home-made painting help!

Hey guys, just discovered the forums and theyre great! lots of info to get here!

Heres my question, im in the process of bying a 4G Civic just to fix it up (with the engine and trans in good shape at least)
My project is to paint this baby up myself, just for the fun of it and to learn about this, i have basic knowledge about car painting but i wish i could find some tips and a how-to guide with good tips on what tools to use, paint, etc etc

but i cant seem to find anything on the net except maybe some 2-3 site i found, but i need more, so if any of you guys know where i could go and just have some tips, any help would be greatly apreciated!

Thanks!!
Andres

I have some helpful tips.
1. Take your time preparing the car to be painted, and do a good job. If you don't prepare it well, it will look like crap.

2. After you've sprayed some kind of primer on it, any blemish you can see (speck in the primer, dent, etc..) will look 10x worse once the paint is on there.

3. If using a clear coat, ignore this. If not, you need to get the paint to appear "wet" but not drip. This is to achieve a glossy coat.

4. If this is your first time painting high visibility areas (like door panels, hoods, etc..) use a lighter color, dark colors show more spots where you screwed up.

5. Cheap spray guns suck, and you will get "fish eyes" (a kinda swirl effect in the paint, sometimes hard to see, happens more with metalic paint)

Thats about all I can think of right now, hope some of that helps a bit.

where are u from?

From Montreal, Quebec, Canada

well here are some things i learned from trying to paint my car myself

1 do it in a garage if u can, prepping and painting

2 dont use your hands to sand the car or a square palm sander
i used some type of sanding block that was made out of material like a sponge that didnt leave any finger grooves/ and or a long sanding block for the door panels and such

3 u can sand with a rougher grit than u would think, the first time i used 180 for the pre primer sanding and it took forever. u can safely use 80 grit and just spray filler primer

4 and lastly take as many panels and fenders and such off and paint them separately, but at the same time as when u paint the car

hope some of this helps

actually i do have a garage, and its pretty big too!!

and for the "dont sand by hands" thing, im thinking of bying/renting tools for it....

any particular reason why to paint parts separatly?

here are the three most important things:

1. surface prep
2. surface prep
3. surface prep

also...spend a lot of time block sanding to get the primer right... and wet sand the finish...

make sure when you paint you have no moisture in your air lines..use a gun with like a 1.4 tip for spraing the paint and maybe 1.8 tip for shootinh primer. Make sure you dial the gun in. If your painting and its below like 60 or 50 degrees the paint wont cure right and it will come off in sheets in a few months. You want the temp around 70 degrees or higher. after its dry wait about 5 days or so for it to cure. I really stress that its is warm enough. ie if your painting and you lay the paint on and its 3pm and its 70 degrees and then around say at 4pm it drops to like 5o degrees the paint will not be any stronger than it was when it was 50. The paint will still dry but wont adhese any better if the temp has already droped past 50degrees or so. Do right the 1st time man.

Cool thanks for the tips, but i see theres a lot of steps like prepping, and the 1.4 tips on the gun and all this, isnt there like a guide out there that will tell all this in a whole? or is anyone out there willing to do this for me plz! :smile:

would be cool! thnks!

anyways, if anymore tips, keep'em coming!

Thanks guys!

Cool thanks for the tips, but i see theres a lot of steps like prepping, and the 1.4 tips on the gun and all this, isnt there like a guide out there that will tell all this in a whole? or is anyone out there willing to do this for me plz! :smile:

would be cool! thnks!

anyways, if anymore tips, keep'em coming!

Thanks guys!
i dont know of any guide other than my school book. Id check out the library or go to local paint store and ask them for tips..its sometimes easier to explain in person than online.