Morris Minor Owners Club

Anyone tried respraying the whole car, and what did they think afterwards?

Is it it possible to get an excellent finish doing it yourself(hiring compressor, etc), or is it just worth biting the bullet and paying a professional?

no it is worth doing / giving it a try your self..

It is one of those jobs some people can do and some can not, i can not weld to save my life but i can spray happily all day long and get good results.

it is however all in the prep work and taking your time over what you are doing.

A proffesional would propbably spray 30 cars in the time it takes me to spray 1 but I do enjoy doing it.. just take your time.

If you can not do it what have you lost.. a few hours work but if you can..

Have a go by all means, my dad did mine at home.... but, this is the important bit. We used Cellulose which is one of the less stronger smelling paints, but the smell does travel. Also depending on how much pressure you use to spray, there is a large amount of vapour that goes into the atmosphere. I ask my dad to stop once as it looked like a scene front "The Fog" while he was doing the bonnet!!! It can be quite intrusive for your neighbours, so you need to show consideration. ;)

Do what we do. I throw the paint at the car (celly) . When it has dried, Mary comes out with the 1200 and makes it shiny.

it is however all in the prep work

You certainly can't make a good respray over bad prep.
However you can certainly make a bad one over good prep - I shall never spray anything apart from primer and small repairs, as i've just not got the knack.
Some people can 'just do it'. Once a neighbour looked at my spraying of a motorbike fuel tank... He then suggested that he should do the final coat as he'd done a bit of painting. I was amazed with the result (and very grateful) - He was head mechanic for a truck fleet, so I hadn't quite expected that.

Yes it's perfectly possible - you can buy a small compressore quite cheaply - often they come with spray gun. ALDI and WOLF spring to mind. Celly paint and thinners are highly flammable - and toxic - so I now only spray outdoors in fine weather. DO NOT even think about spraying 2 pack paint - it will kill you. Best to only paint one panl at a time when working with limited air supply etc. Prep is the important part - the spraying is relatively easy. Quite a decent job can even be done with the big rattle cans from Bull Motif (and others) - the trick is to heat the cans in a bucket of hot water before use - and rattle them violently! Again - just do one panel at a time. The cans are not cheap - but neither is celly and thinners - and no need for a compressor! Years ago - my mate re-sprayed most of his MGC using the spray gun they used to supply with a vacuum cleaner - it connects to the blowing end - not the sucking end !! His finish is actually BETTER than the original panels that have never been touched - deep red finish with high shine and no orange peel. He does have amazing patience though -something I completely lack.

can't make a good respray over bad prep

All top coat does is to make whatever is underneath shiny. Preperation is all important.

the trick is to heat the cans in a bucket of hot water before use - and rattle them violently!

Definately don't do it in that order!!!! Shake until your arm hurts, by all means, but not when they've just come out of hot water - I've seen one expload when that was done. I've done it mmyself and had the domed bottom of the can 'pop out'
(it's meant to pop out to relieve pressure to avoid an explosion, but doesn't guarantee safety)

Well -never happened to me Ray - but seems good advice - although you do have to keep rattling them to stop the paint settling out. How HOT was your water!

How HOT was your water!

I didn't get burnt by the can, but it was above luke warm, so I'd say 'hot but not stupidly hot'.

The one that exploded - I only saw the bloke covered in paint afterwards, not the actual pop, so I've not idea how hot his water was - boiling is likely to be a very bad idea! I'd forgotten about it until the bottom of my can went - at which point I was very scared to go near it, but when I felt braver it still worked

Ok - well I have used hot water straight from the tank - just a bit too hot to hold hand in - so ~ 70 C. But it soon cools down when you pop (maybe wrong word to use!) a couple of cans in the bucket to heat up!

I've sprayed a few cars cars over the years. I also ran a hire company providing amongst other things spray equipment. What ever your level of expertise you will not get a good finish without and is in fact much easier to achieve it using good kit! I would suggest hiring a 15cfm (displaced) 100psi compressor ( about the biggest you can run single phase) with a good quality gun such as a devilbiss . Make sure you get the correct nozzle set up for the paint you are using.
The other thing you need is space to move around the car - no good trying to do it in a small cramped garage.
if you get the opportunity try to watch a pro at work - there is some technique to it but its not rocket science - simple things like correctly thinning the paint if required as the job progresses keeping the nozzle parallel to the surface and letting go the trigger at the end of each stroke and watching for overspray. I found cellulose to be the easiest most forgiving and it cuts back and polishes easily if you don't quite manage perfection! The bonus is a HUGE amount of satisfaction when the result is to be admired

Well thanks everyone for your feedback! I'm a long way away from painting, but its something niggling in the back of my mind.

I want the satisfiaction of saying I did it myself, but am afriad of doing a crap job!

Prep and practice seem like the way!

I can't see your location. Where are you?

have a go if it turns out crap flat it down and do it again no worries !!

The best way is the new HVLP high volume low pressure spray guns. no big clouds of over spray. Takes a bit of getting used to but if you have never sprayed before then this is the way forward. collages and tecs will only used HVLP sprays now. (H & S). I have talked to pro sprayers who fort against them but swear by them now.

How about obtaining a panel from your local scrappy and practice on that, after all it's cheaper to bin and try again then get any mistakes corrected!!

yes you can get a great finish doing a spray job at home if you use the right equiptment<br><br>

and more recent<br><br>

overider wrote:The best way is the new HVLP high volume low pressure spray guns. no big clouds of over spray. Takes a bit of getting used to but if you have never sprayed before then this is the way forward. collages and tecs will only used HVLP sprays now. (H & S). I have talked to pro sprayers who fort against them but swear by them now.

(as being an x paint sprayer my self ) and used hvlp firstly could i say hvlp is not new, i was using them in the mid to late 90s i disagree over hvlp for home use as they need a constant supply of air to the gun to enable the pressure pot to function propley, they are also none to realible either as there is a ball bearing valve on the underside of the thredded area on the inside of the pot that blocks when you least expect it thus reducing pressure to the gun, the pressure regulator that pressurises the pot fails more than often. they take a lot more to clean out as you have a paint pipe from the pot to gun to clean as well as the pot, to run these correctly you need a big compressor to run these units, these guns are designed for industrial applications only, in reality the maximum cfm you can go to is 18 to 28 cfm at home on a 240 supply. the 18 cfm compressor uses a 4hp motor and a 200 litre tank which must run from a 40amp direct supply from the consumer unit. the other 28 cfm compressor has a bank of 2x3 hp electric motors with susquential starting coupled to 2x14 cfm air pumps on a 270 litre air reciever .

Both of these compressors must be hard wired and the use of 6.0 mm cable min must be used in all cases as is its own rcd

unfortuanly to achieve these finshes i have to admit i have 2 compressors, one for my spray gun and one for my air fed mask
1 is 14 cfm 50 liter air tank for my devilbiss jga 558 suction feed spray gun, the other is 18 cfm 200 litre with numerious in-line water traps and filters for my air fed mask. the reason i use the big compressor for the air fed mask is it needs a constant air supply so by using the big compressor for this it cuts in less often as the other fills up the 50 litre tank quicker for the spray gun.

as being ex trade a lot of people don't realise what is involved in painting a car espically with equiptment, i certnaly wouldn't recomend buying compressors from supermarkets , there all right for proping doors open and inflating tyres , as there is the reliablity factor to concider, nothing worse than your compressor packing up half way through. believe me i have been there, they are built to a price and not built for the job you really want to do with it

please remember you only get out of it what you put into it

Hmm, are you using a seperate gun and pot system here 'dustyfog' ?.
We use gravity fed HVLP guns, no ball bearing or pipe arrangement. Our guns run on 4.5 -5 cfm, so maybe we are talking about different types of kit here, as HVLP is a more suitable gun for home use as the amount of overspray is vastly reduced, they are particulary effective with high solid (HS) paint too.
Totally in agreement with your last comment though.

new_adventures_of_arthur

Hi buddy, look its all in the prep and thats pretty much the secret. You have a wealth of modern paints and materials to use and they work well. Yes some say that 2k is dangerous, but a good quality mask outside will help you out. End of the day the only way you can defy 2k is a complete suit and an air fed mask. Alot of painters don,t go this far, shocking to some but true. If the ventillation is good and a good mask you should be ok. If your in a shed, think about it seriously before hand though, 2k contains isocianide which is the real killer, it sets in your lungs and is of a hydroscopic style of action, being that it will sink through your skin. But the good chiefs of health and safety over react a little, honestly I would use 2 k outside on a forcasted warm day.

Start early so you've finished as the sun comes out properly, this way she will bake off all day. Now contrary to popular belief its not the heat as such that hardens 2k but infra red and uv from the sun, Heat does help obviously but to fully cure a car you need infra red and uv. Even in a body shop with a decent oven the paint is not fully cured. Full curing by way of heat is really only achievable at 140 degrees centergrade, but this is only achievable in the factory before the internal componenets and plastics are put onto the vehicle.
as for the prep, get the panels sanded down in 180 grit to finish, use high build primer 3 coats, wet flat that down with 800 grit, then paint. For solid paint about 3 coats or 4 depending on how well it covers. For base use 3 to 4 depending on coverage too, then when it touch dry go over with a tac cloth then hit it with lacquer. 3 coats and let to harden. After about a week flatten and polish if need be.