Poor man's paint job.

[murphmobile2]

"The Poor Man's Paint Job." I figured it was about time to post this on here. Could be useful for some on the site. It's very interesting none the less.

One of the long-time members (and moderators) for the Beretta forum painted his 1989 Euro GTU this way, and the results are amazing. As you can probably tell, he's the one that has done this write up. I even posted below a photo of his car after the paint job, but many more photos are shown with the write up.

Enjoy!

http://www.stylusscustoms.com/poormanspaintjob.html

[Grand Marquis GT]

Ah yes, another success story

[trwp72]

This is basically an old fashion enamel paint job... If you did the same thing and used a spray gun, (Even an airless type for home improvement stuff) It would come out even better! The car he painted looked pretty good when he got done. I had a friend of mine in high school paint a car in his driveway, using a spray gun set up that was run off of a cannister style vacum cleaner... (The hose plugged in to the exhaust on the vacum ) The only problem with the paint job is he had bright red oversparay all over the driveway / grass in the yard... his father almost killed him! (I left quickly when his father started screaming and yelling!... He is now my supervisor at work... we still laugh about that paint job!) The car came out very nice tho... (64 Chevy Four door) I painted my 58 Chevy in my driveway, but used ground cloths... No overspary... Only difference in this paint job and the one that me and my friend did, was we bought the paint from the automotive paint supply store, back when they still sold enamel automotive paint. My total paint job back then, with everything... (I borrowed a friends compressor and spray gun) Was $35.00 if I rmember right.

[TomO]

This is really interesting. Thanks very much for posting it.

The main article and the "$50 Paint Job" article linked to this article didn't say anything about using metallic paint. I was wondering if anybody knows if there are special considerations for doing metallic paint this way. I would imagine that you would have to be consciensious of keeping the paint stirred to keep the metallic particles evenly dispersed in the paint so you would get even application. But maybe not. I don't really know much at all about paint or painting.

Is there anything else to worry about when using metallics, or is it even advisable?

Also, what about clear-coating? Neither of the articles mentioned anything about clear-coating. I would think putting a clear coat on would increase the shine and protect the paint. But what type of clear coat would you use?

[RunUoveR]

i really love reading the sucess stories

but keep in mind, if you ever want to do a "real" paint job your going to need to completly remove the rustoleum, unless you want tons of fish-eye

and as far as i know rustoleum doesnt make any metallic paints

[GoodSamaritan]

Actually, they do make copper, aluminum, and gold colors. While any one of those would look strange by itself, I wonder if mixing a bit of their aluminum stuff into a dark primary color would give it a metallic look.

[TomO]

Good points.

Since my last post I went to both the mopar site (the site with the original thread about this that started in 2006 and is still going on, and which is way over 100 pages long!) and the Rustoleum site.

Anyhow, in the mopar or moparts (whatever it is) thread, the subject of using boat topside urethane paint has come up as an alternative to using the rustoleum enamel. I don't remember the name of the company that makes the urethane boat paint, but it's not rustoleum.

I noticed on the rustoleum site that they actually make a paint that seems similar as far as I can tell, to this boat paint. From what I remember, this rustoleum paint is boat paint and it is urethane.

The thread is so incredibly long that it's almost impossible to read in one day. So I haven't figured out what the differences or pro and cons are with respect to using the professional rustoleum enamel or the urethane boat paint. I wish somebody would summarize things in an easy to understand way.

Anyhow, it's really interesting. I'm thinking of doing a slick top conversion now to my '89 GM because of this.

[TomO]

Actually, they do make copper, aluminum, and gold colors. While any one of those would look strange by itself, I wonder if mixing a bit of their aluminum stuff into a dark primary color would give it a metallic look.

What I had in mind was using some custom mixed paint to do a slick-top conversion to my '89 GM, because the vinyl top is in poor condition.

In my town, NAPA has a paint shop that will custom mix small batches of paint for you. So, what I was thinking is that I could get a small batch of paint mixed up to match the front roof color (a sort of metallic pewter/silver) and use it to paint the back half with this rollering/sanding paint technique described in the links. I called a small shop and they said even if I was to do all the body work and masking it would be about $400 just to paint that part under the top. That's getting close to the entire value of my car So, I'm not too hip to that. But, I figure if I could do it myself for the cost of a pint of paint, it would be worth the effort.

The main thing I'm not sure about is what type of paint I will get from NAPA and whether you can use this technique to apply it. From what little I know, it seems like you could use it on just about any type of paint that is sandable and buffable. Maybe not epoxy, but I'm sure not going to try using epoxy paint.

Now, I need to figure out how to remove the window trim pieces and the trim piece that goes across the roof in front of the vinyl.

Is there a writeup or other info on this board about how to do that?

I will gladly welcome any input and suggestions you might want to give me.

[murphmobile2]

Oh yea, no clear coat needed lol.