thanks marq for the insight

i guess your right i should try to find rustoleum. i got a sister in law that works at lowes so she might be able to get me a hookup....

anything else i need to know?

okay, been reading this thread for a while, and finally decided to give it a shot. i have a 95 camaro that was really hagard looking, and very faded. figured i couldnt make it look any worse, it couldnt go anywhere but better.
i sanded the car using 80, 100, 220, and 400 grit before applying the first coat. everything looks great at this point. from reading through all the posts it says apply 2 coats before wet sanding. I am using rustoleum pro gloss black. applying the 2nd coat was quite hard. it was difficult to see where it was going on, and where it wasnt, and where it was to thick, and so on. i did half the car, and it gave it a lot of orange peel. im concerned at this step. what is the benefit of the 2nd coat before wet sanding?

im thinking of wet sanding to 600, paint, 800, paint, 1000, paint, 1500, paint, 2000, polish.

other steps i see using 600 all the way, and then 2000 on the final coat, what seems to work best?

last question for now, when wet sanding, should you be able to see any of the gloss, or should it be totally hazy (kinda how it looked at 400 right before painting). Ill post of pics for reference when i am at home.

any advice is welcome!

I thought my Safety Green from Ace went on pretty good, but I havn't tried the Rustoleum to compare it to. Until more try it and post results I could understand where some would be sceptical on using it.

I've decided the green isn't what I want. I went in to Tractor supply and picked up a gallon of gloss white and royal blue in qts the Valspar line, I got what I wanted on clearance, the Ga was $5 and the qts of blue were less than $2 each. I'm going to mix up a light blue and two tone the car with an off white to countermatch the light blue.

here are some wet sanding examples using 600 grit.



my assumption is it should look like the 1st picture, and not like the 2nd? just trying to make sure im doing this right. will it continue to work like this as i go finer?


here is what it looked like after the 1st coat:

I tried an area on my hood with the paint thinned roughly 60/40 and it went down much better than the last try, looks like a thin spray job minimal orange peel, pretty smooth. The only thing is I rushed my crappy body work in a few areas after sanding off my first attempt and scratch marks are easily visible in the paint from some of 220 grit paper I used. I'm wondering will the paint be able to "fill" these or should I go back and be more thorough with 400 or so. I just wish I didn't mess up the first time it would have been alot less work.

Ok, here is what I have and what I want to know.


As you can see its in progress... but the bottom will be flat black. Would it be rediculous to roll on silver with no metallic? I plan on spraying flattener on the car when its all done anyways so it doesn't really matter about being shiny.

Let me know what you think.

- Jon

so the ace worked for you? do you have any pics? i know i went to lowes and they dont have a gallon of safety orange, but a gallon of ace is 34.00

WOW !

one month reading all of the posts in this huge thread. I am done reading !
Now let's get painting !

First of all have to thank Charger for passing all this good info and unique method to paint a car and save a ton of money.
and also thanks to all that have contributed in a great way, like Marq, Exit, Aussie, and all the Pioneers out there.

ok, here's my plan:

-5 Cars to paint...
-Paint One car at a time...
-apply (sprayed) 2-3 Coats of Rustoleum and then
-another final coat of Brightside (also sprayed) of the matching color.

I have tried the roller method and I see it does work great ... BUT it takes too long !

I have 5 Cars to paint and I need to go faster at it. so I have also experimented with a CHEAP (15 dlls) HVLP gun from Harbor Freight, mixed 10-15% Mineral spirits with Regular Rustoleum Gloss White (The 87 Mustang will be white). and that came out great!
I practiced spraying FIRST Royal Blue Rusto (The 86 Suburban will be Blue) on a couple of metal pieces from a Weight Lifting Rack/set that I am fixing, first I sprayed the Blue with a 45-50% MS solution, it came out too thin, creating runs. waited for a couple of days... wetsanded the blue down (and all the runs) and then I tried the Gloss white on a few pieces with the 10-15% MS mix... those I can see that came out awesome !
I'll do another coat and then let them dry, I won't even bother wetsanding those since they are just for a piece of furniture (weight lifting base).

I have already sanded down the top side of the suburban and some of the Mustang and the Legacy GT, but will do the Suburban first to test my spraying skills (First time at that too).

after the Suburban I will try and paint my Brother-in-laws 87 Astro Van, that is green and will probably paint it Hunter green. (I am going to let him do all of the sanding).

then after that I will paint the Black 99 Subaru Legacy GT, the top side is also peeling, I will paint it all Black, I am also going to paint the rims Black.

after that I will paint the 87 Mustang Gloss White... the Old 70 Chevy Nova that you see in one of the pictures will also get re-painted after I change the engine (I swapped a 396 Big Block in for the original 307, now I am going to do an LSx Swap into it.
(I love doing engine and interior swaps )

Ok, here is some info on me and my cars.
I've had a lot of Muscle Cars over the years, including a 68 Barracuda Fastback (I should have kept that one !), it had a 318, manual tranny and that thing was fast !

I've had tons of Mustangs, Camaros, Novas, Chevelles, etc. (at some point I had 3 Novas and 2 Camaros in front of my house).

Lately I've been on a Ford Kick (If you go to my website you'll see what I mean (Projects "Cobra4Me", "Double Displacement" and Project "SuperCobra" are all my Creations.

anyways, the main reason I got to read this whole thread was to save money on the PaintJob for my 87 Mustang, named "Project Double Displacement" (because it went from a 2.3 4 cyl. engine to a 8 Cyl. 4.6 GT engine), in fact, all of a 2003 Mustang GT drivetrain, interior, suspension, dash, etc. Made it into the 87.

anyways, I'll keep you guys posted on the progress of all these vehicles I plan on painting with Rustoleum and the last coat on Brightside.

Here are some images:

Here's the 87 Mustang, in the background you can see body parts from a 2003 Cobra and a 2003 Mustang GT that I used for my projects



Here's the original hood with a rolled coat of Gloss white, (again you can see the yunk Yard I have created in the background)



the first supplies, Now I have bought a Cheap HF HVLP gun and won't be using the rollers.


another shot of the Mustang, rear wing removed






I even sprayed the underside of the hood now.


Here you can see the Suburban, the Legacy GT and the 70 Nova.


this is my First Cobra that I built in 2000 (now Sold) Page for Project: "Cobra4Me"



Here's the Second Cobra that I am still building, (Currently waiting for the body to get paint at a Professional Painter), Page for Project "SuperCobra"


and here's Project "Double Displacement"
87 Mustang with a 2003 GT conversion
I have also today acquired a can of Penetrol and will follow directions given by Aussie for applying Brightside as the last coat.

BTW- There's a guy who is thinking on painting his Cobra Replica using the roller method !

Edit:
My website is at:
http://www.cobra4me.com

Alright guys, youve got me hooked. But I started to read through all the posts in the other threads, and THERES TOO MANY!

Can anyone tell me whats generally been accepted as the best way to do this (procedure wise), whats a good number of coats to apply, and if there were any pictures of any blues posted or if anyone is doing blue, can you post a pic with which color it is, as im going to try to match the color on my '67 GTX as best I can since the engine bay is in nice shape and I wasnt planning to paint it. Also, has anyone tried doing this with suspension peices?

Also, what types of rollers have you guys used to best effect? Help would be great. I still cant beleive that this can acutally work, BUT I DONT THINK I CAN GET ANYMORE PROOF WITHOUT DOING IT MYSELF! lol

well I got the rear end of my car pretty much put back together...




and the inside of my driver door is looking pretty good so far..

i have a 1969 chevelle that i rolled the first few coats on and it looks good did i mention its 2 tone and i think im going to add pearl on the last 2 coats

I posted a few pics back on page 21. It was the pre mixed safety green. I could actually pour the last of the mixture on the panal and work it in so I wouldn't waste the paint and blended right in, I think I mixed it about 30%.

Back to my clearance I found at Tractor supply, the qts were $1.90 ea, they had 3qts of safety orange too, but I decided on mixing a light blue instead. All this was Valspar paint, originally the gallons were $28, so the 4.95 I paid was a pretty good geal. Now thats a paint job on a budget , LOL.

One other thing i'll add about the rollers if it hasn't been mentioned, I took them off nightly after painting and put them in a ziplock bag, if I waited a few days they dried out, but than I poured in mineral spirits to keep the rollers damp, worked pretty good.

GTX Matt, I am painting my 83 Toyota a shade of blue called Ultra Blue from a local Australian paint company called Wattyl. Dunno how this can help you, but I am attaching a picture for you to check the finish. I have done 9 coats so far, and I have just finished wet sanding with 2000 grit in preparation for cutting and compounding, hopefully next week end.
FYI, the blue started looking like a smurf blue after the first couple of coats, but it has darkened a fair bit since, and I am very happy with the way it has turned out and especially how smooth the finish is.

Hoping to have all finished in a couple of weeks, and then relaxing with a cold one!

Another picture attached

chieftain are you getting alot of orange peel? What are you mixing the paint with? mineral spirits? I bought some tractor supply oliver green to put on my old J10 Jeep truck. I use a HVLP turbin sprayer. got alot of orange peel. Not sure if i didnt thin it enough or if i didnt clean the gun good enough.

Just wondering.

Hey Muskin i am a painter and you have to thin the paint so that you dont get orange peel. I am very experienced with HVLP and various sprayers and you shouldnt get orange peel anyway if you spray but dont spray on heavy and i do know that if you are going to spray you have to thin and it eliminates the orange peel.Thin maybe 30% with orderless mineral spirits (cuts down on the smell)that is good enough to go through an HVLP hope this helps

Started my paint job today (prep work) and have a question. I had to sand the top down to bare metal in spots and I also used a rust remover (Eastwoods Oxy-Solve) which leaves a zinc oxide coating. Question is this...do I primer directly over the zinc oxide, sand it first and then prime,or what? Thanks for any assistance and especially all the informative posts. Stewart