how to make new paint match old paint on a car

Hey! What’s goin’ on!

Here’s Part 4 of the LearnAutoBodyAndPaint – How To Paint A Car Q&A series that we’ve been doing for quite a few episodes now.

Remember how I came up with several pages of questions from my subscribers? So now, we’re on to the last page and I’ll answer two burning questions from you guys today.

I’ll make a video asking you guys to write your comments and ask more questions later on. That way we can keep doing this. I noticed that a lot of you really enjoy these Q&A’s. Thank you!

So let’s get right to this. The first question is from Gary…

Hi Tony, My question is, when you repair and paint a fender, a door, a hood, or any body part, how do you match the new paint shade to what is already on the vehicle? Meaning the previous paint has some fade to it. Thank you. Gary Lockhart

Okay, this is a common question and issue that every auto body guy probably goes through.

Let’s say you have a 1990 Honda Accord that you’re working on – an older car, has 20 years of paint on it, and the paint is not bad but it’s faded-looking. What if you just repainted the hood because maybe, you just had a front collision. So the hood was replaced and painted. Now, you have a beautiful-looking hood. But what if, you didn’t want to spend more money on painting the rest of the hood or the whole car? Basically, you only decided to paint that single panel…

This is what Gary is asking, how to make new paint match old paint on a car.

When you have a nicely-painted fender or hood or whatever body part, and it looks really good compared to the rest of the body panels…the only thing you could really do is, give it a great buff job.

You don’t want to do your buffing before the paint job because of chemical reaction. You will have compound all over the place and it may get on your new panel, etc. If you take the hood off the car and you do the paint job, it’s not a problem. You have your fender off of it and you do the buff job, then you put it back on.

But if you leave the panels on the car, paint your panel first and then do your buffing job. Not the other way around – buffing first and then mask it up and paint it. That’s what I’m saying. But if you’re doing it separate – off the car, don’t worry about the compound and stuff getting on the body panels.

That’s what you need to do. Basically, just buff out your body panels and pretty much, you can get a nice gloss out of it. You really don’t have to color-sand and buff because a really old paint job is just mostly faded out. Hopefully it’s not as bad to where the clear coat is flaking off and just really faded out.

All you have to do is – wash it down well, get some good compound like the AutoMagic compound that I’m using, and just buff it out. Buff it out until it gets glossy because it will get glossy.

I actually cover these steps in the VIP Course . So if you want to see the step by step videos on all these kinds of examples, Join the LearnAutoBodyAndPaint VIP now!

That’s basically what you do. My father always said, “You can’t make new paint look like old paint”, you know, so just remember that. You can’t really make a new paint job faded-looking to match the old paint job. But, you could try to bring back the old paint job by buffing it out to look better so it matches. That’s what we usually do, paint the panel and buff out the rest of the car.

Next question is from Steve…

Tony, my question is about thinners and reducers. What are the best thinners to use for regular paints, enamels, clear coats etc.? This includes their mixing ratios and also for primers. You are so good at clearing things up and putting out the REAL answers. I really enjoy it. Thank you, Steve

There is no all-around reducer for everything. Sometimes they recommend that you use a certain kind of reducer for primers and another kind for base coats and clear coats. So it really depends. But, I know for a fact that for base coat and clear coat, if you must stick to just one brand – I prefer Omni. It’s PPG’s value line products. It works with Omni base coats/clear coats and the PPG base coats/clear coats. You can mix it with any of those.

With Dupont’s Nason, you can take the base maker and use it for Dupont Nason paints, both base coats and clear coats.

For primers, I also use Omni. Usually, the mixing ratio for reducers and primers is not indicated in the can but you can reduce it. If it’s thick, use the reducer and it will not hurt it, 10%-15% should be fine.

With 2K primers, it’s usually a 3:1 or 4:1 mixture, depending on what paint brand you’re using.

If you’re using a 1.4mm tip size spray gun to do overall car painting, since primer is thicker than regular paints, you’re better off using a bigger tip size like 1.7mm-1.8mm. That way, it’s easier to spray the thicker material out of your spray gun.

What I usually do if I’m using a regular 1.4 tip size myself is, reduce my primer down 10%-15%. When you’re done spraying the primer on, make sure to clean the gun really well and you should be good to spray on your base coat and clear coat with the same 1.4 tip size. Pretty neat.

I hope you like this quick Q&A session. If you have any more questions and comments, I’ll make more videos like this so go ahead and put them all in the comments section below. I’ll try to get to them one by one.

Don’t forget your FREE 85-Page Auto Body And Paint Manual. It took me 3 months to write it. It’s full of jam-packed content and I know you’ll really really like it.

And we’re also giving away a FREE 90-Minute Auto Body And Paint DVD. There’s tons of information in it. Just help me with the shipping fee and tell us where to send it.

Make sure to Like, Share this video and Subscribe for more!

Cheers!

-Tony

How To Make New Paint Match Old Paint On A Car – How To Paint A Car Q&A Part 4

1 thought on “How To Make New Paint Match Old Paint On A Car – How To Paint A Car Q&A Part 4”

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Welcome To LABAP!