Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello everyone.

A few people have to came to me and said why don't I handpaint my car.
After making a good job of the wheels I think it would be really exciting especially to say that I painted my own car.

Has anyone tried and got a good result of this before?
How did you go about doing it..any tips?
Which paint would you recommend? (trafalgar blue)

Thanks in advance for you help everyone

If you're keen, try this link from the VW club80-90
http://wiki.club8090.co.uk/index.php/Bo ... r_painting
on how to roller paint a vehicle
I've done a VW T25 van and a series 3 land rover with a fair degree of success. Don't rush it and practice again and again before you try the moggie. good luck with whichever method you use.

wearthefoxhat wrote:If you're keen, try this link from the VW club80-90
http://wiki.club8090.co.uk/index.php/Bo ... r_painting
on how to roller paint a vehicle
I've done a VW T25 van and a series 3 land rover with a fair degree of success. Don't rush it and practice again and again before you try the moggie. good luck with whichever method you use.

Thanks for your help

Wait for warmer weather and give the garage a good Hoover before you start.

And thoroughly wet the floor....... I brush painted a Morris 8E many moons ago - using 'coach paint' with special slow drying thinners. The brush marks just melted away! It looked fine !

I agree with 'hand painting' if your'e confident. Being a retired trad. signwriter I have been used to obtaining a reasonable finish with coach enamels. Like others have said : Warm weather ( or at least a warm garage ) warm the paint up ( which will in itself thin the paint down a touch - allowing it to flow better ). Good glossing roller ( the 6'' size ) and a well worn good quality paint brush for laying the paint off. Watching for any 'sagging' constantly, and keep the dust down with a watering can.
Not everyone thinks this is good practice, but in theory, before commercial spray painting became the 'norm' all ( or most ) cars were hand painted by time served craftsmen.
* At least if you've done it right, you will have a lot thicker top coat of paint ! that should protect the car for years and look good !

Thanks everyone

It is possible to get a good finish from brush or roller painting, but it takes a lot of effort, time and wet sanding between each coat, then using a polishing machine with compound to get a gloss finish. OK if you have several weeks and hundreds of hours to spend on the job. Other wise use spray cans or get the car spray painted.

This is a famous technique known as "the $50 paint job", an American chap got stunning results on his Corvair using the technique. Just brush painting a car is never going to look very good. It will look brush painted. He used Rustoleum which is a paint that is available in the UK.


http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master ... paint.html

after 3 years still looking stunning, but is is NOT just a simple case of brush the paint on and it will look good.



Why do you need to paint your car?? If the original paint is just dull, then polishing with a compound such as G3 followed by a thorough wax will work wonders.

Have a look on here to see what can be achieved
http://rolledon.forummotion.com/f2-projects

Some pics:-





You can get Rustoleum in any RAL colour over here, so there's plenty of options.
There is someone in the UK that will mix Rustoleum to any factory colour, but for the life of me I can't find the link.

This is my chassis with enamel coach brushed on.

I didn't rub it down after, but didn't want that to be blemish free.

In places it does not show brush marks.

I got cheap gloss paint brushes as one from the supplier lost hairs very quickly.

Plus order more then required as mixes do not match. I had 5 litre barrel, which was more then enough but it went gloopy. Then took 4 weeks to get right match even had to send a sample of original paint on a part.[frame][/frame]

Excuse me for hijacking this post a tad.

Rustoleum only seem to do a limited set of colours, is it possible to get suitable paint in standard BMC colours? If so, anybody know where please?

Found the link:-

http://www.avenue-online.co.uk/rusted-metal-4101-c.asp

They've also got the BS, RAL and Pantone colour charts on their site, some of those colours may be close.

chickenjohn wrote:It is possible to get a good finish from brush or roller painting, but it takes a lot of effort, time and wet sanding between each coat, then using a polishing machine with compound to get a gloss finish. OK if you have several weeks and hundreds of hours to spend on the job. Other wise use spray cans or get the car spray painted.

This is a famous technique known as "the $50 paint job", an American chap got stunning results on his Corvair using the technique. Just brush painting a car is never going to look very good. It will look brush painted. He used Rustoleum which is a paint that is available in the UK.


http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master ... paint.html

after 3 years still looking stunning, but is is NOT just a simple case of brush the paint on and it will look good.



Why do you need to paint your car?? If the original paint is just dull, then polishing with a compound such as G3 followed by a thorough wax will work wonders.

Reason for painting : original paint from 1965 as far as I know..It is completely faded and a completely different colour, I have wings, a door and other parts being put on

twincamman wrote:Found the link:-

http://www.avenue-online.co.uk/rusted-metal-4101-c.asp

They've also got the BS, RAL and Pantone colour charts on their site, some of those colours may be close.

Great, thanks!

themightylionel wrote:

chickenjohn wrote:It is possible to get a good finish from brush or roller painting, but it takes a lot of effort, time and wet sanding between each coat, then using a polishing machine with compound to get a gloss finish. OK if you have several weeks and hundreds of hours to spend on the job. Other wise use spray cans or get the car spray painted.

This is a famous technique known as "the $50 paint job", an American chap got stunning results on his Corvair using the technique. Just brush painting a car is never going to look very good. It will look brush painted. He used Rustoleum which is a paint that is available in the UK.


http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master ... paint.html

after 3 years still looking stunning, but is is NOT just a simple case of brush the paint on and it will look good.



Why do you need to paint your car?? If the original paint is just dull, then polishing with a compound such as G3 followed by a thorough wax will work wonders.

Reason for painting : original paint from 1965 as far as I know..It is completely faded and a completely different colour, I have wings, a door and other parts being put on

Get hold of some Farecla G3 paste and a microfibre cloth and start rubbing a spot of original faded paint, you will be surprised!

If the original paint is just dull, then polishing with a compound such as G3 followed by a thorough wax will work wonders. For the new panels, 2 or three spray cans of cellulose will do the job. get them from ESM or mixed by your local automotive paint factor. The best modern spray cans give a surprisingly good fan and a good finish out of the can, or an even better one with 1200/1500/ 2000 wet flatting followed by the above mentioned G3 paste to polish to a shine.

Thanks for your help! But there is basically no paint left on the car so not sure the polishing will do much good

Get Kenny to buy you some paint and have a go on the new door you have to fit, see what it comes up like and if any good you can have a go at the rest!

Good results can be had,but if you do it and its a mess,to rectify it will be a nightmare,may need lots and lots of work to get rid of the paint ready for a proper respray,even just flatting down with a DA sander and spraying a barrier and top coat would not work.Because hand painting tends to put a lot of paint on. It then becomes too thick a coat and causes cracking when the panel contracts and expands.
Ok for a banger to tidy it up,no good for a decent restoration,depends what you want it to look like,and how much you want it to be worth afterwards.
I have seen acceptable hand rollered,but takes about three times as much skill and time as a half decent sprayover.There aren't many decent old coachbuilders left ,we had one in our family garage when I served my time he was truly a craftsman,he could hand paint a panel and it was like a mirror,but I could spray a whole car in the time it took him to do one wing,Thats why there aren't many decent old coachbuilders left ,apart from them all dying out and no one wanting to do it the old way.

You may like the finish you may hate it. But good luck with it.

Unless you use the $50 Rustoleum method, a lot of work flatting between coats and polishing but the results are undeniable.