Advice on doing a good quality home re-spray

Morning all, it's been a while and after a rocky start to the the year, some super fault free months K11 motoring.

A couple of years back (when we had a hot few Summer weeks) I did a re-spray on the old girl. First one I've done in many years and it came out not perfect but amazingly well considering the limitations of my skill and equipment.

Glutton for punishment but I'm thinking to try take it up a level this year maybe and would appreciate advice and experiences please.

It's a solid colour and I've eliminated any corrosion and rust proofed the life out of it .... famous last words.

Last time I made the mistake not to drain standing water out of the compressor. didn't even know you had to! did it earlier this year and at least a litter came out ... kid you not. And yes as a result I've got 2 or 3 patches on the car that have bubbled and continue to ... shame as it was a good result otherwise.

Also although I did a reasonable amount of filling and sanding, I'm seeing a few small dinks and dents that I didn't see before ... all pretty small in reality.

So I'm thinking .... remove bonnet, wings, tailgate and spray off car?

Is it sensible to consider removing the sun roof or am I asking for trouble? Same with doors ... better to do off or is that adding complexity?

Any advice on best approach, best (budget) tools and materials would also be appreciated e.g spray gun type, easy to use paints, thinners, gloss coat etc.

I have a decent Festool 150mm sander with interchangeable backing pads which does a more than decent job

Any videos, any examples you guys have done yourselves, do's, don't do's and tips would be appreciated. I'm sure there are loads of materials and examples on MSC but being a K11 repair type of guy as a rule, I'm not so familiar with the rest of the site.

And all that said, if I were to do a strip down, de-grease and make the car as ready as possible ... would it be more time/cost effective to get a more skilled pair of hands to do the flatting out and painting? .... i.e I do the monkey stuff and make it job ready for a pro? And anyone any idea of a target cost to expect for a nice finish?

Thanks in advance as always. Must be a sign things are running well if this is a job being considered :)
 

John_D

Club Member
Radio Code Guru
You are always going to get water in the tank/airline as it condenses out of the air taken in.. What you need is one of these filter/regulator/water traps in the outlet from the tank to the gun.....
edit:- looks like my hyper link is being hijacked by something called 'Skim Links' so perhaps this will work...... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-With...531575?hash=item4d8c7db9b7:g:eYQAAOSwQ9xcYmvi
Nope, looks like 'Skim Links' is now in the forum software:mad: so to see the link just search for item 33069531575 on eBay...
 
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Hi John and thanks for the steer.

The links are not working for me but I searched on the item you mentioned and can see and understand entirely what you mean.

Well this alone takes my knowledge upwards and will make a huge improvement in result. Is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for.

Isn't it amazing the things you don't know until you know? That compressor has been hammering away for some 7-10 years and never once been drained! Now I'm doing it every second time I use it.

Thanks for sharing that .... the next hour or two will be reading more on this aspect alone and I suspect an ebay purchase. Nice one.
 
Get a good gun and a good regulator. Then try spraying a old hood a few times to get a good idea about the air settings and get a feel for it. Also like John said get a good filter.

Prep work is the base of a good paintjob but also the most time consuming. Id say remove the stuff thats easy to remove and paint that off the car.
Also make sure you have a good dust free area with a fan thats sucking air out of it. And spray water on the floor before spraying. This helps to keep the dust down.
 
also if you've seen those tubes that are coiled (they looklike old-school phone cords but bigger loops) those help spin the water out of the compressor using centrifgal force, and then you have a trap on the end, otherwise everytime you let off the trigger all the water flows back into your compressor tank
 
OP
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Get a good gun and a good regulator. Then try spraying a old hood a few times to get a good idea about the air settings and get a feel for it. Also like John said get a good filter.

Prep work is the base of a good paintjob but also the most time consuming. Id say remove the stuff thats easy to remove and paint that off the car.
Also make sure you have a good dust free area with a fan thats sucking air out of it. And spray water on the floor before spraying. This helps to keep the dust down.

Thanks for the advice Maarten, yes tend to think it's easier do the loose panels off car given my limited skills. And it's good timing as I bought a new set of locks as a good ebay price a while back ... will do that at the same time.

I bought a modest priced gun last time (think was maybe 35 quid ish) and it produced surprisingly good results. But I saw and heard a bit about a gun that feeds the paint from a container above the spray head rather than below. I think these are supposed to be better but I don't know much about the function or even the name of these.

What you think about removing the sun roof? Worth the pain?
 
OP
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also if you've seen those tubes that are coiled (they looklike old-school phone cords but bigger loops) those help spin the water out of the compressor using centrifgal force, and then you have a trap on the end, otherwise everytime you let off the trigger all the water flows back into your compressor tank

Again something I had absolutely no idea about but did wander why the coil? And you right, mines a 25 meter straight rubber pipe. The stuff you learn when you ask the question. Another ebay search and some reading to be done. And they seem cheap as well so will absolutely be doing that.

Thanks for that advice. I'll take a couple of shots later about the bubbled finish on what otherwise was an Ok job. I feel confidence that your advice and John's suggestion will sort the water ingress. Cheers
 
OP
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The paints and materials I used last time where mixed by a local paint shop and were good.

From memory they mixed to colour code and supplied a light grey primer (car is almost identical to the one in this photo....

63726


They they supplied a clear coat that from memory was mixed 1/1??? with a special finishing thinners.

I used the normal P38 to fill a few dents and sanded down with the Festool ETS150 and Abranet mesh sanding disks. Would some form of a spray filler be better?

Any recommendations on materials or suppliers or are they all much of a muchness?

I didn't use a de-greaser which I'm told you should but used white spirit on that occasion.
 
Thanks for the advice Maarten, yes tend to think it's easier do the loose panels off car given my limited skills. And it's good timing as I bought a new set of locks as a good ebay price a while back ... will do that at the same time.

I bought a modest priced gun last time (think was maybe 35 quid ish) and it produced surprisingly good results. But I saw and heard a bit about a gun that feeds the paint from a container above the spray head rather than below. I think these are supposed to be better but I don't know much about the function or even the name of these.

What you think about removing the sun roof? Worth the pain?

I wouldnt remove the sun roof. But i would check the rubbers and put some tape over then. You dont want paint on them.

Id go with a top fed gun. Also do not mix your paint in the paint gun container because it wont mix properly esp with a top container one.
 
Again something I had absolutely no idea about but did wander why the coil? And you right, mines a 25 meter straight rubber pipe. The stuff you learn when you ask the question. Another ebay search and some reading to be done. And they seem cheap as well so will absolutely be doing that.

Thanks for that advice. I'll take a couple of shots later about the bubbled finish on what otherwise was an Ok job. I feel confidence that your advice and John's suggestion will sort the water ingress. Cheers
aha sometimes all you have to do is ask the right question in the right way and you jog someone's memory

I knew about this because about 10 years ago I used to watch them spray paint motorbike helmets with skulls and flames and things on youtube, after watching that American Chopper show and wanting to know how they did it. For the detailed work they have the small compressor and the tiny guns with a paint reservoir the size of a thimble that artists use, they same kind that they use in temporary tattoo/body art. If you really want to learn the ins and outs of really detailed paintwork that's the best place to look, because they mix colours and really have to be sure that their air is free of any contaminants or it throws the gradients off and stuff. Of course anything that applies small scale, scales up
 
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