Step by Step, How to Spray Paint with quality results.

Step by Step, How to Spray Paint with quality results.



I've had a few people ask me what steps were involved in painting my cap and bumper so I thought I'd put together this thread to help people who are attempting to paint or repaint parts of their truck.
For the record, I would like to state that I am not a professional automotive painter, and I'm sure some of the things I have listed are not something a seasoned painter would do. These are just steps I took when I worked on some of my bigger paint projects that yielded pretty good results.

If you have information to add or think I should remove anything from my process please let me know and feel free to post suggestions as well as paint work you've done! I did not seem to find any threads like this so hopefully this will become beneficial to someone out there.....

I did lots of research on how to use the products as well as practiced my technique on other items and projects leading up to this one. Hopefully you can find this helpful as well.
I watched some YouTube videos on how to paint a car, but I found this video on the Automotive Touch Up site to be the most helpful.

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/how-to-videos/bumper-repaint-job/​

Materials:
Low tack masking tape 1/2in and 1in.
Newspaper or masking paper to cover windows
Tack cloth
Variety of sandpapers mostly of the finer variety unless you need something with more aggressive grit.
Super Fine Sanding pads
Automotive Primer
Filler Primer
Spray Paint
Clear Gloss
Spray can handle sprayer - Made spraying much easier and vastly reduced the amount of fatigue your one finger would get after only a very short amount of time spraying without one.





Here we go!

1. First wash it really well using just water and a sponge or a very small amount of dish soap to remove any wax buildup from normal car wash soap. Washing it first is important so you don't mistakenly sand debris into the paint making swirls or worse.

2. Sand with a fine grit 300+ (not very abrasive) sandpaper, then finish with a sanding pad like above. I used a power sander and a random orbital sander for the majority of my sanding of the larger surfaces. All your really going for is to make the clear coat dull instead of shiny. Once you knock down the gloss it makes for a much better adhesion to new paint.

3. Wash all dust and debris again, let dry.

4. Tape off your windows and hardware, I used 18in wide paper that comes on a roll from Lowes.

5. Have a bunch of Tack rags on hand. Right before you paint give it a good wipe down.

Side note: I focused more on the sides because I had a feeling that if I ran out of paint I wanted it to be in the least visible area. This is also exactly what happened. I had 3.5 cans left by the time I finished with my bumper, all the sides got three nice even coats but the top only got 1.5 coats. If you ordered 5 cans I think you could cover it easily.



6. Start with your Primer shown above - For my first coat I used an automotive primer. Then followed up with two coats of automotive filler primer with about five minutes waiting (drying time) between coats. Filler Primer is a slightly thicker primer meant for helping to hide small scratches and such.
I chose a dark grey primer because it was closest to the color I was eventually going to paint. If you have a light color paint go with the white primer, red and any darker paints use black primer. The red primer is good for medium colors as well.
When you spray your first coat, don't start off trying to get full coverage right away, it needs to be built up to a nice opaque coat so you don't end up with runs. Start out spraying from about 12 inches or so away which will give you a light mist on the surface. After you've applied a thin coat over everything gradually decrease your distance from which you are spraying until you are consistently spraying each pass from about 4-6 inches from the surface. I found spraying this way reduced my drips to all but 1, and that was because I deviated from my system.
After the 3rd coat let dry for about an hour. I did a wet sanding with a 800 grit sanding pad, then you could clean off the dust sludge with a damp towel a few times. (I actually washed with a hose and a sponge, but had to re-tape and mask off the whole thing again.) Next go over it again with a tack rag to make sure all the dust is gone from the surface before you put on your base color paint.
(Side note: do not attempt to wipe up any drips or sags, wait for that coat is dry and sand the drip until it is smooth and flush with the area around it.)



7. Spray paint sometimes has an adjustable nozzle, make sure the nozzle is adjusted to the vertical position so you end up with a wide verticle swath as you spray. When I spray, I do this with primer, base, and the gloss topcoat, always keep the spray can moving, don't ever stop midway or change direction partway through or across the surface.
Spray the area you intend to paint with wide sweeping motions starting a little before the area you intend to paint and ending a bit after. I used 3 coats of base color, I waited about 10-15 minutes between coats with the color to let the paint get past the tacky point.
Once it's dry to the touch use the tack cloth and wipe off all your overspray which accumulates like dust and will ruin your paint job. Repeat this process between each coat until your color looks uniform in consistency throughout.
(side note - I was using a metallic color which requires constant shaking between swaths as you are spraying otherwise you end up with streaks of more or less metallic depending on how much had settled between passes.)

8. Gloss coat, I used the same method as laying down the base coat letting the paint get dry to the touch between coats. The more coats you do the glossier it will get. I did three coats of gloss on my cap and bumper, I wish I was able to get two more done before I ran out of my stockpile of gloss.
No matter what, never use different gloss clearcoats, and make sure they are suitable for automotive finishes. Each paint manufacturer has different idea of what is glossy and they don't all match and they don't all work with automotive finishes with quality results.



I ordered mine from http://www.automotivetouchup.com/ You can get everything from sand paper, to paint and solvents and it all can be purchased from this site. I had many of the materials already so I only needed the base coat and clear for my projects.

I hope you find this helpful, post some pics to let me know how it turned out if you end up doing it on your own. Best of Luck on your own projects!

Finished Product:

 

A few other projects

 

Great info & great job.

 

Who would have guessed you could paint.... .

Great write up, always find looking over a post like this helpful when getting ready to paint.

 

Subd

 

Any recommendations on where to paint? And the how much you think you spent to paint the shell? Ballpark price is totally okay. Thanks for all the info here!

 

Sub'd!

 

Where to physically paint or where to buy?
I ordered mine from
http://www.automotivetouchup.com/
You can get everything from sand paper, to paint and solvents and it all can be purchased from this site. I had many of the materials already so I only needed the base coat and clear for my projects. I think all total it was $125 for paint. The base colors are 20 per can. For a LB cap, I used 4 cans on mine and ran thin on top. I'd go for 6 on yours. 3 even coats all over.
As for where, I painted everything in my backyard. The key was tack cloths. Wipe down often when you're outside.
Hope that helps.

 

What brand tack cloths did you use? And do you know if theyre they all around the same quality?

 

I just used whatever the Lowes brand is BlueHawk I think. They're pretty much all the same I think.

 

Thank you sir! I appreciate it

 

That's some awesome info and advice Scott!

 

Did you ever put clear coat on that plate bumper? Just curious.

 

I did, three coats. It came out pretty darn well. I have one area I need to touch up due to a bolt that should have been zink coated but wasn't.

 

One more quick question sir, how many cans of clear coat did you have in your stockpile? and how many would you recommend for a LB cap?

 

Great thread Scott. Very informative and helpful.

 

I painted my rear bumper, grill surround, and badges. I had one can of clear coat from Automotive touchup. I did 4 coats for each item and barely made it.

 

thanks mark, i am thinking about painting my cap, front bumper and maybe the rear bumper as well so im getting 10 cans of base and clear and hoping i can go heavy on the clear on the cap to help it look good for longer.

 

If you use Automotive touchup's clearcoat, make sure you get their replenishing cream, or whatever they call it. Its the blue cream that you use 24-48 hours after clearcoating.

Their clearcoat oxidizes while drying and the cream will strip that oxidized layer. If you don't buy it the paint will look very foggy and dull.

Also make sure you don't wait to long between coats when clearcoating. I think Automotive touchup recommends 10 mins. If it drys to much between coats it'll oxidize, and you'll paint over that oxidation.

 

Thanks, good tip. Ill definetly be looking into this