re-paint

after some book research, i find that re-painting a base/clearcoat car is tougher than i thought. seems my compressor is not big enough, i have no drier, garage isn't good enough, blah, blah, blah. i really only need to re-paint ,hood, and top . i am almost leaning towards paint "bombs"(if that's the correct word) from like Napa. embarrasingly enough, i have taken a auto body class at a junior college, but that was before all the latest modern paints(yeah i'm old). or should i use my past experiance, buy the hvlp gun, and moisture control, and go at it, of couse not expecting the perfect(garage)paint job? both my Jeep and my car need some paint, they want a thousand bucks(minimum) just for the top half of the car for example! anybody had good or bad luck either way? i'm really lookin for a paint job good enough so that the average person doesn't say Holy Crap, who painted this thing!!! i know this is a very subjective question, but any input on modern paint would be appreciated.

i personaly would go for the HVLP setup and the garage and go for it, with enough prep work and a good seal of the garage with a de humidifier, the worst thing that can happen is the car needs a little color sanding and buff job and the best you can do will be to have your friends and family ask you to do theirs ( or is that the other way around? LOL...LOL) just remember the key is PREP, PREP, PREP

Personally, if you don't shoot much and have the experience, the hvlp gun will be a lot tougher to get a good finish with. For the beginner, a gravity fed high pressure gun is hard to beat. Surprisingly enough, I bought a $15 HF gun to shoot primer and it sprays better than my expensive DeVilbiss or Binks, go figure.

I'll agree with old man on the hvlp gun, they're alot harder to get the hang of than conventional guns. I think base/clear is alot easier for some one without experience than a straight color especially metalic colors. When spaying base all you got to worry about is getting it covered and the metalic even, then when you clear it you just got to be concerned with getting it slick and shiny. If your spraying straight color you have all of this to be concerned with at one time which can lead to a more difficult job.

thanks for the input guys. any skills i learned 25 years ago(using old gravity feed) seemed to have evaporated compared to todays paint needs. both types of spray guns can be had fairly cheap so maybe i'll start with some practice metal and see what happens.

scott w said:

thanks for the input guys. any skills i learned 25 years ago(using old gravity feed) seemed to have evaporated compared to todays paint needs. both types of spray guns can be had fairly cheap so maybe i'll start with some practice metal and see what happens.

Click to expand...

I´ve been doing some spraying lately with Acrylic and also base coat/clear coat. I´ve sprayed the Acrylic in the past, but the base and clear is new for me.
No major problems, pretty much straight forward technique. I used a small job gun, that´s actually pretty primative, with a full gun tip, suction feed.
I could have done a better job with my gravity feed.
After spraying the primer with the same gun, I lowered the air pressure, a little below the manufactires recommendations. Think it is Dupont, MS MB series paint, in another wrapper.
Only one small flaw in my paint job: I hestiated or an instant, always keep the gun moving.
If you have small compressor, you can mix your paint to a truck painting mix, which is basically just less hardner or more thinner, when you have to wait a for the compressor to refill, the chances of the paint tacking are minimul (especially if the air temp. is not too high).
I´ve had pretty good luck with painting, in a rather large parking area, wetting down a rather large circle and spraying at dawn (when there are fewer bugs). Works for me.