How difficult are paint jobs?

[AnthonyH]

I've only ever painted bits and pieces, which i'd say came out as "adequate" but not good. But if you had to do a whole car how hard would it be to do an adequate job? And how practical is it to do one at home?

I can get the paint easily enough, its more about learning the technique.

For example the car below needs front bumper, rear bumper, bonnet, roof and more.

 

[The Panda Nut]

I've only ever painted bits and pieces, which i'd say came out as "adequte" but not good. But if you had to do a whole car how hard would it be to do an adequate job? And how practical is it to do one at home?

I can get the paint easily enough, its more about learning the technique.

For example the car below needs front bumper, rear bumper, bonnet, roof and more.

View attachment 460693

I would say hard. The finish is all in the polishing after. I did a side of a car with cans and then spent 2 hours on the DA. Two body shops I use said it was brilliant finish that they couldnt have bettered. To do a decent job its maily about preparation and getting edges right. You would need a sprayer and are then at the mercy of humidity and temperature. Im sure it could be done but there are a load of factors including the above and space that weigh against you.

 

[AnthonyH]

Ah, so spray cans are no good and i'd need a spray machine...i presume because it'd take ages with spray cans?

I didn't actually polish the jobs i did, the spray left it kind of shiny, i'm not sure why, but it looked ok.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

To do a good job at home is almost impossible.

If you visit a proper body shop they have an “oven” basically a garage that they bake the car in after it is painted to properly harden the paint, you cannot do that at home. Therefore most home pain jobs use acrylic or some other “soft” paint, which will not harden the same and will mark easily, be difficult to lay on evenly and that’s not even considering the hours of sanding, priming sanding painting sanding, lacquering, sanding, polishing then realising after all that it still looks crap.

Is just not practical for someone to have the equipment needed to do a good job at home.

All that being said if you don’t care all that much you could do a crappy job instead in which case that’s quite easy

 

[The Panda Nut]

Polishing really is what makes the job come to you. An expert can get a very good finish but ameters like us rarely do although modern paints seem much easier than the old cellulose stuff I grew up with. Spray cans are c £22 each, I bought one last week so its a very very expensive way to do a car. Im confident now to do a totally invisible job as long as the colour match is good. Its still something I wouldnt dobecause if you do, and it goes badly its a horrid waste of money,.. I would consider stripping teh trim etc Yourself and doing as much prep as possible and getting a good local paint sprayer to finish the paint. Big money though.

 

[AnthonyH]

All that being said if you don’t care all that much you could do a crappy job instead in which case that’s quite easy

I think even a crappy job would look better than this, but maybe by not much lol

 

[AnthonyH]

Polishing really is what makes the job come to you. An expert can get a very good finish but ameters like us rarely do although modern paints seem much easier than the old cellulose stuff I grew up with. Spray cans are c £22 each, I bought one last week so its a very very expensive way to do a car. Im confident now to do a totally invisible job as long as the colour match is good. Its still something I wouldnt dobecause if you do, and it goes badly its a horrid waste of money,.. I would consider stripping teh trim etc Yourself and doing as much prep as possible and getting a good local paint sprayer to finish the paint. Big money though.

I'm thinking its probably not worth it, so a £22 can doesn't do much and it wouldn't look that good, hmmm, i wondered why the regular garages didn't do paintwork themselves, its kind of specialist.