Paint help

[N8 OLS]

Hey all, new to the forum hadda look round and love it, gna be registering for a membership when I get paid! Neways to the topic: I'm looking to colour code my nautical blue dynamique, I have the colour code and such just wondering if its worth using the renault official paints over halfords or elsewhere, if so where do I go about getting the renault paint, a dealership or is there a website I can use? And is there a specific primer I need?
Thanks in advance
Ollie

 

[Final Maxim]

welcome to the site.

its generally best to get a specialist to mix up the paint, somewhere like autoaint.co.uk

halfords are good for easy colours, like your blacks.

primer should ideally, but not essential, be the colour of your car or as close to it as possible, basically means its gonna take less paint to cover the primer.

 

[N8 OLS]

Thanks for your help, I'll get looking around the net after payday!! Pics will be posted as I progress

 

[Final Maxim]

you doing it yourself?

 

[N8 OLS]

Probably with help from my dad, just gonna take the mouldings off and take some serious time on it.

Feel it would be more cost effective than taking it to a painter, unless anyone has any negative self spraying experiences to report?

 

[Final Maxim]

nope, go for it dude, worst case scenrio is that it reacts like a bugger and you have to wet flat it all back down again.

i can copy/paste a guide into here if you want it

 

[N8 OLS]

That'd be great if you could, cheers!

 

[Final Maxim]

What Will I Need For Preparing/Primering?

- Mixed Dry Sandpaper (P180 & P320)
- Aerosol Cellulose Primer
- Aerosol Matt or Satin Black Spray Paint
- Cleaning Rags

*Optional Item*

- Aerosol Spray Gun Adapter (More even spraying and generally easier) Link
- Panel Wipe

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Preparing

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.

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Cleaning

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.

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Primering

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.

 

[Final Maxim]

What Will I Need For The Final Prep & Paint?

- Aerosol Basecoat (Colour)
- Aerosol Cellulose Laquer (Clearcoat)
- Wetordry Sandpaper (P800 or P1000 or P1200)
- Rubber Sanding Block
- Bucket
- Cleaning Rags

*Optional Items*

- Aerosol Spray Gun Adapter (More even spraying and generally easier) Link
- Panel Wipe


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Preparing The Primer

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.

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Masking & Cleaning Ready To Paint

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.

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Spraying


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.

 

[Final Maxim]

What Will I Need For The Final Paint?

- Aerosol Basecoat (Colour)
- Aerosol Cellulose Laquer (Clearcoat)
- Masking Tape
- Cleaning Rags

*Optional Items*

- Aerosol Spray Gun Adapter (More even spraying and generally easier) Link
- Panel Wipe

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Final Paint

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.

Heres our end result.

 

[N8 OLS]

Thanks a lot, like I say waiting till payday before I can even think of starting but this looks really helpful. Pics and credit will be posted as I progress!!

 

[N8 OLS]

Any estimations on how much of each paint/primer I'll need to cover all four mouldings (two rub strips and front and back bumper mouldings)?

 

[Final Maxim]

depends if your gonna smooth them all by hand or if your gonna build the primer up.

ide say 2-3 cans of primer

2 cans of basecoat
3 cans of laquer.

can always take any back you dont use but that looks spot on

i painted 4 mouldings, 2 fog surrounds and a spoiler with 3 primer, 2 basecoat, 3 laquer

 

[N8 OLS]

Also I cant find a blue primer anywhere do you think white would be the best choice due to the light nature of the colour?

 

[Final Maxim]

nah dont use white, will take forever to cover it up

get grey primer