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Any Car Painters? Body Shop Guys Here
buddyb
Member Posts: 5,368 ✭✭✭✭
I have a good old Nissan truck I bought new 24 years and 550,000 miles ago.Its red and the sun has the clear coat on the roof and hood looking pretty rough.I am considering repainting it myself.I have painted old enamel and lacquer cars and they came out pretty well.Can I sand the hood and roof slick (not to bare metal) and base coat/clear coat it or will it need to be primed and sealed first? Is there any single stage that will work? I have all the tools I will need,good compressor with drier,and about a half dozen HVLP guns and good respirators. With the price of paint now,I don't want to mess this up.
Comments
It's been quite a few years since I quit rebuilding wrecks as a side line. If it were me, would try to sand all the clear coat off down to the color coat but not through the primer. Then I would prime and cover with acrylic enamel w/ hardener. BTW, I remember when I would complain about red (most expensive color back then) lacquer was $12.00/gal!
I go with what jeff posted
I have painted more than few cars back yrs ago using either lacquer. or enamel for my self and friends not show quality but nice I hated the sanding part
and same red was the most expensive I remember the color " 69 corvette red" was about 50.00 a gallon and I thougt that was crazy the pait companys now say hold my beer and watch this 🤑
I have a buddy who back in the day and may still painted a lot of cars most all were black I ask him one day you really like black paint . his reply caught me off guard no it was the cheapest I think PPG brand black lacquer was about 20 dollars a gallon at the time and same with thinner.
side note I have a old car I want to paint I started working on years ago but talk about price shock looking at paint and primer sealer and materials its easy to see why rat rods and old patina leave as found is the big deal any more
With clear coat missing you already have fading in the current paint, so you will have to put new color on no matter which type of paint you choose.
Enamel is easier to lay down since it's single stage. I prefer DuPont.
Base/clear is a bit more work, but once the color is laid down, the clear coat can be manipulated to produce professional results.
I would take the vehicle to your local paint supplier and have them get the paint color from a door jamb. They should have a tool to take a reading of unmolested color.
Good luck!
$50.00/gal wow! I am talking back in the late '70's. Yeah, I'm that old. BTW, my first new Vette was a '69 coupe 350/350. I went with the blue though.
Awesome pic John. You get what you play for!
Oakie, I remember when Scheib was $19.95 back in the '70's. Maaco did a better job a couple or so decades later. They will paint factory colors rather than from their own list. Things may have changed now days.
It was a ball park number as it was in the mid 70's when I bought it and it was as about 3x the cost of black
As for the 29.00 paint jobs I had a buddy have a 72 mustang painted by Earl?
It was extra to do the door jams and under hood he did not go for just the basic low dollar job
They just sprayed and as stated you got the basic no prep no sanding and the paint started pealing off after about a month
I have not checked the price of paint for several years
But I recall a gallon of red was more than I paid for some of the cars I had back in the day Lol
Cheapest pait job I ever did
My younger brother RIP
Had a Vega my dad and I bought for him as a first car for a few hundred dollars
he Stopped by one day with a box of rustolum paint half used cans assorted colors from a garage sale he gave a couple dollars for
We mixed it all together it came out real close to the petty blue color a light sky blue
The reducer what costed so much
we did some fast body work and roughed up the surface with some fine paper and paint
it was a 15 foot car (from that distance it looked good ) but made a world of difference in the old car
Paint now is about $300.00-$500.00 per gallon. If one was to paint a Suburban sized vehicle you would have $3-$4 grand in just materials. Paint, primer, thinner, sandpaper, etc.
This method works pretty well:
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain