Which Paint?

[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/autom...finishing.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-...tective-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.




base coats made the garage look like this









and it ended up like this.



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.



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!