Automotive Painting.

[Eric McCarthy]

I wanted to ask around and find out which would be the best way to remove paint on my pickup. It's mostly factory white from 1988 but my genius father when he owned the truck put whatever white paint he had around on the truck. And I'm talking about sprayed on by a rattle can from Rustolium, or it could have been brushed and rolled on with who knows what. Needless to say it looks like shit and is several shades of white.

I didn't know if with all the layers of random paint if sanding with a paint sander would work or just use a chemical paint striper. A friend of mine had told me about a nasty paint remover chemical called Aircraft paint remover.

Just wanted to get some suggestions and see if any of you gents do automotive painting.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/203714...mePageEventHorizontal1-1-_-NA-_-203714136-_-N

 

[Wildfire]

Well lets see.

- Soda blasting
- Sanding
- Paint remover
- Gasket Remover will take the paint off
- Grind it off
- Burn it off. ( not really happy with the results of this one)

My first choice would be to soda blast it off

 

[Eric McCarthy]

I wish I could soda or sand blast it off, but lacking a blaster is a problem. That and being its a crew cab truck with an 8ft bed its rather long at about 20 feet or so. Would take forever to blast.

Sooo what's the next best route to go?

 

[Eric McCarthy]

Ohh and I don't know if it matters but the paint is chipping/peeling and flaking off bad already. My hood looks like a cow.

 

[Wildfire]

Well it appears your on a bit of a budget because of the way you plan on refinishing it. I still say soda blasting is the way to go. You can use a regular pressure sand blaster to remove it but you'll have to stand way back so you don't warp all the panels with the heat.
Can you rent that type of equipment In your area? can you just sub it out to someone to do?

Not to many choices here. Blast it off, chemically remove it, scrape it off like you'd do on a wooden fence or just apply the new paint over it as it is with a roller.

As I say, not to many choices. No easy way to do this. What ever you decide to do it requires a lot of elbo grease, time and money.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

Well its a 25 year old work truck and I still use it to haul around mowers and equipment. I was not planning on putting a show room quality paint job finish on it. I'm just looking to have it all one solid color white and clear coat. Oh and I love the idea of soda blasting but I'm not sure if I need to heavily invest in a blaster and media just to do this one job.

Looks like its going to have to be the old fashioned elbow grease and grunt work.

I am having a friend of mine repaint the truck with spray guns. It won't be done in a fancy paint booth but it is a 25 year old work truck.

 

[hodge]

Based on budget, the size of the truck, and the more-than-normal amount of paint to deal with, you are going to have to improvise. A good paint job is 98% prep work, plain and simple. What you put into preparing it is directly proportional to how it will look. But, because it is a work truck, and not a show piece, you should be able to get it looking better than it is now.
Since renting/buying equipment is out, and so is taking it to a body shop, I would say go to harbor freight and buy you 3 or 4 palm sanders and plenty of paper, invite some friends over with extension cords, and have a sanding party. Get the flaking, loose, poorly bonded paint off, smooth it out as much as possible, make sure that all of it is sanded so the new has the best chance to bond, then clean it up. I would go over it with laquer thinner real well, and make sure all wax, dust, dirt, and crud is off of it. Then let your buddy with the spray gun have it. It won't be perfect, but it will be better than it is now.

 

[dieseldude]

The last time I did a project like this, I just used a palm sander to knock off the loose paint, remove the old clear and rough up the original paint some. Followed it with some scothbrite pad on the sander, sprayed the primer then what ever color I wanted. It held up ok for a few years. needed a touch up here and there.

Neededless to say it wasn't remotely close to a professional paint job, but didn't cost nearly as much either. at least when it went in the shop it was no longer listed as "multi color"

 

[Eric McCarthy]

Humm any suggestions as to what grit sand paper I need to get? I figure something mildly abbrasive to take off the household paint and then something finer to finish.

I'm sure whatever we do would look better then anything Maaco can blast on the truck. Next guesstimate is to figure out paint, hardner and a clear coat. I was looking at Napa lastnight and it was like reading Alien to me...

 

[dieseldude]

if I remember right I started with 150 and worked up to 320 before using the pad.

for the hardner, mixing, ect, there was an ariticle I believe on this forum talking about paint types and where to get. It was tractor related but it's still sheetmetal. If you'd like I can ask my co worker who is a finisher by trade.

 

[trouble11]

Hey Eric,
I don,t know what color You are going to paint Your Truck but You can tell them to mix it Single Stage, Acrilic enamal. You will have the shine but you don,t need to Clear coat. This is the way Paint was mixed Years ago before they came out with a two stage system (color & clearcoat) It will save You a lot of money by not having to buy Clear coat. Napa can do it as other paint suppliers. Sand well and apply Primer to bare metal. Good Luck
Jeff

 

[Wildfire]

I do a lot of restoration work and I don't really know the finish your looking for but if you were going to paint it with a shaker can then I'm assuming your not looking to put it in SEMA when its done so I'd start off with 120-50 grit and get all the heavy pain't off first then go up to 220 grit then if your really looking for a smooth finish then finish off with 600 grit.
Take baby steps. Do a panel at a time and if you get down to bare metal then prime those areas. When that panel is done move on to another section. Doing it that way will let yourself set "goals" and it won't be so boring. One day do a door then the next move on to a fender. Don't try and do it all at once. You will turn yourself from it.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

I was looking to paint the truck just one solid color white. Its been white since new in 1988 and no need to change up the color. And nope no Sema shows for that old work horse. I'm looking to clean it up and make it look presentable when its parked infront of a customers house when I'm landscaping. Plus its not so hideous when I letter the truck with the biz name and number.

I figured I'd need to focus and tackle the harder spots and get rid of the ugly eye sores where my dad painted with household paint. Mostly the hood, roof and top of the bed rails down 1/4 of the bed are the worse spots. All 4 doors look pretty decent I think and the down the middle and lower 1/4 of the truck still has a dull sheen too it.

The old dog wont be in any beauty pageants when its repainted but anything is bound to be an improvement over what it currently looks like.

And I see your point Paul about doing little at a time. But I've already got it in my head I just need to grin and bear it and get threw it. Right now its the only wheels I have so I kinda have to be swift about it.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

If anyone happens to be nosy here's my canvas I'm working with.... The white Chevy of course.

 

[Russell King]

If you want to go to bare metal use a chemical stripper. This will remove everything, paint, bondo, wax, bird poop...

That is probably not the way to go - too severe unless you like body work and have a place to keep it out of the rain.

Wash the vehicle with a strong detergent to remove all the surface dirt and some chemicals. Start off with a chemical that is used to remove all wax and surface chemicals that have been used. Get this at the auto paint store. Else you will just grind them into the lower levels of the existing paint and have trouble with adhesion. Using some mechanical sander (avoid disc sanders/angle grinders but random orbital is OK) and start out with nothing over 80 grit (even that may be to rough) and work your way up in the numbers to about 150 or 200 with dry sanding. Try to avoid the inside area of the doors/body - just leave them be. Try to avoid getting too much of it to bare metal unless that area has rusted. You can then switch over to wet sanding by hand if you really want to. Spray over it with a good primer and then wet sand that smooth. There is even some black paint that you can spray over the primer to help get it smooth during sanding (helps show you scratches and nicks). Then paint and sand and polish. Clear coat if you want.

You would probably need to have the inside of the bed coated with LineX or similar to avoid having to try to sand that down - that would be near impossible.

If your friend has painted vehicles before use him as a mentor to give you advise.

You will probably hate yourself for starting before it is done, like or love yourself when it is completed.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

So should I sand the entire truck top to bottom or just focus mainly on the nastier areas?? If you look at the picture pretty much everything from the crease along the side of the truck, from there going up looks like crap. From that crease line down it's marginal. Still has some factory finish and a dull sheen from 1988.

I wasn't all to worried about inside the door jams and between the cab and bed as you stated Russell. The bed does have a drop in liner. For S&G's I may pull it out and hit it with a rattle can of Rustoleum.

My friend who is painting the truck has a set of proper paint guns. He used to repaint and recondition forklifts when he was a lift tech. He has a better knack for this kind of project then I do.

 

[Russell King]

I would paint the whole truck or your paint won't match so that means sand the whole truck also. Of course where the paint is not too bad the sanding will be much lighter.

And if I am not mistaken the primer paint (depending what you use) won't really protect the metal too much so don't wait too long between primer and paint or it will rust.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

If I'm understanding correct just a light sand on the not so rough areas, I supposed to scuff up the area so the new paint will stick? I'm thinking a long weekend and with any shred of luck the truck will be complete. Sanded and repainted.

Now if Mother Nature will take her bi-polar meds and act right so we can have a few weeks of normal Spring like weather I hope to tackle the project in the next sever weeks.

I'm in the info gathering stage now.

Thanks for the input gents!

 

[tempforce]

one weekend is pushing it….
i spent 3 months every other weekend and some evenings, before my old truck was ready.. but i was being anal about it being smooth… took me a whole day to spray the paint. i did give it several coats of color and a couple of clear… so your spray time will be less.
i just don't want you to get into the job thinking that you can sand and paint in one week end… one week, yes, working 8 hrs a day. it would be ready to drive.
now if you can get 4-5 buddies to help with the sanding. one weekend is possible..

 

[Eric McCarthy]

That kind of why I was thinking a chemical paint remover would be the way to go and speed up the removal process. There are too many areas where the shitty house hold paint job is chipping, cracking, flaking and peeling off in sheets. I may have to play around with it and do a chemical strip on the thick nasty stuff and sand the area's that are not so bad, in hopes the new paint will stick.

Again I'm not looking for a show room quality paint job and its not going into any car shows. It's a 25 year old work truck and I'd prefer it not to be such an eye sore. Right now it looks like I have a cow print hood the way the paint is peeling off.