Quick Acrylic Paint Job

[260DET]

For the Z31 project race car, appliance white. What I'm thinking is to lay down enough colour so it can be buffed back to give some sort of shine and leave it at that, no clear coat. The risk may be getting carried away and buffing through the colour I suppose, So would a better alternative be to use enough clear to give a reasonable shine without buffing? That would make a paint repair job more complicated though wouldn't it. Material quantities? Already have 4 litres of white.

 

Thanks chaps, any other tips?

 

[PZG302]

Acrylic should come off the gun shiny enough. Only hassle you may have is orange peel and runs which will have to be sanded out.

 

For a race car a 10 foot paint job is enough.

[Retro Z]

Why not go 2k? (2pack). Baaecoat and clearcoat.

 

Gloss straight from the gun. Set and forget

[1600dave]

5 - 6 coats of colour, let it dry for a few days, quick sand with 1200 wet'n'dry (used wet) to get rid of any orange peel / runs / dirt, then buff, job done. With acrylic, only reason to put clear over the top is if you're using a metallic colour so you have something to cut and polish without disturbing the metallic "flakes". Just be careful on edges / corners when sanding and buffing that you don't cut too much - you can throw an extra coat or two just on these areas while you're painting to help protect against that.

 

4l of acrylic should go pretty close to doing the whole car, usual mix is 1 part paint to 1.5 parts thinner so 4 litres of paint will be 10 litres when mixed.

Edited March 14, 2018 by 1600dave

[HKSZ]

I'd still clear it, less polishing work to get a good shine and think of it as sunscreen for your car.

[1600dave]

Slightly less polishing, but more painting and expense. If you put clear over the top, you really need enough coats of clear to ensure you don't buff through that into the colour so that's an extra 4 coats or so of clear over the top of your 3-4 of colour.

 

If you want half decent gloss off the gun, extra thinners in the last coat will help.

[260DET]

For a bit extra gloss off the gun, are all thinners the same?

[1600dave]

Pretty much, so long as you use a half decent one (ie use a proper acrylic lacquer thinner, not el cheapo general purpose thinners).

[wildy55]

Why not buy some matt White vinyl wrap. Reckon on about $100-$150 for the lot. Wet the panels and lay the sticky side down. Squeeze out the water and trim the edges. Job done in a day and crash repairs are easy and cheap. Get it right and the finish will be smooth and mint. If you spray gloss panel ripples will stand out. Plus there's so much prep work before spraying if you want to avoid a cheap looking job.

[Cozza]

Wow! $100-$150 sounds great. Where do you buy wrap material?

[Dionysus]

Why not buy some matt White vinyl wrap. Reckon on about $100-$150 for the lot. Wet the panels and lay the sticky side down. Squeeze out the water and trim the edges. Job done in a day and crash repairs are easy and cheap. Get it right and the finish will be smooth and mint. If you spray gloss panel ripples will stand out. Plus there's so much prep work before spraying if you want to avoid a cheap looking job.

 

I've never seen wrap described as easy and cheap, and with vinyl you get what you pay for.

[PZG302]

yeah, nah on the wrap.

 

To get a good job costs money.

 

I have a good mate who does a lot of motorsport sign work in NSW and I was quoted $2k to wrap the S14 in plain white vynal, and it would last about 5 years.

 

A wrap is something that you definitely get what you pay for, and a cheap crappy job with crap vynal will look shit pretty quickly.

[PZG302]

For those playing at home,

 

Good old air dry enamel is also a cheap easy solution for quick and good looking paint job.

 

If you hadn't already bought the paint I would have suggested this.

[260DET]

Am going to get some simple graphics done over the acrylic but there are people here who do vinyl and of of course there are sign writers locally too. YOLO Racing?

[HomeBuiltByJeff]

I always think you should avoid acrylic. If you are going to go to the effort of painting a car, then just go 2-pack from the start. 2 pack is easier to paint, and comes out 10x glossier off the gun. Acrylic always looks like crap, sad but true. In your case you could just paint it in 2k solid. Basically where the hardener is in the colour, so you don't have to clear it. 

 

Painting a car, even a 'quick' paint job, is a lot of work. For a relatively small amount extra, the results FAR outweigh the cost.

[smugley]

Problem with 2 pack paint is it contains isocyanate a chemical linked with cancer and a number of other nasty illnesses and requires a booth and an external air-fed resperater. It's something that should be left to the professionals unless you are not to fussed about your health !

[HomeBuiltByJeff]

Problem with 2 pack paint is it contains isocyanate a chemical linked with cancer and a number of other nasty illnesses and requires a booth and an external air-fed resperater. It's something that should be left to the professionals unless you are not to fussed about your health !

It does have iso, you are correct, but you don't want to be breathing in Acrylic either. No matter what you are doing you need to have a proper painting mask, but it doesn't need to be air-fed. I worked in at least 100 different panel shops over 13 years and only remember 1 that used air-fed masks.

[260DET]

Appreciate all the advice but it's a race car so easy touch ups are important and I've had good results from acrylic. Pic show my 260Z done in acrylic under the house with a Supercheap spray gun and not enough compressed air capacity.