hell, its usually a tricky job, with lots of little stuff.

 Also a note to beginners(like me):

Gold professional bondo: hard as hell to sand down, even harder to spread right, but once you sand it, it looks great.

Red normal bondo: easy to sand down, even easier to spread, but once you sand it down it will have a bunch of little holes in it, which you will have to fill again, then repeat till you give up. 

Also we didn't need to etch primer anything cause this was a mostly painted car and for those that dont know etch primer is for bare metal.

Also the main goal for any new painter is to never let it run. If its runs you have to sand it way down and it will be hell. Always go lite before spraying it to thick and causing runs, that is always a bad day.  

Then primer that beast, then sand with 400 grit.

I use summit brand HS 2k primer, its super thick and lays down real nice. I tried using some other stuff at first to save money, that was a bad idea. This stuff is thick enough to take care of a lot of small problems you never noticed.

Then you bondo some more, because you can see the problems better once its sorta shiny and one color. Then primer again, a second coat is always good. Also yes I use trash bags to cover the wheels, it works great just change it out before paint otherwise stuff flakes off and flies into your paint. 

So you spray whatever color and brand of paint you like. I use either duplicolor which you can buy from any auto store or summit brand which is real nice.Summit brand you have to mix, so if your scared of that duplicolor is premixed and ready to spray. If you use surface primer (thinner primer you spray on before paint thats sorta the color your painting) one good coat maybe be enough, but if you spray color on primer you will need at least 2 coats if not 3 to get the streaks out. I never sand the color but some people do. No sanding needed if you didnt screw it up too bad.

Then you spray the clear coat, it will look a little hazy if you didnt spray is right but you can always wetsand it down. Its supposed to look like its wet by the time your done. This is the hardest part to get right. Spray it too thin, you get a weak coat and it look flat forever, to thick and you'll get runs and clear that wont dry right giving you a bunch of dimples to sand out. clear is tricky because without a lot of light its hard to see what your doing, well, because its clear. Making sure you got every square inch just takes a lot of time. 

Then you get this, and you rip all that tape off and your like wah hoo im done! but your not. 

also random note: that aluminum foil around the intake to keep it clean, I do it with all sorts of stuff that sucks to tape off. 

So I see a lot of paint shops just paint the "grills" or whatever on these bumpers, which looks like shit, so I taped the inner fins off before paint that way we can rip the tape off later and it'll look like stock. Also I use edge lock blue painters tape, its wonderful. Don't ever go cheap on the tape, it will make your life hell later if you do. 

Always spray new unpainted bumpers with adhesive promoter. It'll help keep the new paint on plastic forever. Instead of it looking like a maco job 5 years down the road. 

Then you repeat primer etc.. with everything else.

Then you put everything together and it looks like this. This still needs to be sanded with 2000 then buffed with diamond cut.

If your interested in that AE86 up there here is the painting link for it:
http://frivolousmotorsports.blogspot.com/2010/12/so-some-people-have-been-bugging-me.html

So the list:

HVLP devilbiss gun with a 1.3 mm and a 1.8 mm tip. (1.3 for paint and clear, 1.8 for primer)

Devilbiss filter/water seperatore

Summit paint/duplicolor paint whatever suits your needs.

a nice flexible hose

lots of thinner

adhesive promoter

huge air compressor

lots of tack rags

tons of sand paper

tons of tape

bondo

Aluminum foil

trash bags

newpaper

sticks

filters

mixing cups

naty lite boxs to mix stuff on

That should get you started.