painting side skirts

i've got a 97 civic ex coupe. and i dont want to go with extravagant body kits and junk. i'm going to keep it as stock looking as possible, with some tasteful additions, of course. i want to paint my side skirts to match the body. has anyone had this done? the only thing i'm not ral sure about is how the paint will adhere. i dont want to spend the money to have someone paint these things and it look like crap. my exterior mods will include, 2000 ex front bumper and lip, electron pearl blue bullet molding and possible some 2000 tail lights (i like the look of them more than mine) and of course a good set of lightweight wheels. I am a more performance oriented person so looks isn't my main priority, i'm kinda goin for the sleeper look. any help would be greatly appreciated

if you are gonna pay someone for this job, i should hope that they know how to keep the paint adhereed correctly. Its not a tough job to do either.

well, the only way i will pay someone is if it will be cheaper. i know a few people who do paint work that will either show me how and let me do it, or will do it for me. for the paint it is gonna be close to 40 bucks. per color. so it will be 40 bucks for the side skirts, and 40 bucks for the trim. i would like to have it done at the same time. and, of course i'll have to have some grey primer shot on it so the colors will match. as far as the tone. i was just wondering if anyone had had them painted or, if they just bought some from honda for an si of the same color, so they were already painted....

Painting your sideskirts is quite a task. You gotta clean it, prep it, and paint. [Prepping... it is key! And, you must color-match the paint. (duh!)]
Materials (spray can(s), etc.) won't even equal the cost to have it done but, you must take your time.

If you plan to get it done, make sure they do other things like shaving something... or whatever.

why do you say to have them shave something? would it be cheaper? in the long run. by colormatching, what exactly do you mean, having them painted the same color as the car? I dont really want to stray from the stock body lines right now. i want to keep it looking as "factory" as possible. dorr handles and everything in-tact. as i said the only major mods i will do as far as body work are adding some peices from a 2000 ex. and painting the bullet molding ep blue.

color matching involves fading the new paint so that it looks like the rest of the car, and is not a different shade, shaving involves removing door handles, antenna, emblems, etc, that are later covered and painted for a seamless look.

yeah i know what shaving is....i 'm buite affluent with cars......i guess what he means when he says color matching is what i call blending

Originally posted by white97ex
why do you say to have them shave something? would it be cheaper? in the long run. by colormatching, what exactly do you mean, having them painted the same color as the car? I dont really want to stray from the stock body lines right now. i want to keep it looking as "factory" as possible. dorr handles and everything in-tact. as i said the only major mods i will do as far as body work are adding some peices from a 2000 ex. and painting the bullet molding ep blue.
It wouldn't be cheaper... depending where you go. The reason why said to have them shave something is because your car will get some other areas addressed while it's in their hands. [ie. shaving the antenna/the gutters (What are those for!? :D)/rear emblem or scrapes/whatever] Your car is in their hands... might as well, ya know!?

If you really have faith in yourself, you could try doing them yourself. I painted my side skirts (as well as my upper grill piece) on my silver '00 Civic DX coupe. Even almost a year later ( I painted them May of last year in '01) people still swear that my skirts are the $600+ OEM Honda body colored skirts. They look THAT good, if you don't believe me, check ot my pics page on my website in the link to it in my sig below. :cool: If 5 coats of Krylon an 3 coats of clearcoat can adheir to the skirts, a body shop should have NO problems with it adheiring. :) The only part I hear that doesn't hold paint well are the black side mouldings on DX and LX Civics. Since they are a hard rubber material, and not the polyurethane tthat the skirts are made out of.

What Xivera mentioned about prep work, that is the MOST exxential part to how the final product will come out. If you don't prep it right, or half-ass the prep, the paint quality on them (weather you paint them or you get them professionally done) will reflect that. When I did mine myself, I wet sanded them down COMPLETELY with 220 grit wet/dry paper, until the surface of them was a whiteish dull gray. I rinsed them off, wiped them down with rubbing alcohol, and let them dry, then I began spraying on the various coats of silver Krylon paint. I was very fortunate to have someone recommend a Krylon color that fortunatley EXACTLY matches the paint color of my car. But I can't stress enough how important the prep work on this job is. Good luck with it. :)

well.....when i do it...i have some friends that have paint spray guns. and i will either have them do it...or do it myself. what about my trim peices....any suggestions on those...?

just thought i'd throw in some of my input. I have had my friend paint my body kit he works for an auto body shop but he ended up getting his own painting supplies and does work at his house. i dont think he really does any blending when he paints it and mine matches fine. the paint job on my car is about 8 years old and looks good. he also offered to paint my stock skirts for 75$ but figured i'd wait till i got the kit skirts. but anyway since he offered i guess that means i would work just fine. he said he knows a lot of people who have done itso it should work. if yo wanna see my lip just look at my user pic in my profile. you can see how well it matches.

Just do it yourself! Trust me, whenever you do anything to beautify your car and you do it yourself (and do it well), you get so much more satisfaction out of it! :D I painted my own projectors and hubcaps to match my car's color and I love it. The only thing is that these things take a LOT of patience. You gotta love your car enough that you will spend so much time on just painting things. But hey, if you don't wanna wait that long or don't have much time, I'm sure a body shop can do it for pretty cheap. IMO, I'd do it myself. Just my 2 cents.

Nische

i'd have to aree with that. feel like you get more satfaction out of doing tings yuor self. i hate it when people w/ tons of money just hand there car to a shop and tell them to do whatever. i talked to this one kid one time. he had a really nice car but i dont think he had a clue what was done to it exactly. he didnt even know the type of springs/coilovers he had in his car. all he could tell me is that he had 10g's uder the hood. plus it justfeels good knowing you did it. only thing is w/ painting, i dont have theequipment or the patience to do it. I SUCK AT PAINTING. but i try to do most everything else. i put my kit on, i lowered my car i vinyled my interrior all myself and i'm much more proud than i would have been if i had someone do it myself. i can really be proud of working my ass off and spending shit load of money. plus it saves more money for more modes! :flash: :flash: the only problem is when you do things yourself it ust makes it that much harer to let it go when the time comes.

Originally posted by 5speedaccord
i'd have to aree with that. feel like you get more satfaction out of doing tings yuor self. i hate it when people w/ tons of money just hand there car to a shop and tell them to do whatever. i talked to this one kid one time. he had a really nice car but i dont think he had a clue what was done to it exactly. he didnt even know the type of springs/coilovers he had in his car. all he could tell me is that he had 10g's uder the hood. plus it justfeels good knowing you did it. only thing is w/ painting, i dont have theequipment or the patience to do it. I SUCK AT PAINTING. but i try to do most everything else. i put my kit on, i lowered my car i vinyled my interrior all myself and i'm much more proud than i would have been if i had someone do it myself. i can really be proud of working my ass off and spending shit load of money. plus it saves more money for more modes! :flash: :flash: the only problem is when you do things yourself it ust makes it that much harer to let it go when the time comes.

Touche, my friend. But then again, when you do most or everything yourself, people are more often "wowed" at what you've done, especially if you did a nice job. :D

Nische

I did it, looks good. Did it myself, but thats because my dad has all the professional spray guns and crap here.

yes i'd have to say people are more "wowwed" when they find out you did it yourself. when my friends b/f found out i did all my vinyal and lowering and stereo work myself he said he was surprised. he told me he didnt think i was that smart. lol kinda a backhanded compliment but i'll take it. lol

yeah, you get more "wows" when you do it yourself. I vinyled my seats, door panels, dash, and a few other things on my car myself and I've had people ask me where I had it done at. And then when I tell them I did it myself, they were like WOW. :D

Heh - apparently I have good painting skills. I redid my friend's mr2 interior trim for him, and he wouldn't shut up about how good they looked. One question - how would one go about getting color matched paint in a spray can? I don't have access to spray guns, so I'd need that. I heard HOme Depot can do it, but can they color match the car's paint itself? Or would I have to take a bottle of the GBP touch up paint to them?