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How To Paint Your Car From Home On Budget!
Anyone with a little commonsense and the ability to follow a few directions can paint a car at home and save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
With the new spray paint guns, paints and related products on the market today, it hardly makes sense to leave the job of painting your car to a so-called professional who won’t do any better a job than you can do yourself.
All you need to bring to the task are a certain amount of patience, elbow grease, a spray gun, a compressor, solvent, sand paper and some hand tools to get it done. No special paint booth or facility is necessary, either. You can paint your car in your own garage or carport and get great results.
The whole job of painting your car will only take a day or two and the entire process involves just a few simple steps:
1 Choosing the location in which to paint your car (away from sun, wind, rain).
2 Assembling your paint gun, paint material, sand papers and tools.
3 Washing the car and removing all wax and grease.
4 Repairing scratches dents and dings.
5 Proper sanding.
6 Masking.
7 Paint and clear coat application. What ever paint you decide based on your personal budget
For best results plan on doing the whole car as one single painting process, rather than painting it in parts or segments.
You will get a smoother, more seamless appearance, which means a more professional look to your paint job. The average car painting job requires at least 2 coats each of paint and clear coat. The actual painting of all of the coats should only take about an hour and a half, and no more than a few hours.
Two areas people find rather boring and tiresome and want to race through are sanding and masking. Take plenty of time to mask well all of the areas you don’t want painted or you’ll wind up with a slip-shod job you’ll regret. Spray paint is airborne, remember, and will mist out beyond the areas you actually intend to paint.
When you sand the body, go slowly, and inspect your work progress carefully, running the palm of your hand evenly over the entire surface of the car. You want to aim for a perfectly smooth sanding job with no uneven areas or scratches/pits on the car’s surfaces.
This is vitally important, because the new paint will make any surface imperfections even more evident than they were before the new paint was applied. So take your time and sand everything until all of the surfaces are perfectly smooth to the touch and flawless looking to close visual inspection.
You can further drive costs down in painting your car if you rent rather than buy a spray gun (though you can buy a great paint gun for around $100)
One of the best things about painting your own car is the bragging rights that come with it. Your friends and family will think you’re a genius and be impressed at the quality of your work and by all of the money you’ve saved!
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All the best!
Tony
How to select the right air compressor. Mine is a small c3hp craftsman 4 gallon @ 5.5scfm @90 and 7.9 @40. Did a “learner hood” and it couldn’t keep up. Terrible looking hood. Time to re-sand and do again. I have a cheap hvlp I bought at harbor freight too. What do I do? I think equipment is my problem.
Yes. Look on craigslist for a used compressor. You just need more air man…
I think your gun is ok. Are you painting B/C or enamel?
hey question bro..what size compressor should we start off with..?
I talk about that in the about page. Depending on what you’re doing a 30 – 35 gallon is a nice size starter tank.
Cheers man!
Hey Tony, i’m starting a mobile bumper repair service out of the nacho if my old Honda. I learned over a period of two years how to fix bumpers and paint repair but would love a book out manual that would fill on the bits out info I have forgotten. Can you recommend a “Bible” of sorts on this trade? any info would be great. Also startup costs on what base colors you recommend I invest in initially so as to be able to cover as many paint codes as possible? That’s a lot, I know. Thanks! -Scott, TX
Um, I meant trunk. My Android thinks they are called “nachos” im guessing.
What’s up Scott!
That is AWESOME man. What have you forgotten? Yes I can recommend something of course. Body work is Body work. Bumpers, fenders, doors, full paint jobs… basically the same steps. They say you need a special primer or plastic bumper pre coat for proper adhesion. You can use them if you want to. In my personal experience, as long as you clean it well and sand it, basic 2k primer will NOT FAIL YOU. I have cars laying around my garage with 5 plus year old paint jobs on plastic parts with no cracking, fade or chips. Did you get our free 85 page e-book?
If you really want to SUPERCHARGE your skills why don’t you check out our VIP Auto Body program?
We have THOUSANDS of members and a private community forum.
Be cool!
T
This is my first time painting. I brought a complete kit and I’m kinda confused with the mixing process. The paint ratio is 2:1 And the clear is 4:1
But the kit consist of hardner, clear, paint and thinner.
I have mixin cup but I’m still lost I don’t know if my paint needs hardner or not?
The paint Is matrix
From what you said here I am assuming that you have a base coat clear coat setup. Your Thinner or Reducer is for your color paint (your base coat) and Your clear and hardener (activator) is for your clear coat.
It seems that your clear is 4:1 4 parts clear to 1 part hardener. Your base should always be 1/1 ratio. Good luck. If you want more help, step-by-step videos and tech support check out what we have for you within our vip club that thousands are constantly raving about.