Beginner's Guide: How To Paint A Car At Home In 4 Easy Steps - Eastwood

If you want results like this from a driveway

paint

job, stay tuned, check here. Eastwood Company Manager, the video you are about to watch is how to

paint

your car in four

easy

steps

, we will use the Corvair door that you see. behind me, but these techniques that you'll see will apply to the entire car, let's get started too. Well, this particular door we have stripped down to bare metal. I actually made up the door scandal in this one, but what you want to do is use it. Chemical strippers with abrasive blasting or actually paper and a DA to get to the bare metal.

It's the best place to start now that we've taken it apart. We'll use our free software to remove any grease, wax, oil or contaminants from your desired surface. To do this before any more sanding or filling because you don't want to bury them in the metal, what you see here is we're taping up the vent window that was installed in the door just to make it a lot easier. Trying to do this with fresh paint, what we want to do is protect the nice new seals that we bought, so we're going to mask them carefully on the edge of the door, as you can see we're using a stirring rod here to make sure that the tape gets between the actual seal and the metal of the door so we don't have a line later.

Now we're going to go ahead and mask it with paper. The advice here is not to use Christmas wrapping paper or newspaper. the solids will bleed through that I use design masking paper for automotive paints what I'm doing now is applying a

guide

coat this is used to identify any of your ups and downs on the panel it's a sneaky thing that your eye can miss I'm applying the

guide

layer and a uniform film across the entire panel. Now I'm going to block that with the 80 grit and the long block. A tip here is to use the longest board you can that will fit the panel.

I'm going to block this. A crosshatch pattern what this does is ensure that you're maintaining a level surface and we'll use this same technique throughout the entire process here, even down to our color sanding, as you can see in the horizontal lines that we have. We have identified the low points from when we used the English wheel to make this panel. What we're going to do now is cover the entire door knowing that we're going to remove about 80% of the product, but what this does is make sure it has even coverage now I'm going to clean the panel again with pre.

I want to make sure that we remove any type of grease contaminants, as I said before, you don't want to bury them in the base metal and then have them come back. Later, I'm now mixing our filler mixture according to the instructions, but two tips here need to let the hardener set and end up pouring a lot of liquid onto the fresh filler and secondly, don't mix the hardener over cardboard. they will actually be absorbed by the fibers, they are Mixel and a dedicated paper or plastic mixing board. Now I applied the thin coat all over the panel as you see and then we'll give it about 15 minutes to harden.

Now I'm hitting. with the 80 grit on the long board, we're using the 18 inch board again on the 80 grit paper and what I'm going to do is sand from the style line to an edge. I'm not just going to sand. A couple of inches in the center and just move randomly around the panel. You want to think of it as a fluid motion that you want to keep complete from edge to edge, line to line or body seam wherever you have a cut back into the hatching pattern, this will ensure We have our flat surface level so we just finished the first round of block sanding and it's coming out pretty well.

I want to hit it one more time to better identify any of the ups and downs. This time I'm applying our guide code again. We're using it not only to identify low spots but also to make sure we're removing every one of our previous sanding marks, which you'll see in a minute. Here I'm sanding the panel again in our crosshatch pattern using the 18 inch block and the 80 grand, what you want to do is work your way progressively through the grits starting with 80 to 120 180 220 all the way up to 320, Don't skip any

steps

, you'll think you're saving time, right?

Now what's going to happen is when you get into the base coat you're going to see those deep scratches you need to progressively work your way through the grains using the guide coat to make sure you've removed the previous sanding scratches, this will ensure a dead level. and flat surface, now what we've done is we've identified a couple of low spots that will need a quick little layer of filler, so I'm going to blend it in and just touch those areas, don't worry about the bear spots and the cutting it you see here, we'll take care of all that with epoxy primer in the next step.

It is always a good idea to remove dust and debris with the anti-static cloth before applying any coating. I'll go ahead and apply the guide coat. and continue with 120 grit onwards until you get to 320. Here you can really see the importance of the guide coat in identifying the remaining scratches from the 80 grit sanding that I have yet to remove along with any other imperfections. You can even see the difference by identifying the 80 and 320 grits. 120 grit scratches using the tension coat with the final sanding block of the filler completed, we are ready to prepare the palette for the primary epoxy paint after I did the final cleaning with pre and a tack cloth, I started mixing the epoxy paint or the epoxy paint is a 1 to 1 ratio

easy

to mix and very easy to apply even for a

beginner

and remember you will be blocking most of this anyway so you don't have to worry about a little pinch here or a run now that we have the epoxy mixed, we're going to go ahead and strain it into the gun with the cap.

You will have a vent on the top of your gravity feed guns. Take that, pull it out and you'll see a little opening there. Point that hole towards you, you don't want to risk paint dripping from the vent not reaching the surface before spraying the panel, go ahead and test your fan pattern on a piece of masking paper. We have set the gun to a fan pattern of approximately 10 inches. Here's a tip for moving forward. What you want to do is spray all the jams and edges first and then the main section. If you do it on the opposite side, you will end up with overspray on the door. skin, I'm using a big fan pattern here for a couple of different reasons, you see, we're spraying outside just like you're going to spray on your driveway, what you want to do is put the product on and get We're using the epoxy primer here because there is excellent heejun on both bare metal and body filler.

I am cross-coating the panel with a tack coat and then at ninety degrees with a fully wet coat to ensure adequate coverage in the future. and applying it to completely wet coats, hit the edges and jams first and then the front door lining, as you can see we are spraying outside, not everyone has a booth or access to a booth, but don't worry, don't be afraid with the right. products and the right tools, you'll get great results and don't worry if you get a little trash or a bug falls on it. We'll show you how to take care of it.

There you have it. a bird landed on the door anyway you walked through a small area but the good thing is you had small feet and those things will level out we will be able to fill it with the surface now we go back to the 18 inch board and we are using 320 let's continue Go ahead and block in this entire surface again using our hatching and going from the body line to the edge of the panel. Remember that you want to use the largest board that will fit your panel to ensure an even, level surface. Tip.

What you should do is use an abrasive pad instead of paper around these uneven surfaces, it tends to conform to them more easily. Well, here we are with our final wipe and we added a tip here again, always wear rubber gloves that you will have on your hands. you don't want that to get into your primer, another tip here when using a lint free cloth is to always turn to a clean surface, what you don't want to do is just move the contaminants from one edge of the palette to the other and then move on. go ahead and do your last gluing in preparation for our urethane surface now we're going to go ahead and apply the urethane surface primer mix as directed, strain and fill the gun here's a little tip when spraying outside, do your Last gluing cloth a few seconds before I am about to apply the paint, this ensures that you will have the cleanest surface possible.

I'm holding the gun about 10 inches from the surface and using a 50% overlap. An important tip here is to maintain a constant distance between the gun and the paddle to avoid any heavy movement. stains or light spray once the urethane surface is fully cured we will go ahead and start our block sanding process again we will apply the guide coat and here we will start with a 320 grit on our 18 inch board using the scratch pattern continue upwards. to 600 grit now I'm switching to wet sanding, the reason is that water tends to keep the paper clean, you get a little better cut and a much finer cut, so we'll continue with that up to 600 grit.

Again, without Skipping any grit in the middle, I'm using a lint-free cloth to remove most of the dust from the panel. The most important step here is to use compressed air and you want to blow out any of the holes, cracks or joints where dust and water may get trapped, you want to get them out now before the paint gun finds them, which is why we are using at least fifty to sixty psi so we are above the pressure of what their guns will use with the Eastwood mixture. cups, I mixed our base layers, the right ratio, I went ahead and strained and filled the cup here.

I'm doing my last tack cloth seconds before applying paint again, spray the jams and edges first, then find a 50 percent overlap, go ahead and spray two for three completely wet coats, you'll notice I'm applying additional coats at ninety degrees of the first layer. What does this? This helps me achieve a more level surface and eliminate any tiger stripes, especially when spraying metals. I'm spraying our red Eastwood ProStreet. here using the same 50% overlap and a constant distance between the gun and the panel, as you can see I'm using the same gun for our epoxy primer, our urethane base coat and also for the clear, all we're doing is change the needle nozzle.

Size After our base coat has fully cured we will begin the wet sanding process, as you can see we are in a kiddie pool but trust me this will save you a lot of time, headaches and cleanup especially on the floor from a driveway or garage. so we start with 600 wet, go ahead and continue with that hatching pattern that we've been using at this point. I switched to a 6 inch block while we were wet sanding, we don't shape the paddle anymore so it's okay to use the smaller block which is more controllable. I'm simply cutting off the top of the tips hitting any dirt or debris that may have gotten into the coating.

Here's a tip if during the color sanding process you discover that you cut your color back into your primer simply take a paper match or a corner of a paper towel and touch up with some base coat with our mixed urethane clear Precisely strained and poured into the cup, it's time to spray Seconds before spraying, make your final sticky cloth. Go ahead and apply two or three completely wet coats just as you did with the base, first on the edges and then on the main panel. We are spraying our European clear two to one, which is a very easy to use clear.

We have three different temperature activators, just combine them. up to the temperature of the day you will spray and get great results with a beautiful flow. We are spraying to clean 45 minutes after the base coat has cured and finishing our sanding block if you had to stop at this. For a day or two you will need to sand the surface and continue with the pre-cleaning prep just as we did before spraying the base coat, after 48 hours of allowing our varnish to cure it was time to wet sand it as well let him do it again. in the pool I started with a thousand grains again, our crosshatch pattern and then it went up to 1,500 and 2,000.

I'm using my cleaner between the grits here to not only clean the surface, but I'm also checking to look for the color when When sanding clear, it will have a light milky color if you find red in the cleaner, that means it cut through the clear, which it is not a big thing. Finish the block sanding and apply two more coats of clear once we are done with the wet sanding. process, it's time to move on to polishing, so go ahead and use a high-quality system.quality to achieve that showroom shine. I chose the Norton system which is a three pad system for three easy steps, just remember to saturate the pads and use minimal pressure on the panel, I'm starting with the wool pad which will remove the scratches from the 2000 grit sanding.

Then I will continue with the two foam pads to achieve professional results. As you move through each of the pads, you will notice the depth of the image. and the clarity will be more pronounced now switch to the blue pad which will remove any of the swirl marks from our wool pad and you can clearly see the depth of the image become brighter. Lastly I will finish with the white pad which will give that glossy finish you are looking for, you can see the results we achieved, the reflection, the clarity and all this done outside, you can see the Eastwood logo clearly on the paint can and even read the serial number of this hundred dollar bill as you can see.

We finished the door and are more than happy with the results. You can see it by the dollar bill there and the reflection in the gallon can. The depth of the image is pretty spectacular, especially for painting this outside, so I hope this gives you the confidence to do a paint job at

home

, even if you're outside you can see the results we achieved. It's no different making this door than it would be a whole car. You just panel it at a time, that's how you think about it, so for a detailed instruction list and all the tools needed to complete this job at

home

, visit

eastwood

.com