Kind of like golf clubs-skill trumps equipment.
I have been doing body work and touch up painting since 1965. I have had many cars painted including Austin Healeys and Jaguars, where I did the prep. 1 jaguar was a trophy winner for 15 plus years. I prepped, a pro painted. I paid him well, and he did well. but paying well for a few hours can be a bargain.
I only painted one car. I used a paint booth, with professional equipment, materials, and advise. A total waste of money and time. It took me many hours to wet sand the nastiness out, so the a professional could shoot a top coat. I did amuse the bodymen and painters.
Decent paint today is very toxic. I donāt want to mess with it. I wouldnāt consider painting a car in a domestic garage; especially an attached garage. Prep takes the time. Shooting the paint is quick for a professional.
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I would recommend car spray paint. It doesnāt look great but in some ways itās better than a mediocre do it yourself job. Spray paint says āthis is functional, not aesthetic, itās supposed to look like this.ā Cheap too.
I donāt know where this one came from again but I agree with Ben T Spanner. Incidentally, I painted my trailer with that $20 Harbor Freight sprayer and it actually worked pretty good. When I get my cabinets built Iām going to try it on spraying the water based clear. Of course you donāt get the full adjustibility or atomization that youād get with a $700 gun but still not bad.
Iāve used the rattle can method to paint the tailgate on my truck. Definitely better than nothing. For me the downside is the paint fades from sunlight, so while it matched at first w/the rest of the paint, it is now more faded than the rest. On a 40 year old truck who cares as long as the paint is protecting the surface from rust. But on a newer car this might not pass the āneighbor testā; i.e. if you car looks weird enough the neighbors will laugh every-time they see you driving down the street ā¦ lol .
The kind of car paint that seems to hold up and doesnāt fade comes in two parts I think, and a chemical reaction occurs between part A and part B at the time it is applied. Sort of like epoxy glue. As mentioned above, thereās a downside. The two part paint can be very toxic to breath, and special equipment is needed for that.
For a diyāer intent on painting their own car, probably best to use a conventional one-part paint and just re-paint when it eventually fades. Thereās an article or blog somewhere here on the Car Talk website about painting a truck with Rustoleum (as I recall) with a paintbrush/roller technique. If not overly particular w/the aesthetic results, thatās another idea for a home-brew paint job worth reading the article anyway.
I painted my old pickup truck and I wouldn`t do it again, painting is the easy part the sanding is just extremely time consuming.
I spent over 100 hours hand sanding it.
I heard that those cheapy maaco paint jobs turn to crap very quickly thats why I tried my hand at painting it. I bought quality acrylic urethane auto paint, the total cost was about $400 to do it myself and im confident that it will last longer than a maaco special.
I wouldn`t do it again though i would just save up some money to pay for a quality paint job.
Looks like you did a very good job there. Congrats. 100 hours is a lot of time, but you did earn some completely tax free cash effectively, so while it was time consuming, it was still a money earning endeavor. Good foryou.
Just curious what safety measures you took. Did you use a complete fresh-air supplying breathing apparatus? Or just a charcoal mask?
Edit: I should add that while I"d be willing to spend the 100 hours, to come up with that amount of time Iād have to do a job like that over the course of 6 months probably, which would mean my truck would be off the road that long. That would be difficult for me to do as I need to use my truck from time to time.