Been Paintin'

[Vimmy]

I've gotten the painting bug, spent the last few weeks messing about with primer, paints, lacquers, waxes, polishes, cutting compounds and wet 'n dry papers....this stuff is addictive if not bad smelling and a major lung irritant - but fun though.

I went and bought me a rear facing vent for the Scoob to replace the redundant scoop, got hold of a facelift / post 98 grill and set about working on them to get them as near a match to the car paintwork which is a nightmare. Found out how to do things the right way ( i think anyway) and a helluva lot of ways not to do when filling, priming, painting and lacquering this kit, but eventually happy with the outcome.

I had to fix the front grill using bit pinched off my 98 grill and with the help of my friend Mr Araldite managed to rebuild it and surprisingly it still held together

Here's a couple of snaps...some of it may not appeal to some Scooby owners, but the car has started to stray away from the 'default' look, if there is one for a Scooby

[Guest sti3_lewak]

thats really good mate.

Can you give a detail discription on how you did this please.

Resprayed my front bumper but its not brilliant and could do with some advise on how is best to get this finish.

Cheers

Dave

[Vimmy]

Hi Dave, thanks for the kind words matey, this is based on work I have done so it may not be up to the levels of the professionals and took lots of trial and error and used aerosol paints to do the job. These jobs were done in the garden so I had to fight off bugs and insects from landing on the sticky paint as it dried

Anyhoo I'll try and explain what i did, here goes...

1. I washed the area using a small amount of shampoo to ensure there were no oily deposits/residue as I have found that this stops the primer from taking, rinsed and then left to dry.

2. With the area now clean I sanded down the area to get a roughish finish to get rid of any and all impurities in the body part/panel using a 400 grade of paper, dry at first for the heavier marks knocks etc and then used wet to fine tune the surface. The pressure applied was just enough to rub down and not create any unevenness in the surface, so gently does it.

2. Where there were holes and or scratches that were too deep to be rubbed down I used Isopon P38 filler to fill it these imperfections and tried to get a smooth flat finish and left to dry.

3. On these now filled sections I used 400 paper dry to get an almost flat finish and the used the same paper wet to finish to a level but not smooth surface.( Step 2 and 3 not required if it's a spray only).

4. With a the surface now smooth'ish I used a 1200 paper/wet to go over the whole area to match the once even areas with the now filled sections (where required) until its good enough to be able to let it take a primer coat or two.

5. I used a plastic based primer (as I was only spraying on plastics at that time - but standard primer should do for metal sections) to go over the entire surface area going in sweeping movement backwards and forwards until the area was covered. I left this to dry and then used a 1200 paper to smooth out any little bits that may have built up on the primer surface, very gently though as to not create any unevenness. With this then done another coat of primer to make sure all areas were completely covered. I had the can about 4 to 8 inches away to stop the stuff blowing away in the breeze

6. After getting hold of a good colour coded paint, I set about the parts in sweeping motions, but doing lots of thin layers to stop it running and to then only have to rub it down and restart. As the layers build up you begin to see the full colour begin to take shape, with 20 minute drying times between each coat. I found that once the colour had begin to come to life, adding more layers after that was of little use as the colour was there. Now as I found that as long as the primer finish which was rubbed down to a pretty smooth finish the painted finish looked good, I am a fussy git and this part of the jon took me ages as I rushed things and it went a bit pear shaped and some parts had to be redone, which was very frustrating - time and patience is the key here.

7. With the paint dry and surface smooth, I used a tiny little bit of Metallic T-Cut just to remove any last paint/blemishes that may have been raised or where dust had settled on it whilst drying - it was left on until dry and then rubbed off and using a microfibre cloth to buff gently up to a clean and shiny finish. The paint would have been dry by then so the T-Cut wouldnt have eaten into the paint that much.

8. The lacquer was then put on the same way as the primer and paint, but this is the hardest part for me to get totally right. If the lacquer is too far away when spraying then in the heat it dries up and when it makes contact with the painted surface leaves it looking like a moon surface, not good. I found that having the can 4 to 6 inches away, whilst using short bursts of sweeping movements, it would take to the paint. When spraying I looking at the painted surface and had to ensure that I could see reflected light/sunlight on the sprayed surface to be able to gauge how the lacquer was taking. As the lacquer sits on the painted (horizontal) surface I would see it start to form something like a watery layer, which has the lacquer forming a protective shell over the paint. At this point I stopped spraying, as I found sometimes to my utter disgust that the weight of extra lacquer would form runs/rivers/lava flows on the painted surface - If this happens its out with the 800/1200 wet paper to rub it down gently, when the lacquer dried obviously. Reapply the lacquer more carefully and let to dry which was very quick, around 10 minutes or so.

9. Now that the lacquer was dry I set about it very gently with 1500 wet paper to remove any imperfections and rubbed it dry, I then found that using the same Metallic T-Cut (i have metallic blue) used sparingly over the section brought about a very smooth finish. I then used some wax to provide a final protective layer, this took 3 layers of wax, just because i was a fussy bugger.

These methods above worked for me, I am in no way a professional and won't pretend to be one, my day job has me buggering about designing and building networks so the two jobs are far far removed from each other. If I had to do more, which I probably will attempt in the future, I would invest in some form of wind/sun/insect protection as I have no garage type protection to use and would use a gun and compressor to get more control over the paint and lacquering. I had lots of trials and errors and the outcome probably taken far longer than a body shop could do, but I aint a pro

If anyone can point Dave in other directions if they have better advice then mine please feel free

I hope this is of some use Dave,

Cheers,

Col

[stum450n]

Looks fantastic Col. Was looking at the pics on Facebook - with the fleck, colour match and overall finish, it really doesn't look DIY! Top Job!

Dave, only thing I would do differently would be to use cutting/polishing compound between the paint and laquer rather than t cut as it contains wax and it could react with the laquer over time. You ideally want a dull finish to the paint layer so the laquer has something to adhere to.

[Guest sti3_lewak]

Cheers for that Col very much appriciated. Think i have found were i went wrong which was between the main colour but before the laquire

Will have another bash at it and see if i can improve it. Your does look like a professsional finish.... you sure your not a sprayer

Cheers Stum450n will try both and see which works better.

Cheers again for that especialy at 1:41am

[Vimmy]

Looks fantastic Col. Was looking at the pics on Facebook - with the fleck, colour match and overall finish, it really doesn't look DIY! Top Job!

Dave, only thing I would do differently would be to use cutting/polishing compound between the paint and laquer rather than t cut as it contains wax and it could react with the laquer over time. You ideally want a dull finish to the paint layer so the laquer has something to adhere to.

Yeah sorry Stu/Dave, I meant that at that stage the TCUT was a very light covering just to even out any blemishes, but I didnt know it contained waxes, I thought it was purely a cutting compound, I will have to watch out over the next few months to see what happens to the finish The TCut'd finish was not overly smooth and shiny, as Stu says, as the lacquer would not have anything to adhere to.

Thanks for the info Stu

[Vimmy]

Cheers for that Col very much appriciated. Think i have found were i went wrong which was between the main colour but before the laquire

Will have another bash at it and see if i can improve it. Your does look like a professsional finish.... you sure your not a sprayer

Cheers Stum450n will try both and see which works better.

Cheers again for that especialy at 1:41am

No worries matey, I hope you can take something from it, no deffo not a sprayer, just very persistent and picky and wanted a good looking finish

I was finishing of some JDM mudflaps, in blue, and thought I'd type it up whilst it was fresh in my head...although it wasn't that easy trying to think and prop open my eyes under the influence of tcut and lacquer fumes My hands are a nice shiny urple colour now too thanks to the Dodo Juice

[Vimmy]

Great work Col, really like it

Thanks Matty, its taken a long time to get it right, would have been easier and quicker if the car was black in colour tho'