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Hey, it’s Tony from LearnAutoBodyAndPaint with another Q&A video on The Proper Order To Spray Car Panels When Painting. Here’s the question from a VIP member.
“Hey Tony, I’m in the process of painting a 1972 Lotus Elan DHC. I removed the boot, bonnet and doors to paint separately. Could you advise in what order you would spray the body i.e. roof, wings, door shuts, sills and front and rear valances?”
If you’re taking the car apart completely, it doesn’t matter where you start. You can just start on a panel and just paint it.
If you take the car in pieces, it really doesn’t matter where you’d like to start. Personally, I’ll start with the hood and then just have everything set up, so it’s easy to get to every piece when you’re walking around the shop.
if your starting to paint the cars together, you can start on the driver’s side or passenger side. I’ll start with the driver’s side, roof rail, and start painting. Walk around the car and make sure the hose is above your shoulder, pick it back up here and paint down the roof rail. Then I would proceed to do the door.
At this point, you could go around the back of the car. I’ll do the quarter panel then do the whole back bumper, then I’ll come around and do the other quarter panel.
You can start from the bottom then go up or start from the top and go down, however you feel.
I usually start from the top and go down. I’ll continue and start at the bottom of the fender and go up.
When I’m on this stage now, I’ll just go around the car and make one complete pass going around the full car.
For base coat, it’s usually 2-3 coats going around. However, consider doing a little bit more paint on some areas if you notice this. On the other hand, I like to do two heavy coats of clear coat to make sure it’s glossy. You can do a third coat but two heavy ones are more than enough.
What’s difficult is if you’re doing custom colors with candy, pearls or flakes. You’ll need to make sure that everything matches. I’d advise keeping the car together as much as possible for custom colors, especially when doing candy. You’ll need to do long passes and not panel by panel.
It’s Tony from LearnAutoBodyAndPaint. I hope you got some tips on your own project from this video on The Proper Order To Spray Car Panels When Painting. Don’t forget to SMASH that Like button, Share and Subscribe to my channel!
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Talk soon! Cheers!
Tony
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