Which Paint?

[Eagle7]

Planning to repaint the entire race car. Here's what I'd LIKE to do:

Prefer single stage paint (no clear coat), but not mandatory
Paint in my garage, with compressor and spray gun, and not poison myself
Touch up with rattle cans readily available locally or online

My internet searches haven't turned up a paint source that fills the bill. I've previously been using Duplicolor Engine Enamel (it happened to color-match the prior paint job) and pretty satisfied with it, but don't really want to spray the whole car with rattle cans. Any suggestions?

[callard]

MAACO will paint a car with their basic single stage color choice cheaper than what you will pay for materials. You do the body prep and light sanding and you will be quite happy with their results.

[zchris]

I'd second using MAACO for a race car. Just do your own prep and masking. They paint all day long and are usually good at it. Inspect it before pickup and point out runs or dust and they will buff it prior to pickup.
Chris

[Chip42]

we do this pretty much every build - the only thing we've been disapointed in is the match between the chosen color and the color as applied. stay away from bright yellow and maybe this goes away. otherwise, very happy with their work, and they give you a bottle of touchup paint too.

[manny]

I've used maaco when i first started back in 99 and the paint holds up pretty darn good. BTW mine is trans am yellow :023:

[gran racing]

I've painted a few cars in the garage and it's a PITA. What you'd need to do is go to your fav home store, and get pastic that will cover all of the walls. And the floor. And the outside of the garage doors. Plenty of ventilation too. Then know it'll stay make it's way onto stuff.

Not sure if you've had much experience with automotive spray painting, but I've found it to be much harder than it looks. The temps and humidity need to match the activator. My last paint job I must have gotten that wrong as it left a residue on the car. Needed to spend a lot of time buffing it. In the end it came out pretty good.

If you decide to paint it yourself, based on what you're saying I think using fleet paint is a good option. I've used it on my cars three times now. It won't look great for 15 years, but I've always figured that a racecar would need to be painted every few years anyways. It's also inexpensive. :) http://www.levineautoparts.com/autopaint.html

What does Maaco charge to paint a car? I don't see prices on their website.

[manny]

When i had mine done i removed everything that i could and did a little sanding. The body did have 3 different colors due to junk yard replacement parts and it only cost me $179.00. That's a Florida price.

[spawpoet]

When i had mine done i removed everything that i could and did a little sanding. The body did have 3 different colors due to junk yard replacement parts and it only cost me $179.00. That's a Florida price.


Did you mask it or did they? At what Maaco charges it's bloody silly to paint the car yourself. We just did a temporary garage booth to paint the underside of our car and it's a complete PITA. Besides it really is much better for the environment to have the job properly done in a booth.

[joeg]

I do quite a bit of painting...heed the advice. Have it done at Maaco or the Earl of Schieb.

Home painting works for smaller pieces, but to do an entire car without a booth is a real freaking mess.

[Matt93SE]

I just wait for a non-windy day and paint in the driveway. make sure all of the street cars are at least 150' upwind too. that crap carries FOREVER!

I wouldn't go against a MAACO paint job either. the paint is usually cheap/fair quality, but it's fine for a race car and $300 or whatever is waaaay cheaper than doing it yourself once you consider both labor and materials.

[gran racing]

And while that Fleet paint is inexpensive, it seems like there are always other costs that creep in. About 1/3 of the way into my last job, the gun died. I needed to rush out and purchase a new one. Always something.

Another possibility is to go to your local automotive paint shop and ask if they know anyone whose looking for a side spray job. Tell them you'll do all the prep and all they need to do is spray it.

At the shop I used, someone offered to do mine for $100 cash. If I hadn't already prepped my garage and planned for it, that's how I would have done it.

[MMiskoe]

While what people have said is true, painting a car is expensive and a lot of work, there is something realllllly cool about going out to the shop the next day and seeing your work all shiny and new. Plus you can do individual parts, or corners as needed.

I've painted a few cars in my shop, and if you stick with the same type of paint, the costs go down as you do more of it. You need to buy more than enough when buying the materials so there is always left over. But it keeps, you can use it next time.

Single stage metalics are impossible. Not sure who it is that can make them work. Two stage on the other hand makes for good looking results w/o as much angst when applying it (or sanding later). Clear coats also have the distinction of leaving less color on the other car in the case of a light rub (Who me? there's none of my paint on your car....)

But if it is not a challenge you want to take on, do what others say, open the yellow pages.

There are pluses for painting outside. Racecar paint can sustain a few bugs in it, its going to get dinged up anyway. But there is less draping of plastic around the shop and worrying about overspray.

[jumbojimbo]

We had good luck with Summit single stage. We used less than 1/2 gallon to paint the car with two coats. And I have enough touch up paint to run in groups with SM for a couple of years. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-up321/overview/

On the one had I'm amazed at how well the car came out considering the condition when we started. On the other hand it was a lot of work. And I'm not sure I could recreate the outcome on my own. Without Jr's skill, shed and tricks, it would have been a ton more work and the results would have been 2 notches lower at least.

My goal was racecar decent and all one color. The car was pretty beat up. I arrived on Sunday 9am and left at 1pm on Monday. About 28 hours of clock time, about 20 hours of work (times 2) including sanding, bondo, sanding, powerjack, welding, bondo, sanding, taping, primer, sanding, color, sanding and buffing.

I'm glad we did it this way because I learned a lot and the car turned out great. And the condition of the car was bad enough that I needed Jr's experience to fix what needed to be fixed and leave the remainder alone. I think I learned enough to be able to do the prep work myself next time.

Like everyone says the prep work is the hard part, the painting is the easy part. But, also like everyone says, unless you have a place to paint, probably the right choice is to prep it yourself and have Maaco do the spraying.

http://www.improvedtouring.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=86&pictureid=588

[Dano77]

Just as everyone else has said. Maaco, Americas Body Shop. And this is from a guy who moonlites at a body shop all winter. Unless someone is paying for the job, its a PITA to paint your own rig.

The Maaco Ambassador Paint Service includes 4 hrs of body work as well. Get it close and drop it off. They know how to make it straight smooth shiney.:dead_horse:

[mossaidis]

So wait... Dan, is MAACO a good place to get your car painted?

[Joe Camilleri]

http://static.squarespace.com/static/50045eb9e4b047375882fc2c/50047163c4aa04a2fe6f4476/50047164e4b0675a38eeb799/1342469373806/DSC01762.JPG?format=750w

Painting at home is both a PITA and rewarding. If your car can roll, I'd agree with Macco. If it's in pieces, then that's a little different. I used single stage paint with catalyst from an auto body supply shop. You must wear the correct respirator with catylised paint. Be sure to have a water separator on your air line. And cover everything up or move it out of your garage.

[T Broring]

Having seen Joe's car, the paint job is far better than any from Maaco.

I recommend picking a real paint code for the color you want from a mainsteam car model. The bodyshop can then mix to that code. And the real bonus is that many paint supply houses can mix and fill spary cans of the same color code for those touch up jobs and under the hood detailing. I used to say pick a color that Krylon matches, but the real automotive paint in spray cans is far better quality and wont disolve from brake clean.

One other word of caution is some states have new environmental laws so comparing prices between states or a new paint job to one from 5 years ago may show a big spread in price. Same goes for buying paint yourself.

[Joe Camilleri]

Thanks Tom. I checked some Macco prices, it's not so cheap anymore. If you already have a compressor, I think that you could buy single stage paint and a gun and do it yourself for much less.

If you don't have a friendly local paint supplier, Eastwood sells single stage paint and activator. http://www.eastwood.com/paints/automotive-refinishing.html

[timo944]

I did a search on this subject last summer, since I am in the same boat. My goal was to keep in simple and cheap. What I came up with was this:

http://www.rustoleum.com/en/product-catalog/consumer-brands/professional/high-performance-protective-enamel

I forget the source, but apparently this paint is easy to spray when thinned properly, and rattle cans are available to match. My local Ace has a few colors in stock and they can order whatever you want - and it's about the $15 or $20 a gallon IIRC.

Having said this I agree with the MAACO concept. Results will be better unless you know how to paint!

if you do it yourself post pics....

[georgethefierce]

I've done this on a slightly more ghetto level....it came out pretty decent but it was a metric ton of work...I can sum it up in pics.

we took this.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m40/mfitz_nh/IMG_9268.jpg


base coats made the garage look like this



http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m40/mfitz_nh/IMG_9308.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m40/mfitz_nh/IMG_9315.jpg



and it ended up like this.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m40/mfitz_nh/IMG_9325.jpg

We spent about 4 days sanding and prepping and primed it and painted it in a weekend...as you can see we didn't mask the walls but covered most everything in the garage with plastic. I used Omni single stage paint and it came out pretty well. We also did this in Feb IIRC and we cranked up a salamander heater (not the safest thing in the world) to 90*s or so to help drying in between coats. The most important thing is to have a compressor that can keep up with your spray gun of choice, make sure you note the CFM the gun requires and take breaks when the compressor doesn't seem to be keeping up....a water separator is crucial.

That being said I would avoid doing it again if I at all could, the prep was a ton of work but the painting part wasn't bad at all. We did 3 coats of base...if I did it again i would have done a couple more. My buddy STILL has pink dust in his garage but it was a new,fun experience for all of us and as you can see we have good senses of humor. (edit, had to remove a few pics due to forum restrictions)

[mossaidis]

Don't stop there Jason. Post the angry pig pics.

[lateapex911]

Don't do this.

http://www.improvedtouring.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=76

Done in my garage. Blue metallic base with a custom House of Kolors Kandy green checkerboard pattern and clear over it all.. What was I THINKING of when I thought 'This could be neat" ???

If you do your own, I suggest getting a HVLP gun WITH the turbine, which eliminates the compressor and line drier and standard suction feed gun. An HVLP system fro Fuji (I think) works well and is reasonable $$

On edit: this pic was years after it was first painted. Afte a few visits to off track areas. And it was straight off Road Atlanta complete with clay dust and and klag marks...so it's got 'patina'

[Matt93SE]

I did the Rustoleum paint job on our LeMons car and it was an absolute nightmare. By the time you get the paint thin enough to spray in a regular 'automotive gun', it required several coats just to get coverage. (didn't help we were going from black to white!)

But the paint takes foreeeeever to dry, and that dust gets everywhere and stays sticky for days. we also had cars outside when I painted the thing, and cars 150' away still had to be clayed and buffed to get rid of the leftovers carried by the wind.

There is also a lot more labor involved in getting a rustoleum paint job to look good-- so much labor that I would rather pay $300 for a gallon of paint and do it in a weekend vs. $30/gallon and take 3 weekends!