Paint your car for £30 ? Yes!

[jonboylaw]

Guys,

I came across this forum and it gives details on painting a car on a budget. It seems ideal for the Caterham as you can paint directly on to bare aluminium. Ok it takes patience and skill and a lot of prepping, but some of the photos of the results look good. I will give it a go on some old body panels to see if I can get a good finish.

 

Look for the posts from a guy called " 69chargeryeehaa "

 

Linky

 

There is a lot of Q & A on the forum, and clear instruction on what needs to be done.

Hope this helps those of us on a budget to get a reasonable paint job.

 

Edited for typo..

Jon

 

Edited by - jonboylaw on 27 Oct 2008 14:40:49

[Dickie Normuss]

If it seems too good to be true....................

 

VX HPC - Loud and proud here

Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere

[jonboylaw]

Hi Ric,

I have seen a few other posts about this method and it seems a reasonable way to get a decent paint job without spending a lot of money, with the plus side that you can do it in your garage at home without any specialist tools and setting up a spray booth. Also the paint used does not give off noxious fumes, so much easier to manage.

 

I am sure it is not suitable to everyone and sure a pro spray job will give a deeper gloss etc, but for myself, I will give it a go and if it comes out to an acceptable standard then I shall be happy and spend the difference on an LSD or brake upgrade.

 

Jon

[SLR No.77]

Many years ago I painted (sprayed) my first car, a Mini, and the results were very very impressive, so good that we ended up painting a couple more a few years later. Care and attention to detail is all that is needed - no more work really than doing an engine rebuild, and in many ways easier - any errors you just re-prep and spray again.

 

Stu.

[stevefoster]

I recently rollered our kitchen cupboard door units. Very good result - no cutting back and polishing needed 😬 as for a car but you can get an even finish with those 4" rollers.

 

I spray painted an MGA boot lid and various bit of it. Needed t-cutting to get a really good finish. I used 2 pack etch primer on that.

Not heard of tremclad. Just make sure it can stick to ali. The etch primers function is that it is is acidic and eats into / bonds to the ali - you only need the thinnest of coverings and then paint ontop of that.

 

In the old days all Hampshire buses were hand painted with a brush. You could just make out the brush stroke marks but the finish was high gloss and ok for a bus.

 

Add lightness, says the man with a VX :-)

My 2002/2003 racing pics

here

General pics (mostly of 7's and cars).

here

 

[skydragon]

The paint can be bought in the UK here

[Stuart McGill]

Skydragon - Was that link shwoing where Tremclad could be bought or something else? I'm very interested in this depending on what colours you can get it in.

 

Cheers

 

Stuart

[Roger Ford]

Sounds like the US equivalent of Hammerite / Smoothrite.

[skydragon]

This site is for Rustoleum, which I believe is the USA / UK tradename for Tremcad.

 

I can believe you can get reasonable results with this method, given enough paint coats and enough time/effort in cutting back after every few coats.

 

You are never going to get a deep/wet ultra-shiny gloss finish as per a modern spayed paint system, as it doesn't have a top clearcoat. But it might be a good (very cheap) option for a seven used for racing/sprints/hillclimbs, etc, as it should give a good durable paint finish that doesn't bring a tear to the eye every time it get's pebbledashed

[S47zz]

Sounds good - though using normal 'celly or 2pak' paint the results you can achieve at home are impressive - the end result depends on the initial prep as mentioned above. The 'pros' who charge high prices for resprays are really taking the pi$$ IMO.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense should achieve a great result, give it a try, the feeeling after successfully repsraying your car is well worth the time spent on the prep

[jonboylaw]

I think the point is that the material cost are a lot less and the painting can be done in a standard garage without the need for a (s)pray booth set up. I am also sure that 2pak is also pretty poisonous so not really good for use in residential areas (bit like the rapper? ).

 

The 7 has very few awkward angles to it and I for one am not looking for a show quality finish, just a paint job that make the car look smart and that is easy to maintain and hard wearing to boot, for a reasonable cost. Sure it will take time and effort perfecting the method, but I have time. I can imagine the satisfaction of completing the car and be able to say.. " I painted it as well ".

 

 

Jon

 

Edited by - jonboylaw on 27 Oct 2008 15:50:45

[myothercarsa2cv]

There was a really good article in Hot Rod Magazine about painting your car with rollers. They spent $100 including rollers and wet and dry and paint etc. Looked quite nice too, in cream with red scallops. I'm tempted to go this route, only because I have bare ali (couldn't decide on colour but couldn't wait to drive it!!!) and also because I am poor ☹️ Well, not that poor. But not well off enough to splash a grand on paint!

 

Anyone done it? Ooh rollers on louvres...

 

John

_________________________

 

Bugsy: '82 2cv6 (Hitting it fixed it )

Talloulah: '08 1.6K Classic (Tarnishing nicely ☹️)

[CK]

I'm sure Elie (Boone) will be along soon to pass on his unrivalled experience of all things paint

 

Chris.

[Rob Walker]

I have painted 3 cars and 2 motor cycles using Tekaloid coach enamel appied with 4" rollers and the finish was superb. I used their etch primer,then undercoat,next gloss top coat flatted down then body varnish.

[myothercarsa2cv]

If I was to have a go at this, would there be any issues with the aluminium, say, should I get it wrong, if I just used paint stripper to get it off? Does etch primer/tremclad type stuff that keys the metal for you degrade the surface as much as to make it unpolishable again?

 

John

_________________________

 

Bugsy: '82 2cv6 (Hitting it fixed it )

Talloulah: '08 1.6K Classic (Tarnishing nicely ☹️)

[jonboylaw]

I seriously doubt you would be able to get it back to the Aluminium if you made an error, the advice is to practice on some old pannels to get the technique and consistency right. If you balls it up and give in, then the only real course of action is to rub it down and take it to a spray shop. I do not think that getting back to the aluminium is an option once you start.

 

Does anyone know the UK equivalent to Mineral Spirit?

 

Jon

[Big Brother]

I have painted 3 cars and 2 motor cycles using Tekaloid coach enamel appied with 4" rollers and the finish was superb. I used their etch primer,then undercoat,next gloss top coat flatted down then body varnish.

 

Pretty standard in the world of Landrovers 😬

Lots of info here

 

 

 

Steve

 

 

SE7EN-UP!

---

_{If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.}

---

 

[jonboylaw]

And Landies are mostly aluminium (and rust...).

I am stripping all the old panels off my chassis before it goes to Arch, so a good amount of oxidised aluminium to practise on.

 

Regards,

Jon

[skydragon]

Has anyone had a go testing this stuff yet?

[Stuart McGill]

I have ordered some samples of the paint and will be soon!

 

Stuart

[Stuart McGill]

Oh and this is not on the 7 . On the old landy

[jonboylaw]

Stuart,

Let us know how you get on.

 

Jon

[Stuart McGill]

Its going to end up being a between Christmas and New Year project I think as we have the MOT to get through first.... .

 

Will let you know the results though.

 

Stuart

[skydragon]

Ok, I went for it but on a slightly different theme.

 

First some background. If you have a Seven with it''s Aluminium body skins in great condition but needing a respray, then I suggest this isn't for you. Take your car to someone who knows what they are doing, shell out approx £500 and get a good paint job done.

 

I was in a different situation though, in that my car was bare Ali (non painted) but covered in bad stonechipping and pitting and had some dents. All of this was due to it being an ex-Supergrad car, having been used for racing and it having been pranged a few times. It looked OK from 10 feet away, but from a few feet away it looked a tad rough in places (it wasn't really bad, but I'm being picky).

 

Due to this it just wasn't worth spending £500 on a respray.

 

I therefore had three options.

 

1) Leave the car as it was (bare Alu) but looking a bit rough when viewed close up.

2) Get the car reskinned and resprayed properly (£2500 ??)

3) Do a DIY job at low cost that made it look better than it was.

 

I went for option 3. Which still leaves me with option 2, if I want to turn it into a 'polisher's car' in the future 😬.

 

Instead of using the roller technique as mentioned above, I used Rustoleum paint in aerosols. This IMHO gives a better/easier finish with far less effort but at a slightly higher cost.

 

After cleaning the car thouroughly and masking it off, I first used Rustoleum adhesion primer, followed by Rustoleum RAL 2000 orange, followed by the Rustoleum clear gloss lacquer.

 

The paint is very easy to use, has very high coverage and can be used in low temperatures (I used it in 3degC - 6 degC).

 

After painting and a few weeks to dry, i used 1200 wet and dry, T-Cut and then a polish.

 

The end result cost me around £120.

 

Is it perfect... No. That would have cost me approx five times that ££. But it looks very good and for a race car is perfect. If I'm being picky there are some areas of slight orange peel that I can't be bothered to re-do, but I think the end result looks pretty damn good. The paint is softer than a 2 pac paint finish so won't be as durable, but I can always paint it again, or get it reskinned and painted 'properly'.

 

As well as the paint job, I fitted some SVC lights, blackpacked the windscreen surround with Hammerite black Satin and fitted some new Black wings from Dartford Composites and a Caterham decal.

 

If you have a Seven you mainly use for racing, then this is a paint option worth considering.

 

Have a look and see what you think.

 

Finished result here

 

 

 

1.6 K Series EU3, 2003, ex-SuperGrad car. Orange/Black.

 

Edited by - skydragon on 6 Jan 2009 09:33:59

[STEVE GILBERT]

Gets my vote

 

My dad used to have a transport company and painted all his vans with a roller. He also used the commercial vehicle paint called Teckaloid.

 

I did some of them and a van for a mate. The trick was to thin it just enough to go on thick, but not too thick that it went orange peel. It gave a lovely gloss shine and was very similar to rolling household gloss paint.

 

As ever it's all in the prep. A decent primer, flat ,then topcoat all done with 9inch sponge rollers. Lovely

 

Steve

 

See My Caterham Fireblade Here.

 

Edited by - STEVE GILBERT on 5 Jan 2009 19:50:43