the nozzles on the cans from automotivetouchup.com aren't the best. i ordered a few cans to do a project and it seemed like after one coat the nozzle was already spitting. it definitely took a lot of getting used to, but the color matched awesome after respraying it a few times.

i spray my projects outside when there is as little wind as possible. there are a lot of trees around my area, but i just wipe down the area with a tack cloth in between coats to ensure there are no particles in the paint. after a coat of their basecoat, if i ran my hand across the surface, some color would come off in what felt like a light coat of dust. i found that sanding down the basecoat wasn't the best idea with the metallic paint.

my only problem wasn't with the color, but the gloss of the clear coat. seems like i just can't get it glossy enough to match the stock paint job.

 

I've been at the lake for the last little bit. I like the idea of spraying down the floor in the garage. I'm almost positive that is where most of the flying dust comes from.

Unfortunately they closed both Pep Boys locations here in Wichita within the last couple years, so I will have to order some more cans and wait patiently.

I tend to agree with you here even though everyone suggests doing it. Something causes gouges in the paint with the BSP. I was using 1500 grit to wet sand the basecoat between coats.

I'm going to try ordering some different nozzles to try with the automotivetouchup.com paint next time. I can put up some pics tonight of what the spoiler looks like right now. I haven't sanded it back down since my last attempt. It should help illustrate a lot of the difficulties you run into while trying to ghetto paint at home

 

i actually painted my oem lip with the aerosol cans from automotive touch up and they are really good. i evenly applied the base coat all over lightly for the first coat and heavier on the second 6 inches away. i found that applying the coats 8-10 inches away just wont allow the paint to touch the lip and it will just make a cloud around it.

base coat will feel a little rough after it dries. dont worry about sanding it as it is not need.

when it came time for clear i just let it have it. i ended up using the whole can after 2 coats. after it dried it came out smooth and shiny and matched the car perfectly. just need to sand it with some 1500 grit to make even and sparkle sparkle=]

 

It might be slightly easier to get an even appearance (no banding) on a lip piece since there are no large flat areas that have to be coated perfectly. The thinner areas like the edges and angled parts on the side of the spoiler presented no problems for me.

I was struggling with the main body because it's about 9" wide and probably 40+" long. I also found that wiping the piece with a tack cloth once the basecoat was dry did wonders for smoothing out the surface between coats. It pulls all of the overspray dust off of the surface. You just have to make sure you buy enough tack cloth because it definitely ruins the cloth.

Even as touchy as the process seems to be, there were a couple of coats of the base that looked a lot better (much more even) than what I ended up with. Maybe it's just a matter of learning when to leave well-enough alone...

I still need to put up some fail pics.

 

I took some pics to illustrate the words in this thread. All of the visible marks and scratches happened after I stopped babying the spoiler... after I had given up on this attempt. Notice the banding down the center of the spoiler. I really made an effort to put the paint on thickly in the center, but I still didn't get it.

Next time I am going to try and paint the spoiler with the difficult side vertical. I mounted the spoiler horizontally to paint it last time. I think that I was light in the center because I refused to hold the paint can over the spoiler in any way. The cans tend to drip occasionally and that pretty much ruins the entire coat and any under it. Sand it back down and start over.

::: EDIT ::: My car is friggin filthy...




The paint really is a perfect match as far as I can tell. I have no complaints whatsoever about the color and texture.

 

did you wetsand and buff after clear?

 

No I didn't. I had given up on that attempt prior to even spraying the one layer of clear that I did put on. I was trying to get a feel for what the clear would be like even though the basecoat wasn't good enough to finish out.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like turning the wide surface vertical for spraying will remedy the banding problem. I think over-applying the paint and getting drip lines will be MUCH easier to avoid than the banding.

That is, of course, in addition to all of the dust control techniques that you guys have recommended. We may just have a winning scenario next time through.

 

I'm about to make my final attempts at getting this right. Cottonwood season is over. I ordered the next batch of paint from Duplicolor. Hopefully their spray nozzles will be better.

With some luck, I will have my paint by the weekend and I can get down to business. I ordered enough to try 2 more times.

 

That is a great website, thanks for it. I would make sure you have good ventilation like Vask said, definitely have a fan blowing to get rid of those excess paint particles.

 

I actually ordered the paint from autobarn.com this time. They were the first place that I came across that sold the Duplicolor brand. They are smaller cans (8 oz.), but they are significantly cheaper.

I think I've got all the ventilation issues worked out in my head. Now I have to deal with extreme heat and humidity. It's never easy!

 

Haha you are right, just when you think you have one problem solved another one pops up. It is always hard to do paint and do it correctly, good luck!!

 

Ok. T-minus two days left and counting. I'm selling this spoiler to a new friend on SL, and I'm determined to get it done before I have to turn loose.

I'm going to try and take more pictures during the process this time. Hopefully we can bring some closure to this thread.

The paint was delivered today (finally... took a full week). I've got about 2/3 of the last attempt sanded completely off. I noticed some areas last time where some unwanted texture was showing through the paint. I'm taking this opportunity to clean up the couple spots that I didn't sand well enough. It was hard to identify those spots the first time through because everything was painted with white primer and I couldn't see the blemishes. Now that I have filled them in with black, they stand out nicely. Since primer is exceedingly easy to sand off, it might be wise to dust a new piece with a contrasting color before you start sanding so that the imperfections are easier to spot. Just an idea...

I failed to read enough about the primer stage before I started the last attempt, and stupidly bought black primer. Needless to say, that made it very difficult to judge the coverage on the first couple of coats. This time I bought light gray primer. It was the furthest color from black that Autozone had. It should work just fine.

Like I said, I've got about 2/3 of the spoiler sanded all the way back down smooth. It's a long, arduous process though. What are the downsides to just progressing through the sandpaper grits, but not necessarily taking it all the way back down to the fiberglass? Is it advisable to just get the existing base coat layer sanded up to 600 grit then paint over it? I can't have this stuff flaking and chipping away in a couple years.

 

I use a primer from like Home Depot that's meant for plastic. This is for the waterfall stuff though. Then I use dupli-color color matched paint and dupli-color (I think it still says color matched) clearcoat. Don't forget to get some 2000 grit sandpaper and 3M rubbing compound and scratch-X.

If the primer that is on the fiberglass is doing well to what you can tell, I say you could probably just use it, but a more professional job will go all the way back down to the surface. Just make sure you clean it very well. I think you will be much happier with the dupli-color nozzle. Every once in awhile it will spray a tiny drop but it hasn't ever affected anything. I usually put a lite coat of the actual paint on first to get a nice surface for the paint to stick to (and make sure the paint doesn't act funny) then a few minutes later I get closer to the surface and spray down a nice thick coat in long strokes all the way across the surface. I let this dry for an hour (this stuff dries up fast in this Texas heat). Usually i would let it sit a few hours or overnight but it has been dry and hot lately. Then I sand it lightly with some 2000 grit. I don't want to do too much, just get rid of the orange peel. Clean it up, then spray on a few coats of clear and then a nice thick one. This gives you breathing room during the final lite coat and then the rubbing compound. Sand out the rest of the orange peel. Then get an applicator pad or w/e and start rubbing in the rubbing compound. Once you see a mirror finish, you should be done. Be careful, make sure you don't see any black paint on the applicator or you went too far. Once it looks all good, you might think of this is good enough...WRONG. Get out that scratch-X. Rub it on for awhile. It makes the color come out. It fixes the glaze on the clearcoat you don't notice at first.

I'll get pictures of my paint job that I did soon. I need to do a little more buffing for it to be perfect but it looks really good. I was just tired from a long day of painting.

 

I have been kindly granted a few more days to work on this, so I'm gonna slow down a little bit and take my time. I've gotten everything sanded off from the previous attempt. The gray primer has revealed some blemishes in the fiberglass that I didn't notice before.

There are lots of small pits on the edges of the spoiler. I need some advice as to what is the best way to fill these holes. I tried high build primer to no avail already. Here's a picture of the problem. It's hard to see, but the holes actually go fairly deep into the fiberglass. They can't reasonably be sanded out.

 

I nearly have all the pitting fixed. As it turns out, it doesn't look like Viniati did a very good job finishing out the spoiler. I don't know if this is typical, but it sure is a pain in the a$$.

I used this bondo putty from Autozone.


Basically the stategy here is to slop it on as fast as possible. It hardens much faster than sheetrock compound. It sands off extremely easy, so just slop it on and make sure you get all of the pits filled. I would also recommend sanding the primer back down once you've identified the areas that will cause problems (assuming you didn't notice them before you sprayed primer). Definitely do this before you apply the bondo. Let it sit for half an hour or so, then wet sand back down to the fiberglass with 320 grit sandpaper.





I know Viniati did some bondo filling work before they shipped it out. I sanded through some red beneath their primer coat. They did spray white primer on the wing before they shipped it. Apparently they are no better than me at determining when a piece is paint-worthy? Why wouldn't they finish the job??? Somewhat irritating.

Overall I'm feeling pretty good about this run at it. Once this thing is as smooth as a baby's butt, all I have to do is not screw up the base and clear coats! Piece of cake right?

BTW. Putting the spray cans in hot water, or in my case... out in the hot sun, is definitely a good idea. There is a noticeable difference. I'm sure the aerosol gas expands in heat and really spreads evenly throughout the can. No spatter whatsoever. I recommend doing this with any paint or primer from now on.

 

Here are the after-sanding pics. Now we have an excellent base to re-primer and finish out. Success.

 

Well I've finally got a primer coat down that I'm happy with. I've got a couple of things that are probably worth mentioning.

I read everywhere that you should sand down the primer coat with 600 grit in preparation for the base coat. I don't disagree with this, but I definitely recommend using 320 grit first. Overspray and poorly atomized paint cause a pretty rough texture in many places. The 600 grit paper tends to just clog up immediately. CAREFULLY give the piece a once-over with the 320 grit to remove all of the rough spots. Be especially careful on edges. It's easy to sand all the way through the primer with 320 grit.

The overall approach that I have found to work best with the primer coat is as follows. Give yourself a pretty thick layer of primer to work with. Holding the can too far away will cause orange peel. Various defects just seem to show up for various reasons. If you give yourself a thick enough primer coat, then you have plenty of primer to sand on in order to get that perfectly smooth surface you need in order to move on to base coat.

I use the 320 grit paper until I have sanded out all of the orange peel and various blemishes in the primer. Then I go over the entire piece lightly with 600 grit. The only thing left to say about this is probably the most important part. DO NOT proceed with the painting if you notice texturing (orange peel), pits, cracks, etc. These sort of blemishes absolutely WILL show up in the base coat, and you will hate yourself when you're sanding the base coat back off. Take your sweet-a$$ time on the primer and make sure it's 100% perfect.

That's all for now. My camera isn't good enough to get the close ups of the orange peel and various defects that I described. Sorry. Doesn't matter what they look like anyways... they all have to be sanded out.

 

Time for new pics. Unfortunately these are still fail pics, but I'm more encouraged than discouraged. I've got about 4 coats of base coat down. Coat after un-needed coat is what happens when you're constantly trying to correct the screw ups from the prior coat. If you screw up one of the coats, it's probably best to fix it by wet sanding before you spray the next coat. You just end up in a constant state of over-correction.

These aerosol cans are terrible for large surface area projects. That is no longer in question. With that being said, it is still possible to get the job done with LOTS of patience. This time I hung the spoiler from the ceiling in the garage and painted it in long back and forth paths. After 2 coats I decided to change my approach again. The fan on these cans is maybe 3" wide. That makes it really, really hard to do a proper overlap on such a long path. Add 9-10 paths together for the full height of the spoiler and you can imagine the difficulty. An HVLP gun would probably coat this thing in 1-2 sweeps. That would obviously be MUCH easier to get an even coat with.

For the 2nd and 3rd coats, I sprayed from top to bottom. It makes for a lot more sweeps, but they're very short and easier to get a proper overlap. I still ended up with a few spots that suck, but I feel like I learned my lesson. This time, instead of light banding across the center, I have dark areas where I spent too much time spraying. The reason I am encouraged is that I am able to simply sand the spoiler uniform with 1500 grit and shoot it with a simple dust coat to bring back the texture of the metallic.

The fan definitely takes care of the overspray dust that I was dealing with last time. When I used the tack cloth between coats this time, there was very little dust picked up. That's good news. The Duplicolor aerosol cans are much crappier than the automotivetouchup.com cans. I will never order them again. One more thing that I had some trouble getting accurate information about was whethor or not it's ok to wet sand the basecoat on a metallic/pearl paint. I found a few places that said it can't be done. They were right. You just can't do it and expect it to look ok. You'll notice some marks on these pics where I have done some sanding with 1500 grit wet.

 

when I've painted I've made my own little paint room/closet thing.

Take pvc pipe and make a frame.
Toss shower curtains on.
Toss a cheap box fan on the very top of the frame and have it blow UP.

There's your paint room.


as for painting, I find that those 2 dollar spray can "guns" helps pretty well. It's just a handle with a trigger that you can clamp onto paint cans.

 

I bought one of those $2 paint "guns". It definitely eases the stress on your fingers. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but after days and days of sanding and spraying, your fingers can get pretty raw.

I am not really having any problems with dust/overspray now that cottonwood season is over. A vented and cleaned garage with a fan seems to work well enough.