Gonna spray my car myself

[ivo316]

OK, it can't really be seen in the pic, but the top of the rear fender is sanded, also part of the trunk, you'll see a spot on the fender, that was a little ding, I finally reached the first coat of paint, which was a bit darker, I thought it felt perfect, but when looking from a slant (with light reflected) you can see perfectly well ridges where i have not sanded through the coats of new paint, this is going to take longer than i thought :( .
BTW, I am using a foam sanding block the are sold at the local hardware store, they look like a dishwashing sponge (the green and yellow ones), but have foam in the middle and sanding compound on the surface, they feel great for curves.

Regarding the sanding, i can see perfectly well when i am done, since the original silver is darker than the one it has now. Well, i'll keep on working.

PS, As you can see in the trunk, the outer part is sanded, towards the center (beside the leaf) you still can see the cracked and baked lacquer (or clearcoat) or whatever it is.

[MikeE30325i]

good luck, and god speed!

[ivo316]

OK, we (my son and I) started wetsanding the hood today, the condition was terrible, so we decided to just remove all the paint from the hood, go to bare metal, upon close inspection it was the only solution, this is just going to be done in the hood, the rest of the car is going to be sanded, patched and repainted. it was as follows:



and then, let's get to work.



As you see the fender needs surgery :( , will take that one to a pro.



Damn this is hard work !!!!

Well, I already sprayed the primer on the hood, some runs (it was my first time), will resand it and prime it again (with less paint).

Will post some pics of the result tomorrow or maybe the following day.

That's all for now.;)

[MikeE30325i]

nice, have fun!

[Fanzotti]

don't go cheap

For your job scroll down to where the underlined/ bold sentence is. this upper part explains how to do body work. read through all of it for general knowledge. some of this upper part applies.

I hope this helps DIY painters. I can't tell you how many times I had to re-do shit before I learned along the way from a handful of pro's how to do it the right way. Once I got one step right I messed up the next one. Many problems come about due to the way that you sand your fillers and primers. even though they seem smooth and flat there are probably pitts and low/high spots in them, no matter how well you can wet/color sand you wont be able to overcome this. what you need to do to avoid this is properly block sand/contour your filler then block sand your High build primer with a guide coat, only when this is perfected are you ready to use sealer primer then base coat then if you desire clear. Don't want to get yelled at for writing too much but here it goes.

First off bondo isn't really that great of shit, and never use spot putty from an auto parts store, that shit will eventually bubble and haunt you in the future. The best thing you can do is save money by spending money at a legitimate auto body supply store on quality product. There are much better fillers than bondo, did I say bondo is shit? A great brand is evercoat and they have a product called metal glaze that is awesome, look into it, stay away from pep boys.

I'll do a write-up on this when I can and include pics, The sanding methods I'll talk about here apply to sanding filler, high build primer, primer and wet or color sanding the final base/or clearcoat.

First thing you need to do if your working on metal is to shape it the best you can with a hammer and if you have one, a dolly. Sand this area to be filled with thirty six grit, then fill it in with some filler. You will not fill it in one pass so don't even try. Fill it, rough shape it with a block and 80 grit,(see sanding directions below) in spots you may sand through to the metal, this means you have high spots, you'll need to tap these down with a hammer and then re-apply filler, keep rough shaping it to the contour until there are no high or low spots. do not try to fill in small areas, If some needs to be added cover the entire area or you will create flat spots in the surrounding areas trying to sand the small areas. when there are no high or low spots put a nice topper on it and give it the final filler sand.

When sanding fillers use 80 grit, you can go up to 220 but usually 80 is enough. You are not trying to get it perfectly smooth and perfect, you are not going to sand it down to 400 grit and then cover it with a sealer primer then paint. What you want is a nice area of filler that covers over the area beyond the dent, you are not feather edging it in to make it smooth, you do not want to san so much as to see the outline of the dent, the filler should cover that area.( there is a write up on making us trim into eurotrim by ritalin kid, look at how he sanded that, that is the correct way) your just gonna sand to the contour of the piece, less sanding here is more..don't over-do it, don't try to get the filler pefectly sanded into the dent, you want the filler to slightly cover the area around the dent, filler should overlap onto the un-dented surface.

Even though I typed this up for sanding body fillers it applies to sanding paint prior to priming. On your job I would use filler primer over the bodywork area's and when that has been guide coat sanded then spray the whole car with a sealer primer. at this point you will be able to see imperfections and fix them. Use this method and 400 grit paper wet to get paint ready for sealer primer.

You HAVE to use a block, the bigger the better and in the tight spots/contours use a soft block which is basically a piece of foam that will bend to fit the contours, if you use your fingers you will sand in ridges that will create waves in your paint job.

On top of all this you need to block sand in x's or cross hatch,what does that mean? say on an e-30 your sanding the rounded top part of the door just below the window, you'll usally use the block lengthwise meaning the long edge/ side is lined up to the front and back of your car. You'll sand from the bottom edge to the top in this> / direction, you'll start at the left and go all the way over to the right making your passes about 8 inches until you reach the end of your piece. when this pass is done you'll have one side of the x all the way down your door like this////////// then go in the oppostie direction and do the other side of the x. If you do it correctly you'll see x's all the way across your piece. do this until the filler mimics the shape of the contour. The reason for doing this instead of sanding back and forth or in any direction you please is that that kind of sanding will leave lines and flat spots that will jump out and look like shit when you polish your base/color or clear coat.

PM me with pics and questions. If you have to re-do shit practice sanding X's in the old shit!