Re-Spraying a Car at home.

[wculbert]

Hi,
I have a Rochdale GT, it is currently bright yellow and did a previous owner paint brush with Valspar in about 1997.

I was thinking about repainting it over the winter.

I would either use enamel like Techaloid coach enamel with a thinner and spray it on or use a protection coat and use cellulose paint.

Could one just sand it down a bit and spray over it again with out priming it again?

Is it easy to do it in your own garage?
Would a £100 compressor and gun surface?

Can you still get Valspar?

Anyone any ideas?
Thanks William

[lanciachris]

If its already brush painted, youre in trouble any further painting will look awful with the existing brush marks. You would have to strip off the existing paint with thinners first.

Spraying can be done, with difficulty at home, supplies are cheap. Be warned that whilst 'just sand it down and a bit of masking' sounds easy, its a bit more time consuming than you might imagine

Invest in a leccy sander, a LOT of sandpaper (i went to 1200).

I would suggest doing the prep at home and having someone else just lay the paint on.

[IOLAIRE]

wculbert said:

Hi, I have a Rochdale GT, it is currently bright yellow and did a previous owner paint brush with Valspar in about 1997. I was thinking about repainting it over the winter. I would either use enamel like Techaloid coach enamel with a thinner and spray it on or use a protection coat and use cellulose paint. Could one just sand it down a bit and spray over it again with out priming it again? Is it easy to do it in your own garage? Would a £100 compressor and gun surface? Can you still get Valspar? Anyone any ideas? Thanks William

Hi William,
Valspar huh? That's a name I've not heard in a long time!
You have two main problems here; the first is that your car is fibreglass, therefore using a chemical remover is out of the question unless you want a real mess on your hands. The second is that the paint is an old fashioned oil based enamel and will almost definitely react with cellulose. Even if you use an isolator there is still an element of risk there that it will react over time.
I think your way out, particularly if you're thinking about buying a compressor is to also purchase a D A sander, which has velcro attached discs and will very rapidly smooth the surface of the old enamel without having to remove it.
I would then apply a fine coat of an inert primer filler, hand flat that wet, and then colour the vehicle with commercial quality two pack, which you can spray on almost anything.
The beauty about modern two packs is you can flat them with 1200 or 1500 wet paper and then polish them with Farecla or a similar compound using a buff, you can hire one of these if you don't want to buy it.
You will get a finish like a Rolls Royce if you do this properly; the keyword is patience.
If you don't feel confident about applying the paint, see if you can find a painter who will come to your place and apply it after you've done the preparation.
Visit your local Spraystore or similar and they'll keep you right with the materials.
Best of luck!!

[Pigeon]

IOLAIRE said:

then colour the vehicle with commercial quality two pack, which you can spray on almost anything.

Be warned that (unless they've changed the formulation) two-pack is toxic and you'll need a pressure-fed mask.

[IOLAIRE]

Pigeon said:

IOLAIRE said: then colour the vehicle with commercial quality two pack, which you can spray on almost anything. Be warned that (unless they've changed the formulation) two-pack is toxic and you'll need a pressure-fed mask.

Yeah, you're absolutely right Pigeon. I should have mentioned that.
I don't think you should expose your lungs to any sort of paint vapours anyway, it's just not worth the risk.

[Incorrigible]

The iso-cyanate in modern 2 pack is bloody dangerous, the effects are cumalative and permanent

However as you're not doing this professionally, a good quality canister mask + good ventilation should be adequate

One thing to note though is that you can get very bad paint reactions from any sort of Oil or slilicon with 2 pack. I would certainly want to remove all traces of any oil based paint

[IOLAIRE]

Incorrigible said:

The iso-cyanate in modern 2 pack is bloody dangerous, the effects are cumalative and permanent However as you're not doing this professionally, a good quality canister mask + good ventilation should be adequate One thing to note though is that you can get very bad paint reactions from any sort of Oil or slilicon with 2 pack. I would certainly want to remove all traces of any oil based paint

An acrylic synthetic commercial enamel contains no cellulose and will not react with oil based paints.
It would be an enormous task to remove the paint because the car is fibreglass.

[matt_t16]

Incorrigible said:

The iso-cyanate in modern 2 pack is bloody dangerous, the effects are cumalative and permanent

Yep bloody nasty stuff, after I painted the Saab I woke up feeling rather rough the next day and was sneezing black "snot" for about a week.

On a side point that was 18months ago and I've still not flatted the rear quaters down....

[Buffalo]

Also 2 pack won't bind to cellulose (or is it the other way around?) so you'd have to sand it right back if you are to change types.

I helped a friend respray his MGBin his garage. Biggest problem we had was cold/damp affecting how the paint held to the metal - despite heat and de-humidifier use. We tried it Jan- Mar, but inthe end had to give up. Come april-may it worked a lot better and we got ok results.

Personally i would do it slightly different to him. He tended to spray the car in one go. I would mask alternate panels and spray those one panel at a time. Other wise you get too eager and tend to go back over places and lose your place etc. Also do as many panels off the car as you can.

Lastly the worst thing in home garage is dust and also why i think its better to do one panel at a time as you produce less at each time rather than doing whole car at once. When my car was (professionally) resprayed i was vacuming green dust from teh spray out of it for weeks! When we finished my mates car, everything in the garage was covered in a very fine dust layer.

Oh and although 2 pack had nasties in it, cellulose is just as nasty and you should not be doing any spraying without a corrct mask with proper filters. Check out what your local body shop uses....

[nick_f]

Two pack will stick to anything, even mud if your preparation is as lazy as mine.

Personally I'd be inclined to get a professional quote for the final flat and the painting itself and just think in terms of the stripping and preparation DIY.

A good bodyshop will advise on how far back you should strip and agree the condition in which you will deliver the car to them in advance.

The costs will not be astronomical, and tackling a complete, fibreglass car with heaven only knows what painted onto it by previous owners is a challenge for a pro, never mind as a first time DIY job - odds are that the results will not do justice to the time and effort you put in.

Nick.

Edited to add that it looks pretty good in the pics, nice colour too: are you sure you couldn't get 95% of the result with bu66er all expenditure and a lot of cutting and polishing?

>> Edited by nick_f on Thursday 4th November 15:29

>> Edited by nick_f on Friday 5th November 13:25