This car hobby is some fun huh:devil:

 

That's what makes it fun I guess. One night I was painting a dune buggy here at the shop that I'd made all sorts of fiberglass changes to. Cut in a hood, re-shaped the entire rear for a stinger exhaust, cracks all over the place, lots of work. Finally get around to painting, get the black laid down perfect, first coat of clear, all is good, second coat of clear, it starts spraying like hell right in the middle of a pass with instantly running. Check the air pressure on the wall outside my booth, and it's down to nothing. The rest of the guys had turned off the air compressor on their way out for the night, and shut down the air-main to my shop, not realizing that I was in the middle of a paint job. By the time the air compressor had reached it's automated cool down time, and restarted, the clear was too far along to finish putting down a decent coat, so it basically had to be redone.
Just take a deep breath, and do it again, it'll be awesome when it's done and you'll be able to laugh it all off.
Dan

 

Okay, I decided since it could not get any worse, that I would sand the bad spots down with 400dry and spray it to get some practice spraying color.

I turned out pretty good except for a little spitting in the beginning since I forgot to open the valve all the way in my air lines. I also got a little trash in there, but not much.

I think I am going to try and color sand it flat and buff it out. Couldn't hurt. If I am lucky, it will turn out good enough, if not, start over anyways. Now I need to find the proper grit to use after using a razor to cut down the little spit balls. Also, what buffing compound to use on single stage?

 

think it couldent get any worse



think it couldent get any worse wait until the fire marshall shows up

 

Oh man!!! Now I feel better, I thought this stuff was only happening in my garage. I started thinking back to all the bad things I have done and said in the past thinking karma was coming to get me.

Your issue was un-forseen bad luck. Mine was operator error. I was priming the roof, and accidentally dragged the hoses, (yeah, two hoses, breathing hose and gun hose) over the wet fender behind me. Errrr!!

Then on the next coating for some stupid reason I had shut off the compressor, why?!?!?!? Who knows. But I did it the day before and forgot to flip the switch. So I was painting great, and slowly I was getting alot of large droplets. ***!!! I went back to the setup panel and started adjusting the gun, no good. So I started thinking it was getting clogged. I even pulled the cup, poured the paint out and refiltered it thinking I missed something. Still no good. Then it clicked, went over the the compressor and it was almost down to the bottom. Flipped the switch and went back to spraying.

What sucked is it was a fast 2k, ISO high build primer with a 20-30 min pot life. And because it was an ISO paint I didnt remove my hood for the whole scrambling around and filtering mess, yeah, big mess, primer splashed everywhere, I was rushing. And in my tight garage it was like working in a soup can. I just barely got the gun tore down after finishing the painting before the primer started setting up.

I was raining sweat in my tyvek suit. I tore that thing off in the backyard after getting out of the garage, discussed with all that just happened, I looked like I just walked outta a pool soaked in sweat. Cursing the entire time. Hating body work. Wondering why I even wanted to do it.

Till three hours later, when I finally shut off the filter fan and opened up the garage. And grabbed a ice cold beer and admired the work. Not great work, and it was only primer, a monkey can make primer look good. And I was that monkey at that moment. I was happy..

Then it hit me, thats why I do it. I feel gratified with the sense of accomplishment when I can finally sit down and relax and just look at my handy work. And I love to learn, so its all a learning experience for me.

Body work DOES suck!!!! All you pros out there, CHEERS!!! You guys earn the money. I could never do it for a living. Sure a nice BIG shop to work in prolly helps. And you dont make stupid mistakes like I did. JR

Ahhhh, primer, makes a guy think he can paint. NOT!!!! Ill be taking it to a pro for the color..

 

Thank you for teaching me a lesson! Paint roof first and go down from there

Sure looks pretty good in those pics :yes:

On the color I sprayed, that was the same user error as you, but I cought it right way because of my regulator attached to my gun dropped right away. Then I looked at my filter on the wall and realised what I did.

 

Today I started with 400dry to get rid of the large droplets, then went to 1500 wet. Turned out pretty good, then wet sanded half of the hood, and then used 3m heavy duty rubbing compound on a soft foam pad. My cars paint is far from perfect, so all the little imperfections are tolerable for me and just might use this until the car gets the rest of the paint redone.

The side I wetsanded and polished has a much better gloss, but seems almost like it has a milky appearance to it, and not as deep of an orange as the untouched side.

I went to a local auto parts store that sells autobody paints/supplies and when I asked for buffing compound he showed me the 3m heavy duty rubbing compound that I bought.

So..... to the point. Is there another step to get rid of that milkly look?

 

Everything went decent (some fish eyes) until I went to walk away. The crimp on the end of my hose blew apart and the hose went flailing all around throwing dirt, grass and all different crap on the freshly primered hood :bored: . Now I need to sand it all the way back down to bare metal and do it again..... maybe.....

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I had just painted a set of front inner fender wells for a customer's 67 Chevelle in a nice smoothe gloss black with no inperfections in the paint. As soon as I sprayed the final coat, the hose blew apart just like you described. Boy was I mad. Mainly because I knew I would be wet sanding it all so I could re paint everything. I abosolutley HATE wet sanding. I feel your frustration.

 

Great thread! It makes me feel sooo much better that I'm not the only one who struggles with this BS! :yes:

 

great thread. Ive been there also, but the finished product will be worth it!

 

Use 3M regular Compound. Then move onto their swirl remover and then UltraFina (now called UltraFINE).
The UltraFine will remove the haze and swirl marks and leave a deep finish. I recommend checking into Optimum Car Care polishes and compounds. www.optimumcarcare.com
I used to ONLY use 3M in the body shop and then when I started doing professional auto detailing I looked into more user friendly products that can be used in direct sun/heat and that wont cause a lot of dusting. I did my research (spent TONS of money doing this) and tried all sorts of products and my new go to compound is Optimum Compound and their Optimum Polish. I then finish it with the 3M Ultrafine and after your 90 day cure mark I move onto the paint sealant step with Optimum Poli-Seal which is a polish and sealant (two in one). Paint sealant is different and better than wax so dont get this confused with wax.

Good luck and post pictures! As for body work and painting, it's tuff and without the correct tools and a nice shop it's hard but in the end it's worth being able to tell people that YOU did the work yourself.

 

3M makes some good compounds but that heavy duty isn't good for much other than heavy duty buffing, their extra cut compound works well and the Finesse-it II. Another economical compound that works fairly well is Norton's Liquid Ice- $26/quart in this area and it doesn't make much swirl marks if you start with wool and finish with foam. Presta products also work fairly well.

 

I could see it now JR,
" Crazed Nova owner tasered & confused "

.......knock, knock," Put the gun down, hands up "

 

I think it would go more like this:
Sir, put down what you have in your hand
But I can't, I just need to make a few more passes ray:
Sir, put it down NOW! :smle/mad:
I swear I will in just a few more seconds oke:
That's it sir! Now you are gonna get it :slap:

That thought crossed my mind, but this stuff, both the epoxy and enamel didn't seem to put out too much of an odor. I am hoping I will always get lucky as I have a neighbor down four houses that does some increadable street rods, does a little painting here and there, and a mile in the other directions is a retired body man that does nothing but show winning quality paint jobs.

I hope....... I will spray it in the garage next year as I am putting an enclosure against the outside of the garage to house the air compressor to prevent fumes from reaching it.

 

I remember being fresh out of tech school and working at a dealership. I was given a car with a lot of hail damage to fix. Spent time finding and fixing every little dent in the roof. I rolled it into the booth to shoot it. Did a pretty good job, I didn't miss any of the hail dents. Only problems was there were now two nice sized elbow dents, where I must of been leaning on while I was doing bodywork on the roof.
Painting, especially at home, is what can really be nerve wracking. There are a ton of things that are waiting to go wrong if they can, and when it does, its usually pricey and you know you have some work ahead of you to fix. And last thing you want to do is breaking out the sandpaper and sanding it down again, after spending so much time already sanding, and you thought you got a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

What would be nice is if it were possible to rent a paint booth to do whole cars in. I just have a hard time paying someone to do a job that I'm capable of doing myself. I'm going to have to at least prime my 64 soon and eventually paint it.

 

I have asked on our local nova message board, and no one seems to know of one, otherwise I MUCH rather do it in a nice clean booth :yes:

 

Can't hardly blame them with the liability and what insurance might say if they found out they were letting just anybody use there paint booth and playing with hazardous materials. Costs a ton of money to run a legit shop, and very regulated. If they spend 100,000 on a booth, they are doing it to earn money, not rent it out for a little bit for day. Most likely sol unless you know them personally
I remember in the 80's seeing a few advertisements for booth rentals in magazines like car craft and hot rod (rented out by the day or 1/2 day) you would often see articles where they rented one to paint a car. Don't really see that anymore, with how things have changed with regulations and a sue happy world. Heck pretty soon, waterbase is going to be forced on all of us.
If there still are any, I would think it would most likely be in a large metropolitan area.

Painting in a garage doesn't bother me too much. When I painted professionally everyday, None of the booths I got to paint in were all that nice anyways, many being homemade crossflows (not sure a business today could get away with that anymore), all pretty much rinky dink shops when I did the painting, even the dealership I was at had a crappy booth, and I Pretty much had to buff every job anyways. And I've painted enough in a garage the last 20 years, so have learned to deal with less then ideal conditions. Think I would rather paint in a garage then possibly being rushed renting a booth anyways.

But I'll agree, I sure miss painting in the tech schools pressurized downdraft that was always the right temperature and had a ton of light. That sure made paining enjoyable, and was much better then any place I've painted since then.
Least now I have an iwata, and there isn't much of any overspray lingering around to try to see through in low light anymore.

 

If you ask around at the different paint shops, you should be able to find one that you can rent for a few hours, either after hours or on weekends when they are doing other work in the shop.

I would NEVER attempt to paint a car at home again. First, it's illegal, dangerous unless you are using the proper ventilaton equipment, filtered mask etc. and it gets everywhere, including your neighbors house, cars etc. unless you live out in the middle of nowhere. I've sprayed small parts outside at home but that's it...anything else goes to a spray booth. Also without all the proper air system components and filter systems, it's easy to get moisture etc. in and mess up the paint job. Also any bugs, lint, or other airborne materials love fresh paint to land on. Very good lighting is extremely important for both bodywork as well as sprayng.

I guess the thrill of saying you painted it if you haven't done it before, but I did it once and after that it didn't seem so appealing any more for all of the above reasons.

 

Shops buy their booths to make money on them. It is not a big money maker to rent out a booth to a DIY'er. There is no advantage to the shop to do this. The DIY'er can bring things in that will contaminate the booth, leave the booth dirty, overspray the walls, fill up the filters with cheapo paint, etc. We are very fussy with the condition of our booth. I cannot imagine letting someone who is not a professional come in and use it, not even some pros I know. Our new shop has $224,000 worth of booths and preps, the rent we would get would not even make a dent in paying it off, so why bother. There are enough things that can go wrong in painting, why let outside influences add to the problems? One redo can cost far more than the rental money you made.
Add in the insurance issue Kenseth mentioned, which is a HUGE deal, the extra cost of having company personell working (they can't leave a stranger there alone), heat turned on etc and it just doesn't pencil out financially either.
I have a booth I rent, (closer to home than work is), but I am able to rent it because the owner knows I am fussier than he is when it comes to dirt and contamination. I use the same brand of paint also. I have cleaned his booth and mix bank not only after I have used it but a few other times when I just stopped by to visit. I also help him install parts occasionally and show him the newest products or methods.
It also helps that I grew up next to his shop and he knows me well. I feel fortunate, he will retire soon, I may not keep that deal depending on who buys his shop.

 

I feel so much better after reading this post.:yes:
I painted my first car(nova) a few months back. I had all kinds of problems.
I had the catail things growing in the swamp next to my shop decide it was time to fly around and land in my fresh, wet paint
Then my water seperator decided to take a vacation and spit water all in my clear!
After sanding the entire car back down with 600 I was able to salvage the clear. I laid down 3 more coats of clear and it turned out pretty good. There are some spots that I can see under flurecent lights but for my 1st "home" paint job I am very happy

Now if I can get off my ***** and finish the car I will be happy.

 

Oh....Thats just great!!

Now my car is in the shop getting prepped for paint which is going to happen this weekend(crossing his fingers)and now the horror stories are coming out!!
We have a pretty decent setup for a home garage including plastic covering everything on the walls and right up to the exhaust vented ceiling, the floor will be dampened but not wet (NO PUDDLES) and we are not spraying in a residential area. However, my friend who is spraying the car(30 yrs painter) says there is always something that finds its way on to the paint...."its gonna happen" he says. Now after reading this post I'm really getting nervous.
I'm takin pictures throughout the process...should have some up after the weekend.(hopefully)
Man, I hope it goes better than what you guys have described.
Here's a pic of the old girl before the trip to the bodyman.

 

However, my friend who is spraying the car(30 yrs painter) says there is always something that finds its way on to the paint...."its gonna happen" he says.

Be happy you have an experienced painter. He already knows crap can happen and knows how to deal with it. He knows its not a perfect world. He was prolly saying that just to set you up for what ever can happen so you dont freak. And Im sure he has a plan to deal with any issues that pop up. You dont spray paint for that many years without knowing how to deal with the problems. Sounds like a good friend to have. Bet it turns out great. Pic when its done please JR