Prepping your car for primer and paint is a very important step in the auto painting process; Here are a few tips on the process of preparing your vehicle prior to getting it primed or painted including making sure it’s clean top-down. Taking care of these small details now can make all the difference between a smooth paint job and one that ends up with pinholes and orange peel. Don’t forget to sign-up for to Learn Auto Body and Paint FREE COURSE for the step-by-step autobody work/process of “The G.O.O.D. Van Project”. Please also LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to my YT channel for new videos coming out.
QUESTION: What’s the best way to prep and paint a pre-primed factory bumper?
So if it’s pre-primed, you should be ready to go. I would just wash it off with a good degreaser first. You could use dish soap and wash it off really well. Then you can dry sand it with 400 or wet sanded with 400 grit depending on the primer that they put on. If it seems like it’s thick and you have some room to work with, then you could just scuff it with 400 and just paint it a base coat, clear coat, or single stage.
But if you feel like you want to add a little bit more primer, you can add some 2k filler primer to that, two coats, give or take. Sand it down flat with 400 grit and then you should be good to go.
QUESTION: What’s a good clear to use over a single stage?
You could use any Urethane clear coat. So it doesn’t matter what kind of clear coat you could use any clear coat just make sure it’s a year urethane clear coat. You could use a cheaper brand and a more expensive brand,
QUESTION: Have you ever actually sprayed with the X27 LVLP gun? I tried it this weekend and was playing with pressures for basecoat.
Absolutely. The X27 and X88 spray guns are the only guns that I use, and I paint with them all the time. We did the GOOD Van project with the X27 and we also did it with a two-tone. I did the black with the Atom X88 and the white we did with the Atom X27.
Those actual paint videos are going to be coming out soon. I’m in the middle of creating the bodywork content right now. So you wax and grease it, I would wash it down first though with dish soap like “DAWN” or “Palm Oil”, then sand and wax it. You could wax and grease it then sand it or washing would be enough. I don’t think you’ve got a wax and grease after washing it with degreaser, but it’s up to you.
So when spraying base coat you could spray anywhere from 18 to 25 PSI. You’re gonna get lower atomization but it depends sometimes if your paint is reduced down you don’t have to up your pressure that much. I would stick with the 22 to 24 for the base coat, you go a little bit higher coz 17 is a little on the low side. I noticed with the AtomX 88, you can spray base coat with a little lower like 17-18 and it still comes out really nice. For the Atom X27, I would go 23,24-25 PSI when spraying base coat, you go a little bit more.
QUESTION: What grit does the 1k primer fill?
The 1k primer fills the least. You could spray it on and you wash it with was and grease remover it’s going to come right off so I don’t recommend 1k primer filler at all. But if that’s what you only got then do it. However, if you’re going to do any type of filling, use a good 2k filler primer.
QUESTION: Do you have to put primer over a glazing putty?
Always, you never really want to paint over glaze putty unless you don’t care and just paint over. But I painted over glaze putty on quick flip jobs and all that. Sometimes if you’re painting over glaze putty on and you’re doing like a white, it’s the easiest color for bleed through. So just be careful of white other than that, I wouldn’t recommend painting over putty. Just get a quick primer.
🔗FOR MORE HELPFUL LINKS🔗
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Primer, Base/Clear Spray Gun, Sand to Bare Metal or Not? Causes of Orange Peel? | More Autobody Q&A
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$25 Spray Gun VS Mid Grade $150 Spray Gun – Spraying 2k Filler Primer + Golden Paint Tips!
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