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Also, if you had your car etched, primed etc ready for a commercial job and you decided to roll, however didn't like the results, how far yould you have to take it down to get ready for a good spray job again?

Thanks, Pete



Hi Pete...

Let us say that you did a roller job and didn't like the end result.. or maybe you won some money at the local casino and could afford to take the car to a 'real' paint shop. The amount of surface prep that you would have to do prior to getting it professionally sprayed depends on a number of factors...

a ) are you planning to spray it yourself or take it to a paint shop...

b ) IF you are taking it to a commercial paint shop... is it the el-cheapo paint shop or the 'we take pride in every paint job we do type paint shop'

If you are planning to spray it yourself, you would scuff the surface just as you would if you were going to send it to MAACO ( or similar type shops ). The amount of surface scuffing would entirely depend on just how much 'scuffing it takes to remove the outer gloss and end up with as smooth a surface as you can...

If you are planning to take it to a 'real' paint shop that beats their chest about the pride they take in every paint job... the odds are that they would want to do the surface preparation prior to painting. They always like to proclaim " it's the only way we can be absolutely sure that if the paint fails it is our fault'. These are usually the same shops that will spray your car ( with your surface preparation ) and warn you before hand that ' you don't get a guarantee with that paint job ( again echoing how their surface preparation work is the only true one that they can guarantee the coating of paint on ( and for which they charge you an extra 10 hours of labor on your bill ).

Back to the paint for a moment... Tremclad/Rustoleum is an enamel. Brightside is a polyurathane. As such... they are the same types of paints as used for commercial automotive painting. So that is mentioned just to confirm to you that there should not be any compatability problems with your base coat of Tremclad/Rustoleum or Brightside, with a commercially sprayed paint job on either of them.

I mention that because some shops might try to lie and say... ohh... there is a compatibility problem with that 'rolled on paint'.... and we have to strip your car back down to metal and reprime it. Which basically is their way of outright lying and saying that '... we want to charge you 20 hours of surface preparation...".

Now I don't want to be too harsh on some automotive paint shops... that might want to strip a rolled on paint job to bear metal and re-prime. After all, some shops do take really great pride in every car that rolls out of their shop with a fresh coat of paint. And be taking things back to square one is the only way they can assure themselves that their end result will live up to their 'standards'. That's a cool corporate attitude... but unfortunately their 'pride in their work' means mucho more money out of your pocket. And assuming you went the roller route in the first place, it is not likely you would even be stepping foot in that paint shops doorway ( unless of course the lottery win or day at the horsetrack suddenly plumped up your wallet ).

Bottom line... either the Rustoleum/Tremclad or Brightside rolled on paint job can serve as an excellent basecoat for subsequent spraying. Surface prep 'should' be no different then if you had a car with a normal but worn out paint out that was going in to be sprayed.

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