Paint Along with Nancy!

[Joloke]

Slap it on with a Trowel

Perfick

[vulgalour]

Have done it, got reasonable results.  The key is in the prep and the application.  Get the surface the very best you can before even going near it with paint.  Implamel is a good synthetic enamel, affordable and brush-paintable.  I used it to paint my Polo black and red, it used to be navy blue.

 

 

 

I also roller-painted the rear wing on the Princess with cellulose.  Trouble there was I hadn't twigged it was also a cellulose foam roller, so it melted as I applied and made a right old mess.  But with some patience and effort it all got flatted back and polished to a far better finish than it had any right to have.

 

 

Takes a long time but if you buy enough to do the whole car you don't have to do it all in one go, you can do it a panel at a time. For the Polo, anything I could remove I did and did those bits in the house, but the roof and most of the bodyshell was done outdoors.  The Princess I had the luxury of a garage.

 

Recently, I've taken to using Rustoleum spray paint which appears to be fairly tough and gives a great finish very easily.  It's cost effective for me because I can do the car a little bit at a time and easy to get hold of.  Cheaper and better coverage than the Halfords' alternative and comes in a fairly wide range of colours.  Time will tell if it's up to the job of daily use, but I see no reason why not.  Modern paints are all much of a muchness now, it's the prep and finishing that makes the difference.

 

That rear quarter I did purple got repainted beige because I got bored of people nagging me about it and is now gradually going back to purple again.

 

Be warned though, some brush on synthetic enamels aren't fantastic.  I bought some green for the Renault and I'm having a right job getting the consistency and drying times right with it resulting in a streaky finish when brush painted and a bobbly one when rollered.  I'll get it right eventually.

[twosmoke300]

FOAD - your up !

[purplebargeken]

The finish on the Beetle looks pretty bloody good. I've never been in the situation where a full change of colour/respray was in order. Well, that's not quite right, it's just that I had a massive CBA.

 

Rustoleum looks to be the way forward, colour range is quite impressive too.

[billyboy406v6]

I used a small sponge roller and matt black paint for the bonnet on the 406 coupe, it is slightly textured but that was what I was expecting and looks really good. Good prep is very important.

[Fat_Pirate]

I painted my CBR600 with Tekaloid last year:

 

 

Took me all of 45 mins!  It had been crashed, so all of the panels are glued together like a smashed vase and it was never going to be very pretty.  As already mentioned, preparation is key and thinning the paint is probably important (I didn't do that).  I did the same with a Mini about 15 years ago.  I recommend it if you want a quick cheap fix for a solid but largely worthless vehicle - the MX5 behind it could be getting similar treatment this summer.

[fatharris]

Not me, but a friend painted his new Pinin last week, drove it in the club in the morning and drove it out in the new colour in the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

As for prep work, bits were removed and the body was lightly sanded and the paint rollered on with a small foam roller, and door shuts brush painted.

[castros_bro]

I've hand painted this (after pic)

 

 

and this (before pic)

 

 

and smaller stuff down to moped panels using coach paint some by brush and some by roller. Prep is all important so is the juggle between the weather, temperature, humidity, thinning and drying time especially when painting outside. Etch prime any aluminium before using compatible coach paint. The coach was painted over a weekend, when it had stopped snowing, in a public car park in Kent.   I have Hammerited a Ford light blue "tool box" colour using a Burgess electric spray gun which needs to be done all at once as the old Hammerite  doesn't "cut" in and it ended up looking "interesting".

[colino]

I suspect Parsons Repaint is no longer available. a)  few people would go to the trouble of hand painting a car nowadays and It actually worked.

I hand painted a Simca 1100 changing it from manky, rusty metallic blue to bright surf(?) blue in a day a very long time ago.  It looked great and the finish was tougher and better than the factory rubbish.

[scruff]

It's pretty common in old Landy circles though results can vary wildly.

 

I have painted a couple in the past. Always used HMG enamel paint, Teckaloid or more recently Craftmaster - which is ok but a bit dear.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I painted both an oval window Beetle (!) and a Mark 1 Mini (!!) in non drip gloss. Good prep, a clean dry environment and no dust are essential. It takes forever to dry to I hung an old bed sheet (pre dampened) over the car. I have to say it looked good in both cases as NDG flows out to a nice finish. use a good brush as well and a roller for big areas.

[derskine]

A couple...
 

 

 

[DVee8]

When i worked as a paint mixer,for GKN using PPG paint.two pack was the best,celly the mid range and Speed Coat,now called SpeedHide? was the lower end/cheap paint mainly used for truck and busses.

 

The depo had a couple of contracts 1 for 50 or so ltrs of yellow every couple of weeks for a local bus company.Another for ford diamond white for a local taxi company,i had gone out a few times to look at differend shades of diamond white,and looked at some really good hand jobs.

[djimbob]

I think I'll be doing this on my old smiley face transit, which I'm converting to a motorhome, and I fancy the Nato green. I have rollered old hippy buses before, using whatever was to hand - they looked ok I suppose, but for a nice job probably someone with more patience than me would be the person to ask

 

I have a small aldi compressor and spray gun, will give that a go hopefully if it all works

[UltraWomble]

Ive had a hand job in a car, does that count?

 

Painted the roof of the mini in enamel white- looked OK from a few feet away, looked shit close up, but then so did the car.

[Asimo]

Brush painted a couple of vans with household gloss paint and a minimum of prep. Paint outlasted the vehicles and looked fine from 10 yards.

 

When Dad's '52 beetle burned out around the engine we rubbed the whole thing down with wire wool. All the paint had burned away up to and behind the glass line. With no other prep and no undercoat we painted it yellow with Woolworths gloss paint. He drove it for about five years after that and then it sat for another five years at the bottom of the garden. When it eventually went for scrap the paint was very faded but nowhere showed significant rust coming through that yellow gloss.

[xtriple]

Brush painted a mk2 Cortina 1500GT estate with flared arches and carlos wheels in that really bright acid green that Ford did. Parsons re-paint and it came out superbly and I did NO prep, didn't even wash the bugger!

[oldcars]

I painted the front of the caravan. Steve Wonder could have made a better job. As the good lady said "that looks nice" 

[saucedoctor]

Brush painted a mate's Avenger 1300 when I was a teenager. We used coach paint, it looked OK.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Landies and agricultural vehicles should be hand painted.

Proper 4x4s should be rollered.

Shite cars should be rollered if its next owner is likely to be the scrapman.

Everything else should be painted with a cheap airarsehole at the very least. Painting with a gun or airarsehole is not ridiculously difficult or expensive if you do it yourself. I sprayed a couple of cars in my late teens and was self taught. They looked reasonably amateur after I'd finished, but I blasted a few coats on, and they flatted off a treat.

[strangeangel]

I once painted a Renault 5 Le Car 2 with black Smoothrite. more out of desperation than anything. It was three different colours and the lacquer on the original paint was coming off everywhere. The Smoothrite was years old and gloopy, and started drying as I brushed it on. I have no pictures of it because it looked even worse than before I started.

 

On a more positive note I sprayed my old Renault Master using coach enamel and a HVLP sprayer and I was much happier with how that turned out.

 

 

 

 

I have rollered old hippy buses before, using whatever was to hand - they looked ok I suppose

 

That Dodge 50 looked loads better after we'd had at it with the roller, I think I still have pics somewhere!

[DodgyBastard]

I've done a few, they all looked shit.

 

Proton mpi gls by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_0387 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_1200 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSCF7602 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Lada Niva Hussar 1.7i by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_5050 by srblythe, on Flickr

[andrew e]

1. £shop Scotch pad everything including shuts and under bonnet lip

2. Quick damp thinners soaked rag over whole car

3. Good quality masking tape, lights off, electrical cable or string under door and glass rubbers (to make proud of body) newspaper or brown paper glass.

4. Cheapest spray primer dusted every where all over generously. Park miles from any other cars or households, drive round the corner if you have too.

5. Cut in shuts, under bonnet lips, under rubbers, wheel arch lips etc with good quality "no-loss" Harris inch brush (£5) in colour of choice

6. £shop mini foam roller entire car in colour of choice, brush out any runs within half hour

7. Leave to dry and harden

8. Few days later wet and dry panel by panel, Halfords sell fair quality wet dry that doesn't tear to bits

 

For paint, I'm not taking the piss here but Dulux. It's as good as anything else specialist and you get the whole colour wheel to order. But however you hand paint, PRIME PRIME PRIME.

[andrew e]

I will add painting wheels - old plant hire trick:

 

1. Clean dirt off steel wheel, sandpaper loose rusty paint

2. Swarfega ALL over tyre, rub excess Swarfega off metal rim.

3. (Optional) Dust with primer

4. Spray with colour of choice.

5. Return following day and rinse Swarfega off (tyre will come up lovely too).

 

No masking tape death or overspray.

[Inspector Morose]

Washing up liquid/white spirit mix used to work okay too.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Or a set of playing cards. Very effective when I did it.

[Des]

 

^^ Roulette wheel if Autoshite did Casinos.

Imagine a world where hand jobs became a fruity little fad rather than nitromors and pineapples, all those VWs could have been spared the bridge, need to be careful what I wish for.

We're in the future now and vinyl seems a viable option, there's sticky backed plastic in the poundshops and summer's coming.

[Ronnie L]

I first hand-painted a car in 1974, using Parson's Re-paint. The result was not bad. Since then I've painted a lot of cars and other vehicles and I've almost always chosen to spray them, using cellulose or synthetic enamel. Under certain circumstances I would still consider hand-painting a car, however I would always:

• Do thorough prep
• Use a primer suitable for your top coat(s)
• Use a set of top-quality brushes (worth every penny)
• Make sure you know how to use them - keeping a wet edge at all times and carefully 'laying-off' the paint on each panel with strokes at right angles to each-other. Also essential is that you put on enough paint to allow it to flow into a nice even coat but not too much, which will result in runs, especially on vertical panels.
• If you can't use a brush properly (no runs and no visible brush strokes), use a roller, but the finish will almost always look like it's been rollered. Try to avoid the types of rollers you get at B&Q / DIY shops - you can get better quality rollers intended for coach-work on commercials.
• Use a top quality enamel if you want a nice finish. NEVER try brushing a car body with cellulose or Smoothrite as they dry far too quickly to allow you to brush-out to a nice smooth finish. My preference is always to use a top quality yacht enamel such as International Toplac. It's around £25 for 750ml which is way above shitters normal price range but if you want a smooth finish it will be the easiest to use.

 

To sum-up, the sort of finish you will achieve will depend upon the quality of brushes and paint and YOUR SKILL WITH A BRUSH. It's NOT like painting your lounge. One disadvantage of using gloss enamel paints (and the main reason that I rarely hand-paint car panels) is the very slow drying time. Even in warm summer weather it will take hours to dry and during that time every fly, moth and piece of dust in the neighbourhood will stick to it, even if you're working under cover. And it's much more difficult to get rid of this crud because, unlike cellulose, oil-based enamel paints are tough and don't buff-down easily when dry in order to get rid of imperfections.

 

Hope this helps.

 

However, if your car looks really shit and you want to make it look bett,er then even a rough(ish) hand paint job might be better than nothing.

[stuboy]

gloss rollered a tranny

[noseypoke]

ERR.What's the deal ere Mate?? cool idea............picka card...any card