Paint with HVLP. Teach Me (or link)

[Skep18]

I've been working on a track car project for about a year now, and am at the point of interior paint. I have 100% confidence on my mechanical capabilities, no questions asked. However, I am 100% LOST in doing this paint thing... I am not looking for an outstanding paint job by any means, especially with the interior. However, I am a big DIY'er and kinda want to do all this stuff myself. Having said that, I, first off, don't want to kill myself with isocyanates, and secondly, have no idea what I'm doing. Any advice in general is appreciated, but below are some specifics I'm curious about.

1) I have a 3M half face mask. I don't want to buy a positive pressure respirator for $1500. I don't want to be exposed to deadly chemicals (isocyanates). Having said that, what paints can I use (chemical-wise)? Do I just avoid polyurethanes (sp?) or are things like Rustoleum mixed with mineral spirits just as deadly/harmful? I will be shooting from my HVLP guns. They're probably not amazing, but again, don't much care.

1a) I suppose if 1 is answered, something about mixing thinners and hardeners? Do I understand right, if you mix all 3, you make deadly things? No? Anything on ratios, or is that generally specified on the product?

Just as an FYI, I made a paint booth from PVC. I have a compressor which has a dryer and will keep up with my gun. I will use 4 box fans to make positive pressure draft in the booth since the fans aren't "explosion proof". Again, nothing professional, but will work.

Thanks for any advice you can provide! Seriously... thanks.

 

[pipsters]

The paint you need to avoid is the kind that comes as a two-part deal. You mix the hardner and that is what is the issue. There is a hardner for Rustoleum but it contains iso's IIRC.

There have been numerous Rustoleum jobs done and they tend to look fine, especially for something like you are doing. You'll have to thin it down some. Hit up youtube, there are a ton of videos.

The main issue with that paint is it will take a while to dry.

 

[d_rock]

http://www.autobody101.com/

also check out mcqueen paint videos on you tube. He goes through the entire process of doing a color change. Has some good tips on masking and such. Painting is not that hard. Just remember, that metal has to be clean clean clean!!!!!

Good luck

 

[55shoebox]

It sounds cheasy but the HVLP guns from harbor freight work pretty well - $9.99 with a coupon. The last time i used one I hand to think about cleaning it or just tossing it in the garbage.

 

[Skep18]

The paint you need to avoid is the kind that comes as a two-part deal. You mix the hardner and that is what is the issue. There is a hardner for Rustoleum but it contains iso's IIRC.

There have been numerous Rustoleum jobs done and they tend to look fine, especially for something like you are doing. You'll have to thin it down some. Hit up youtube, there are a ton of videos.

The main issue with that paint is it will take a while to dry.

Thanks. You make it sound so simple. lol. I think I'm over complicating it in my head. Just people freaking my out about iso's. So you say those only (mainly) come with hardeners? Is it bad to avoid hardeners, paint-wise?

I'll look some more on YouTube.

http://www.autobody101.com/

also check out mcqueen paint videos on you tube. He goes through the entire process of doing a color change. Has some good tips on masking and such. Painting is not that hard. Just remember, that metal has to be clean clean clean!!!!!

Good luck

Yea, I've actually run across his YouTube channel already, lol. Good videos. I'll look for more from him.

It sounds cheasy but the HVLP guns from harbor freight work pretty well - $9.99 with a coupon. The last time i used one I hand to think about cleaning it or just tossing it in the garbage.

Thinking I may have been happier starting with that as a beginner, but unfortunately, I already bought a basic Devilbiss...

 

[kazlx]

Find a local paint shop. Yelp or yellow pages. Go in and talk to them. They will set you up with supplies, face mask, etc and give you advice on what paints to use for what you want to do. FWIW, the Harbor Freight guns are actually decent, however nice automotive guns can be had for around $100-150 if you want to invest (edit: just saw you bought a Devilbiss, which are good entry level guns, you won't regret it). The biggest issue with paint is dry air. You don't want water/oil in your air, so run a filter and another one right at the gun, the little disposable ones. Also, there are different tip sizes for primers and paints. I would advise buying a crappy HF gun to shoot your primer. If you plan on leaving the old paint, you don't necessarily need primer, but it will be easier to block out if you care that much.

Stick with solid colors, they are the easiest to spray. Metallics, silver are the hardest. You can easily paint with two stage for yourself. I've used a couple different paints, but I like PCL clear because it's cheaper and pretty easy to spray by the directions. You can make any paint job 100x better by color sanding afterwards.

Some of my very first paint jobs:
auto, like you are looking to do. I just sprayed the engine bay after welding/cleaning up holes.

Jetski I airbrushed for a friend:

 

[mustanginky]

I started last summer. Painted the hood on my mustang. I went with a sharpe finex 3000 on amazon. Painted fine. I did buy a small filter to go directly on the gun and used a regulator. Piece of advice is to find a practice piece and get your technique down pat. I had to re paint the hood. Had dry spots all over the center where it was hardest to reach. If you have an auto body buddy see if they'll come over to help out.

 

[Skep18]

Find a local paint shop. Yelp or yellow pages. Go in and talk to them. They will set you up with supplies, face mask, etc and give you advice on what paints to use for what you want to do. FWIW, the Harbor Freight guns are actually decent, however nice automotive guns can be had for around $100-150 if you want to invest (edit: just saw you bought a Devilbiss, which are good entry level guns, you won't regret it). The biggest issue with paint is dry air. You don't want water/oil in your air, so run a filter and another one right at the gun, the little disposable ones. Also, there are different tip sizes for primers and paints. I would advise buying a crappy HF gun to shoot your primer. If you plan on leaving the old paint, you don't necessarily need primer, but it will be easier to block out if you care that much.

Stick with solid colors, they are the easiest to spray. Metallics, silver are the hardest. You can easily paint with two stage for yourself. I've used a couple different paints, but I like PCL clear because it's cheaper and pretty easy to spray by the directions. You can make any paint job 100x better by color sanding afterwards.

Some of my very first paint jobs:
auto, like you are looking to do. I just sprayed the engine bay after welding/cleaning up holes.

Thanks for the advice. I have invested a lot into my dry air system. I have an old A/C condenser to act as an aftercooler that sits between the compressor motor and the main tank. It also has a catch can between the aftercooler and main tank. I do also have disposable filters to attach between the gun and hose, as you mention above.

By color sanding, you mean just sand between every color coat? Is it not better to spray during the "cure time" or after the flash time of the paint to use it for chemical adhesion? Or does it not matter? Things like this are just what I'm not sure of. Any help here would be great.

Also, what sort of paint stores would make good places to go? Somewhere like Sherwin-Williams? Or something more small, local, like a mom-n-pops shop? I'm, in Memphis, TN, so feel free to advise if you so choose to Google something.

I started last summer. Painted the hood on my mustang. I went with a sharpe finex 3000 on amazon. Painted fine. I did buy a small filter to go directly on the gun and used a regulator. Piece of advice is to find a practice piece and get your technique down pat. I had to re paint the hood. Had dry spots all over the center where it was hardest to reach. If you have an auto body buddy see if they'll come over to help out.

Yea, I was planning on shooting scrap first. I was going to let it hold up my car project, but I think I'll just finish everything and then disassemble everything again for paint. I have two cars becoming one, so I have no room right now anyways.

 

[kazlx]

Thanks for the advice. I have invested a lot into my dry air system. I have an old A/C condenser to act as an aftercooler that sits between the compressor motor and the main tank. It also has a catch can between the aftercooler and main tank. I do also have disposable filters to attach between the gun and hose, as you mention above.

By color sanding, you mean just sand between every color coat? Is it not better to spray during the "cure time" or after the flash time of the paint to use it for chemical adhesion? Or does it not matter? Things like this are just what I'm not sure of. Any help here would be great.

Also, what sort of paint stores would make good places to go? Somewhere like Sherwin-Williams? Or something more small, local, like a mom-n-pops shop? I'm, in Memphis, TN, so feel free to advise if you so choose to Google something.



Yea, I was planning on shooting scrap first. I was going to let it hold up my car project, but I think I'll just finish everything and then disassemble everything again for paint. I have two cars becoming one, so I have no room right now anyways.

If you have good air, that's probably 30% of laying good paint. The reason good paint jobs are expensive are the time it takes. It's the whole diminishing returns thing. How much extra time do you want to spend to make it look good? You want a 50 ft finish, a 5 ft finish or a 6" finish? As in how close do people have to get before they notice flaws.

All paints should have instructions on flash times for re-coats etc. I would find an auto body supplier. They will help you select a paint for you, give you instructions, help with supplies and all that. I have a couple local places that I go to and tell them what I want to do and they set me up.

You don't touch the paint between coats. Spray a high build etching primer that you can sand down to track high and low spots. You can fog a different color over your primer to see where the spots are. So say you spray a gray primer. You can use a black or red paint to fog over. Then when you block it out, the high spots will show as missing paint and the lows you will still see the fog.

Color sanding is essentially like polishing aluminum. This is where high dollar paint jobs get their cost. It's easy to do just time consuming.

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/body/hrdp_0805_color_sanding/viewall.html


Search the net for block sanding auto body and color sanding for more info. Another thing you may strongly consider is a Maaco or similar paint job. Their paint is decent, it's the prep that *****. Do your own prep and drag the car in there. You could get the whole car painted for a couple hundred and not have to deal with the painting. If the car is just a shell you wouldn't even need to mask anything. I'll find a pic of a car I did that way when I get back to a computer. It's a solid option, spend your time doing the bodywork and have someone spray it. How torn down is your car?

 

[Trey T]

Looks like you're ahead of the game with the booth and compressor setup.

The HVLP gun is easy to learn, search on youtube.

 

[kazlx]

Yea, painting isn't rocket science. It's all prep and finishing.

 

[buildmyown]

Take a good look at Macco for a track car do all the prep and trailer it on over $500 will get you a real good paint job. Just research the macco first some are better then others.

Buy the time you buy the base coat, clear hardner activator and the like your going to be $500 in materials unless you go with a single stage no clear but your still going to be looking at a few hundred in materials.

Another option is the Dupont paint shop paints you can get at Autozone ive used these on smaller projects and have to say not bad. Big color selection not to expensive $100-$150 should cover all materials.


If this is going to be a track only car where you might get a little agressive and things happen I would go the Rustoleum route. First its cheap $50 gets you a gallon and if you buy white they can tint it any shade you want. Ive used it to spray a few plows and trailers and much to my surprise it has held up very well. The trick is to go real thin on your coats and let it dry inbetween the other good thing about this is if you get dust or defects in the paint you can sand them out before laying down another coat. A friend of a friend did a beater camaro like this but got a little carried away wet sanding between every coat till he had a really high build up. He ended up wet sanding and polishing it out to a mirror shine and ended up taking best paint at a few local cruise nights. He did this all in his driveway with no booth.

As for painting with an HVLP just practice read whatever came with your gun as for what does what every gun is different. Get a junk hood and some cheap paint and just start laying it down to get a feel for it.

 

[kazlx]

I did the bodywork on this car. It was stripped to a rolling chassis, basically nothing but wheels. I removed all the trim and took it to Maaco. I think out the door it was like $400 for paint.

 

[franksinatra]

Its actually very easy. Prep, Prep, Prep. scuff sand everything with 600 or a scotch brite pad, clean with prep sol, tack off, and spray. I like Dupont paints but theres cheap stuff out there that should work fine too. Buy paint, and base maker. mix 50/50. spray it. Its hard to run base paint, you have to fall a sleep and hold your gun still. lol Anything you screw up can be wet sanded and resprayed unless, as mentioned before, you are spraying metallics. Solid colors are almost the same as spray bomb cans. Any type of gun can spray clear. For this you need clear and hardener. Different brands have different ratios but my clear is usually 4 clear to 1 part hardener. THe bigger sized tip on the gun faster it covers and bigger the droplets which means it takes more time to flow out. just go light. DONT make it look wet for the first few coats and keep it light. I could write a book on do's and donts but get the materials you need and practice on some other things first. Even if you burn up a bunch of material, knowledge is never free and you never really know anything until you have to sand off a mistake on an entire 59 cadillac rear quarter panel. Just some tips,
good luck.

 

[Skep18]

Thanks for all the replies. I read them all, just didn't want to multiquote all of them.

My car is down to a bare shell with windows, no wheels, suspension, anything. So right now, its not really easy to move around, i.e. to a paint shop. Also, I have some cutting and welding left to do, so the plan was to finish my swap, make sure the car drives, then I can tear it back down, no biggie.

Thanks kazlx for the link!

All good advice. I have been planning on shooting scrap parts first. In the beginning, I was getting a bit anxious cuz I wanted to paint first and not have to tear the car back down, but looks like that's not gonna work out. But again, not a big deal.

I have one Maaco in town, so I'll think about that. If the toxins thing isn't really a biggie, I'd like to shoot it myself, but alas, we shall see. My only thought is I might have to do some touch-ups since its a track-only car, so I'd like to be able to do them myself.

Thanks again everyone for the words. Looks like I'm making this more complicated than I need to. I just need to find a paint supplier and talk to them.

 

[kazlx]

Like I said...you can easily do it yourself and have good, if not great, results. With a little time, you can put down a respectable finish. For a track car, you will have no problem creating a paint job you're proud of.

http://www.thecoatingstore.com/Types_of_Car_Paint.html

Check this out:

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/body/hrdp_0805_auto_body_sanding_block/viewall.html

 

[aggierailroad]

I know you would like an awesome paint job on your track car - because cool paint makes cars faster - but having built a few cars for a few guys whose grandfathers used to smuggle moonshine... I would recommend a few things to think about based on your actual question and requirements:

1) It's a track car - it will break, you will break it, you will wreck it eventually. On all of our cars for the interior, chassis, frame, cage, etc. consider painting it using a single stage (only color with "clear" mixed in) white or light gray. Single stage because it's easy, can look good, and cheaper. White or light gray because you want to easily be able to see oil drips, frame cracks, grease anything that will let you know something is breaking. No one really sees the inside but you.

2) Go single stage on the outside as well. This will facilitate touch ups much better. You sound like you want to have a nice car and care about your work. I would guess you will want to touch up the paint between races or seasons. Single stage paint will help that. You won't have that brilliant show car shine, but it is a race car.

3) You didn't specifically mention prep, but I'll add my two cents. Painting the interior ***** Red scuff pads, available at auto shops work well to prep. Touch everything you can with it. Don't stop until the existing paint looks dull. I don't feel that there is a need to primer the interior, maybe a self etching primer over bare steel. Mask off the area, feather it in with 320 grit. Wash the car - soap and water, I believe dawn is great at lifting grease.

4) Dry the car with a leaf blower if you have it. Wax and grease remover - this can be acetone, thinner, or a real wax and grease remover product.

5) Tape it off - this is where you will eat up some time. Tape any holes from behind, the car body, etc. Taping holes off is important because when you spray over them, dust will shoot out (or maybe water from washing it that didn't dry) and make you angry that your nice smooth paint got dusted!

6) The paint will come with a reducer, or you will buy it separately based on the seller's advice. Get one that matches what temperature you will be spraying it in. Usually in 10 degree increments. Getting this right is important for the flash off - or how quickly it dries.

7) They do make half mask respirators (3M) with the bigger carbon filters that are OK for SOME paints. Ask the guy at the paint shop counter. Use your judgement here.

Repeat on the outside, but this time, tape off all of the doors, windows, etc. Drive your car, and go get that first rock chip!

Sorry for the length...

oh and stuff as many lights into your paint booth as you can!! You'll thank me later!