It’s Tony from LearnAutoBodyAndPaint. Today’s blog is entitled, Discover Auto Body Preparation Tactics.
Auto body surface preparation really is your first vital step.
The bottom line, the foundation, for everything else that follows in your car painting project.
If you don’t get this first step completed correctly, everything you do thereafter is a waste of time. No amount of paint or clear coat will cover up the errors and remaining imperfections on the surface that you have provided as the basis of the re-painting process.
So the first thing you must do is prepare yourself to be patient and thorough in preparing a perfect foundation for your do-it-yourself paint job.
Professional painters spend 95% of their efforts and time in a car-painting job on surface preparation. That alone ought to tell you, clearly and simply, where you must really focus your best efforts and put in the hours. Applying coats of paint and clear coats are simple and fast. But preparing the surface of your car for these paint applications is the single most important aspect of painting your own car.
Auto painting consists of a series of tasks, which must be carefully and thoroughly completed or all your efforts will fail. If you perform these tasks carefully and completely, these stages will all add up to a super paint job on your vehicle, a paint job that has a professional quality to it and defies amateurs to tell the difference. The paint will adhere to the surface tightly and the paint job will last for years to come.
So it is critical to remember that sub-standard workmanship in any phase will spell ruin for the overall paint job. You must be certain you finish to perfection every phase of the painting process as well as you possibly can. If you do in fact mess up on a stage, and most people do, just go back and do it again until you get it right.
Sanding, the key task for auto body preparation for repainting, requires you begin with a fairly rough grit (320) and proceed to the finest grit necessary to create a perfectly smooth and flawless surface. Be sure to thoroughly dust and clean the surface as you graduate from one grit to the next. You will then ensure that you are not creating additional problems for yourself by making new scratches as you use ever-finer sandpaper grit.
Once the sanding is complete, clean the entire surface very carefully, making sure all dust, stray sand and debris have been completely removed. You are then ready to get going with the faster-moving stages of painting your car or bike: paint and clear coat applications.
Don’t be tempted to hurry through any of the phases involved, but bear in mind that you’re aiming for a great looking, professional paint job, one you will be happy with and that will last for many, many years!
Good luck! for more information check out the learnautobodyandpaint.com VIP membership course.
Enjoy, and to your custom project painting success!
Thanks for reading this blog entitled Discover Auto Body Preparation Tactics. Please don’t forget to grab your FREE 85-Page Auto Body And Paint Manual to start working on your own car projects!
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hi tony,my car is base and clear,i am going to paint can i sand down then wash and base coat and clear.what i am saying is do i have to prime ucoat before base as base is matt.there is no filler on car thanks terry.
NO, you don’t have to prime. You can base right over the sanded clear coat. It also depends on your colors that you’ll be painting. 🙂
my 88 mazda paint is in bad shape, pealing, cracking, and some rust should i sand all the way down to the metal?
You can just feather the cracks and pealing paint, then primer over it.
Hey Tony,
I have a 78 El Camino that I want to paint so I have been wet sanding the clear coat panel by panel every few days. I have run into a few issues though. I have these small nicks where the paint was knocked off and there is some yellowish metal build up and sometimes it will be a black color. I don’t know if they are rust because of the color not being that orange rust color. Also on my hood and roof I had similar small nicks that had more of an orange rust color in them. For these I sanded down to the bare metal about 6 inches from the center of the nick and found that all the metal in that area has these dark black veiny marks. I have a feeling these marks are all over my hood and roof. Do these marks sound like they are rust? What do you recommend?
Thanks
Tyler
It’s hard without seeing this… If you were a VIP member I’de say shoot a video, send to to me and I would reply with my best solution. For now, Maybe sand the entire panel down to the metal and lay 2 coats of epoxy primer on it followed by wet sanding to prep for paint…
Hoep that helps!
Tony
hi tony im looking into painting my acura integra da what do i need to paint it as of paint, paint thinner ect. kind of new to this-peter
hey Peter,
Take a look at our step-by-step training club here: https://www.learnautobodyandpaint.com/vip It’s where thousands have joined us to take their learnings to a new level. You may see the huge value that we have to offer you. You’ll see exactly how to complete your project, and what steps to take. It’s like us holding your hand through the whole process so you come out with an Awesome PRO looking glossy paint job.