Diy spray job??

Brendo

Brendo

Member
Couple of questions. Thinking about carrying out a spray job on my e30 bmw. What size of compressor would i require to be capable of the job? Also how many litres of paint would i need to do the job? Also is it imperative that i use an oven? Basically i was thinkin about doing it in my garage and elimanting all air movement in order to get an even finish. Could i just leave it here to harden or would it have to go into an oven? Anyone have any tips on this? thanks
 
hardens in atmosphere as long as its not too cold (ie above 20degC preferably). i used a small compressor, like this...

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/product.asp?p=000110910&r=2007&g=102

it was fine when i was spraying my engine bay, but i ended up using normal rattle cans to do the rest of my car.

my paint shop recommended around 8 litres of paint to spray my bmw 5 series, inside and out, with the proper number of coats. then obvioulsy 8 litres of thinners too which is cheapy cheap.

good luck :)
 
Compressor= big one

paint=2/3litres with hardener

oven=no, i never, used the 4 1000w floodlights, and a space heater left on for a hour or so"wet the floor first" then removed while painting and put back after painting had finished.

Why not in your garage? i used a barn and made a spray booth out of........

Building membrane"plastic sheet"
X4 floodlights
6x bathroom extractor fans
gaffer tape
wood for frame
staple gun and nails
space heater

If you want a showroom finish then get someone else to do it and stick it a oven, if you want it to look half decent with half the cost?? then my way all the way:thumbs:

Project200sx048.jpg
 
You don't need an oven, although air movement would be very useful to help it cure properly. (air movement won't affect the eveness of the finish, the sprayer will do that! ;) ).

You'll need the paint, hardner and thinners, mixed to the correct ratio, (all paint varies, so find out from the supplier).

Do not wet the floor first, sure it'll keep the dust down, but as soon as you get any heat in there it's start evaporating and you'll get moisture in your paintwork, so it'll soon start to blister and will rot out a lot quicker than it should. (we put a dehumidifier in the paintshop for 24hours before we spray).

Alex B
 
Thanks for all the advice so far guys.Im gona use my garage, however it is no roofed, i.e the rafters are open, would it be wish to staple platic sheets to the roof? Im defo gona use a dehumidfier in the garage before i paint. Can anyone tell me exactly what the process is? its gona be a first attempt so im new to this, do i basically sand the whole car down, apply the paint, sand it down again, apply another layer and then the hardener? How long would i need to leave it under the floodlights once finished? and anyone have a rough idea of how much a diy job would cost to do?
 
Alex B said:
Do not wet the floor first, sure it'll keep the dust down, but as soon as you get any heat in there it's start evaporating and you'll get moisture in your paintwork, so it'll soon start to blister and will rot out a lot quicker than it should. (we put a dehumidifier in the paintshop for 24hours before we spray).

Alex B
Click to expand...

Tell me more fella,what do ya mean it will blister and rot quicker???.

My S13 is the first car me and a mate have painted so we were goin by what a few people had told us!!, the paint work is'nt top notch i must admitt and some parts are better than the rest,but she's all 2 colures red/black and from a few feet back you'd never know.

I ain't that fussed that the paint is'nt perfect as she's gonna get knocked about a bit:D like today where i had half a tyre bein whipped around the rear arch:dw:
 
No, rub the car down with something like 600grit wet and dry, tehn put 2-3 coats of paint on, allowing it to flash off between coats, then put 2 coats of laquer on, (if it's base and clear), then leave to harden. You'll need to mix the paint hardener and thinners together, ask for a tech sheet from the suppliers, that'll give the right mix ratios.

Leave it till its fully hardened, hard to say how long it'll take, depends on teh conditions, but it'll be touch dry in a couple of hours, I'd leave it till teh following day, demask it, then a couple of days later run a compound mop over it if you want, though being a drift car I don't know if you'll want to bother with the effort! :) .

Alex B
 
leggy said:
Tell me more fella,what do ya mean it will blister and rot quicker???.

My S13 is the first car me and a mate have painted so we were goin by what a few people had told us!!, the paint work is'nt top notch i must admitt and some parts are better than the rest,but she's all 2 colures red/black and from a few feet back you'd never know.

I ain't that fussed that the paint is'nt perfect as she's gonna get knocked about a bit:D like today where i had half a tyre bein whipped around the rear arch:dw:
Click to expand...

A lot of people recommend wetting the floor, good idea as it keeps the dust down, the down side is that as the water evaporates, it'll stick to the side of the car, get blown onto it with the paint etc, give it a few months, (might be lucky and it'll last longer), and you'll start to get micro blisters appearing, which if you pop will have a very small amount of water in. Rotting out is a very extreme case and is only likely if you've done a bare metal respray and wetted the floor when you primered the car.

Alex B
 
Alex B said:
A lot of people recommend wetting the floor, good idea as it keeps the dust down, the down side is that as the water evaporates, it'll stick to the side of the car, get blown onto it with the paint etc, give it a few months, (might be lucky and it'll last longer), and you'll start to get micro blisters appearing, which if you pop will have a very small amount of water in. Rotting out is a very extreme case and is only likely if you've done a bare metal respray and wetted the floor when you primered the car.

Alex B
Click to expand...

That could explain why the n/s door fu@ked up first time then?? "fish eyed"

As for these little blister's.......... it's been 7 month's now!! and no blisters as yet:no: filler on the boot cracked so some gaffer tape sorted that for the mo:wack:
 
So i dont need to leave coats to dry and sand them, just apply a coat, leave it for 15-20 mins. apply another coat, leave it for 15-20mins, aplly another coat, leave it for 15-20 mins and then apply thelaquer and hardener and leave it??
 
Don't time the coats to dry, basically leave them until you can touch them and the paint doesn't stick to your finger, (best to try it on the masking paper! ;) ), if you're doing it in base and clear, the basecoat will just need to be thinned, and the laquer will have to have thinners and hardener maixed in, if you're doing it in direct gloss, you'll need to mix the colour, thinners and hardener all together.

Alex B
 
is it better to do it in base clear or direct gloss or much of a muchness? sori for all the questions, jut tryin to get this sorted in my head lol. Would £300 take care of it?
 
Depends what clour you're thinking of doing it, all metallics have to be base and clear, it will probably be more expensive for base and clear, but you can get a much better finish.

Direct gloss may be easier to touch up, so might be a better option for a drift car?

If you use cheap paint you might get away with £300.

Alex B
 
Well the car is currently bmw brilliant red and i just want to spray it the same colour agani like. im gona be using the car on the road also so want to make a half decent job of it really
 
I painted two of my E30 in less than a year :) Actualy, a friend did the painting, i did most of the hard work (sanding, masking etc:)).

I used white acrylic paint (i dont know if this is the right term in english. Its only base, no lacquer). It is very forgiving and it covers all the tiny mistakes. I bought 3,5 liter can and its more than enough...there is stil at least 1 liter of paint left in there, for future repairs :) Its also very cheap, i paid less than 100 euro for paint, thinner and everything else you need.

The first car was painted in a friends dirty garage. We didnt even bother to clean it and the door were open when we painted. It came out good enough even for a road car. We did the second car last weekend and i couldnt get a garage so we painted it outside. There are a few mistakes in the paint, but nothing serious. It will all be covered by dirt soon.

It takes at least a few days before color is really dry. If you start to put your car together the next day you will probably schratch the paint, as its still very soft.

And like i said, white rocks...if you paint it black or some other dark color every little mistake will be visible. Metallic is even worse.

The main part in painting is preparation tho. If you take your time when sanding it will probably look good in the end. If you do it in a rush your car will look like a crap no matter where you spray it.

Here are some pics of my projects :)

4 door E30 driftcar with M50 and many other mods:
http://ikst.moj-album.com/album/1081328/

My "new" 325 mtech 1 road car (still in progress): http://ikst.moj-album.com/album/3727479/
 
Alex B said:
Depends what clour you're thinking of doing it, all metallics have to be base and clear, it will probably be more expensive for base and clear, but you can get a much better finish.

Direct gloss may be easier to touch up, so might be a better option for a drift car?

If you use cheap paint you might get away with £300.

Alex B
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that green paint was perlecant and cost me £80 for 5 litres which was more than enough. just applied scuff to the paintwork to get something to key to, sprayed the green then hardner / laquer cost just over £100 all in although the compressor was £250 :D
 
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