Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
anyone here done a diy job on colour coding their bumpers and side strips? my car is pearl black, how many coats of primer, paint, lacquer etc do i need?
Heres what were going to be preparing ready for primering
Step 1.
The spoiler on top is generally a flat and shiny surface. Were going to have to rough it up with sandpaper to give the primer something to key to.
For this i'll advise using P320 dry sandpaper like my P320 scuffpad below
Give the item a very good rubbing down all over so the paint goes very dull and no longer shiny
Now were going to spin the spoiler over and start preparing the underside.
If we look closely, we can see how the underside of this item is very textured. Theres 2 ways we can about doing this.
1: Sand down the spoiler until its all completely smooth or
2: Rough it up with sandpaper and build up lots of layers of primer
As you can see, along the underside is a line seperating the two parts of the texture. This is an ideal place for me to prep to.
With P180 sandpaper we can sand down to this line and smooth it completely like the pictures below.
The rest of the textured area of the underside of this item can simply be sanded down with P180 too, but dont be too fussy, this is the underside of a spoiler and cannot be seen, if you really want to sand it all down perfectly then do so, but you will be using primer thats unneccessary to do so.
Now were going to go round all the lines of this item. If we dont prep in these lines, the paint will simply flake off, as the primer has nothing to key to.
We're now ready to clean this item ready for primering. I advise using Panel Wipe and lint free cloths. If you dont have this to hand, then some soapy water will be fine, just make sure the item is dried 100% before any primering is started.
Now with the item clean, we're now ready to start primering. For this item im going to be using between 1 and 2 cans of cellulose aerosol primer. Eventually i will be spraying the spoiler silver, so grey primer is the ideal choice for this basecoat. If you're going to be paint it blue or red or green, then try get the primer to match the colour (if possible) or as near to. This means it will take less coats of basecoat (colour) to cover the primer and thus in turn saving us money.
We'll start by primering the underside. Why? If we primer the top of this spoiler first and then turn it over to paint the underside, we'll more than likely scratch into it and this is the side that we want 100% perfect as its the side we're going to see once its on the car.
Start by primering your edges with dust coats. hold your can about 6 inches away from your item and do nice smooth coats from left to right, back and fourth.
Continue this until all of your spoiler has been primered.
Now the underside is done, leave it for 20 minutes or so or until its touch dry and spin it over so we can primer the other side.
Again, do your edges first.
The spoiler can now be left for another 10-20 minutes. When its touch dry, spray a fine dust of matt/satin black over the top of the spoiler and over the edge of the underside where we smoothed the texture. This mist of spray when it dries will act as a guidecoat. It will sink into imperfections, indents, scratches and rough areas.
I will cover this more when we move onto the sanding part in the next section.
I advise leaving this primer to dry for 2-3 days to give it time to really sink into the item and get right into scratches and the texture.
Now our primer is completely dry and sunk into the item well, we can now start to wet flat it down. You're going to need a bucket, some warm soapy water and some wetordry flatting paper (P800/P1000 or P1200).
If your preparing a flat surface, ensure you use a rubber sanding block, this keeps our prep even and makes for a perfectly flat finish.
Keep the item as wet as possible at all times as the sandpaper will clog up with primer as we sand it down. Not using enough water will inevitibly clog the paper up and possibly cause damage to the primer, so lots of water is essential.
Im going to be preparing the primer on the underside of the spoiler first which is not a flat surface, it has many awkward places to prep so a block would be useless.
Side door strips, bumper mouldings, door handles and boot looks etc, all should be rubbed down by hand. Keep your hand as flat as possible and sand it down evenly, dont press in with your fingers or you will have finger lines in your basecoat which stand out pretty bad.
Keep flatting until all your guidecoat is gone (matt/satin black aerosol we sprayed on beforehand).
Now the undersides done we're gonna flip it over and prepare the top side. This is a very flat surface, so for this im going to use the rubber sanding block.
As you can see, weve broken through the primer in a lot of areas due to having to wetflat out various chips/dinks/scratces etc. So best option would be to give it another light coat of primer, leave it about 20-30 minutes and wetflat it down.
Remember to clean the item completely before any spraying takes place.
Now the primering is flatted, we're now ready to clean the item and mask it up. Ideally you should use Panel Wipe to clean your item but warm soapy water is suffiecient enough.
Masking tape generally comes in 2 sizes; 1 Inch and 2 Inch, but ive managed to get some 1 1/2 Inch masking tape but it doesnt really matter which you use. Just buy which is best for the job.
The spoiler im painting is, ideally, split into 2 parts. So im going to be painting this item in 2 phases. Firstly im going to be spraying the underside with basecoat and then laquer then a few days later i can re-mask it up and spray the top half.
If i decided that i needed to spray the item in one go then the best bet would be to hag this item up. I would have used a washing line i think with some string running to the spoiler mounting bolts. Improvise, do what needs to be done.
Time to do some spraying. Firstly we need to get our spray area set up. Im going to be using a state of the art spraybooth. These cannot be bought and have to be constructed on-site.
Firstly were gonna be spraying on the basecoat. This should be dusted on from around 6 inches away from your item.
Keep the coats long and even and dont put it on too wet. We're trying to get the colour right, were not trying to get a finish, this comes with the laquer.
Spray your edges first and any awkward areas, then do long even sprays across your panel.
In the below 2 pictures you can see the difference from a textured finish, to a smooth finish.
Keep building up your basecoat until your happy that you have the right colour and that you have a nice even finish. It can then be put somewhere to dry for 30 minutes or so.
*note* Basecoats usually dry very fast but it can be dependant on a number of factors, such as weather, the ammount of paint you used and whether or not your applying heat.
DO NOT laquer an item while the basecoat is still wet, the laquer will pull it down and cause a dragging effect.
You can generally leave an item which has been basecoated for about 2-3 days before it would need wetflatting down again for the laquer to key.
Now the basecoat is completely dry, we can now go and laquer it. Give your item another wipe over to ensure its dust-free, in bodyshops they generally use tak-rags which im sure you can get from your local car spares shop but it isnt essential.
Spray your laquer on pretty wet, keeping the coats very even. You should generally aim for 2-3 good coats. leaving 10-20 minutes between each coat.
If you do get a run in the laquer, stop spraying. Just let it dry, give the run a wetflat with some P800/P1000 or P1200 and dust on some more basecoat. Let that dry, then continue with your laquering.
Heres the end results of the underside of the spoiler below. The top side will be sprayed in a few days time.
Now that the underside of our spoiler is cured, we can now mask it up and paint the top side.
*Tip* When masking onto fresh paint, always peel the masking tape off the roll, and press it onto your trouser leg or chest to take away some of the stickyness. This majorly reduces the chances of any paint being ripped off when we come to de-mask it.
Firstly were gonna be spraying on the basecoat. This should be dusted on from around 6 inches away from your item.
Keep the coats long and even and dont put it on too wet. We're trying to get the colour right, were not trying to get a finish, this comes with the laquer.
Spray your edges first and any awkward areas, then do long even sprays across your panel.
Keep building up your basecoat until your happy that you have the right colour and that you have a nice even finish. It can then be put somewhere to dry for 30 minutes or so.
*note* Basecoats usually dry very fast but it can be dependant on a number of factors, such as weather, the ammount of paint you used and whether or not your applying heat.
DO NOT laquer an item while the basecoat is still wet, the laquer will pull it down and cause a dragging effect.
You can generally leave an item which has been basecoated for about 2-3 days before it would need wetflatting down again for the laquer to key.
Now the basecoat is completely dry, we can now go and laquer it. Give your item another wipe over to ensure its dust-free, in bodyshops they generally use tak-rags which im sure you can get from your local car spares shop but it isnt essential.
Spray your laquer on pretty wet, keeping the coats very even. You should generally aim for 2-3 good coats. leaving 10-20 minutes between each coat.