Looking into doing my first paint job next year.

[timk225]

I'm in the research stage of painting my 1973 Duster next year. I've done all sorts of mechanical work on my old Mopars over the years, but nearly nothing for paint and body. So it's all new to me.

The body has a few small rust spots, but overall is a very solid car. I know someone who could do a great job and I've seen his metal fabrication work, but he won't be cheap.

This will be no show car, just a half decent driver quality paint job. The phrase to keep in mind is "ALMOST AS GOOD AND A WHOLE LOT CHEAPER".

Here's what I have figured out so far for what I think I want to do.

Color - 1971 EL5 Butterscotch. Single stage solid enamel. I don't want any kind of base / clear, and it's not a factory metallic color. I don't know if urethane would be easier for a first timer to spray.

I could pay for a real paint job, but first of all, I don't want to, and second, that's not what this car is for, plus I don't want to have to worry too much about the paint getting marked up or keyed on a $20,000 paint and body job.

I've been watching some videos on the subject, and I have a fair idea of what needs to be done. But actually doing it is another thing. A few metal patches need made and welded in. Are quarter panel patch panels made for a '73-'76 Duster? I don't want to order a full quarter panel and cut it up.

Any suggestions on a brand and type of paint? I can get hold of a stand up air compressor, add a filter dryer, and get the best paint spray gun on the shelf at Harbor Freight, or ebay used.

Need to figure lots of stuff out.

 

[Woods74]

#1 Time

On average, a decent paint job takes 1500 hours of intensive labor. There is hell of a lot that goes into executing a paint job and requires many hours of study, experimentation and navigating dangerous situations. Your passion, drive, budget for tools and consumables need to be on point or your frustration will take the wheel. It's fun but it takes A LOT of dedication, tireless hours putting it on and taking it off. Sanding till your extremities are numb all the time.

#2 Tools

https://www.ebay.com/itm/295051275740?_skw=Astro+Pneumatic+AST+888S
https://www.ebay.com/itm/291154498172?_skw=DA+sander

https://www.ebay.com/itm/336194584879?_skw=UPOL+body+filler
https://www.ebay.com/itm/364674391104?_skw=UPOL+2253
https://www.ebay.com/itm/177545454434?_skw=UPOL+Glazing

https://www.amazon.com/KQCXIK-Premium-Sanding-Anti-Clogging-Sandpaper
https://www.amazon.com/Multitool-Oscillating-Attachments-Sandpaper-Woodworking
https://www.amazon.com/3M-77-10-75-Scotch-Multipurpose-Adhesive


Sandpaper rolls:

36 Grit
80 Grit
120 Grit
180 Grit
320 Grit
400 Grit
600 Grit (Metallic basecoats)


https://www.harborfreight.com/4-78-in-soft-rubber-sanding-block-69574.html
https://www.harborfreight.com/17-inch-auto-body-hand-sander-1727.html
https://www.amazon.com/Preppin-Weapon-Sanding-Block-Blue


#3 Safety

This **** WILL kill you quick if you don't respect it! The ingredients in automotive 2k primer, and paint is highly toxic and is to be treated as radioactive. It gets into your blood through your eyes, skin and obviously lungs like a sponge within seconds of exposure. If you smell the paint, you've already over exposed for the session.

Internal organ inflammation is a consequence leading to cancer and other long term nasty health issues. Stay hydrated constantly when spraying and sanding. Limit exposure whenever possible, take breaks often.

A Tyvek suit, head sock, black heavy nitrile gloves taped, full leather boots and a full face fresh air respirator is mandatory.

Half face with organic filters, t-shirt, shorts and flip flops is only OK for sanding.

#4 Prep Protection

Protection is vital, discover the backmasking technique for the entire car, with skirts below. Sanding and polishing overspray isn't that cool. When your installing over or near use towels, rags, and blankets or get good at touch-ups and blends.

#5 Enviroment

Paint outside early in the morning is best, with a breeze, focus panel by panel is ideal to create quality and not get overwhelmed. I have zero bugs or debris in paint this way. Flawless.
Seal all doors and windows in the house and keep the animals and neighbors away.
Paint when ambient temps are above 50F and below 90F with 85% or less Relative Humidity. Get a gauge don't guess.
In a shop, use cross draft ventilation with as much open as possible working towards the fans in 1 long sweep, walking back and forth the entire work with 50% overlap like a robot.

#6 Paint

Good product that doesn't cost a fortune: Automotive Art Motocryl 50 Line, Wanda and SPI. Look into Marine paint as well.

#7 Youtube university



The OG's who know and share:

https://www.youtube.com/@diyautoschool
https://www.youtube.com/@OldBondoBilly


Then when you think you've put enough on and sanded enough off, lay down a couple wet 'teacher' coats and chill back for awhile.

Enjoy, observe, satisfy. Let your appetite and bank account rejuvenate.


This should get you started. Feel free to message me if you have questions.

 

[Kendog 170]

I would never paint outside but you need good ventilation. Filters on one side and a fan in a window on the other. You could do your bodywork and final sand and bring it to Macco. Probably pay less than a $1000.
This was my filter set up.

 

[andysauto1]

Single stage in the color you picked will be tuff for a first timer. Might want to consider base clear. Light colored metallics are not very forgiving in single stage

 

[Kendog 170]

Light colored metallics are not very forgiving in single stage

I don't think there's metallic in Butterscotch. I do like base clear better. My ragtop is single stage PPG and still fades every year. My hardtop is BC/CC and is holding up much better. Both my rides live outside.

 

[timk225]

Eeeehhhh.... maybe I'll just get the expensive guy to do it. It'll cost, but I know he knows his stuff. I understand how the chemicals are dangerous and protective equipment is needed, but it doesn't make sense to buy all this stuff for one car. Not a good financial investment. I'll let someone do the spraying who already has the gear.

On my Duster, aside from some small patches in the quarters, the roof needs the most work. Whoever had this car before me stored it for 20+ years with a poor car cover or something, so the roof paint is shot, there's a lot of surface rust and pitting there now. I was watching this video this morning, and it seemed to have good ideas for the rust repair prep on the roof in my case: .

Different things I've seen call it by different names, but as near as I can tell, it all comes down to phosphoric acid, then neutralize and epoxy prime.

Some have said sand the car and take it to Maaco. I don't think there are any in the Pittsburgh area anymore, plus I had a bad experience with one of those places in the late 90s. They painted a vehicle for me, and the color coat had bubbles all popped out through the paint on one door and the roof, and they had the nerve to ask me to pay to fix THEIR MISTAKES! I said no and they ended up fixing THEIR MISTAKES for free, even then I knew they didn't let the previous coat evaporate fully before painting the color coat. So I tend to look at all cheap paint places as an extreme rip off.

From what I've seen with doing some sanding and painting on the interior front floor in the car, Eastwood might have enough of what I need to get the roof rust stopped, then maybe spray and sand several coats to fill the dips and get it a little smoother.

I'll talk to some people and see what can be done. Meanwhile, I am open to more suggestions here.

 

[sam69sat]

This guy has some good paint videos.

 

[DC 340]

I painted my '65 in a small 2 car garage at my old residence using a 120 volt compressor. I stapled plastic sheeting overhead and on walls to keep the dust off. I put plastic sheet on the floor as well (big mistake). Single stage acrylic enamel shot with an old Sears spray gun. I only had 2 small windows in which I installed exhaust fans and another two as inlet with furnace filters.

I was planning 3 coats but concluded after 2 that it was a death trap in that garage. I could hardly see in there with the fog and I was sticking to the plastic on the floor big time. I remember pulling my shoes off and then my socks before it was done. I cleaned the blue paint off my hands and arms using lacquer thinner. What a job.

 

[Bodyperson]

I painted my '65 in a small 2 car garage at my old residence using a 120 volt compressor. I stapled plastic sheeting overhead and on walls to keep the dust off. I put plastic sheet on the floor as well (big mistake). Single stage acrylic enamel shot with an old Sears spray gun. I only had 2 small windows in which I installed exhaust fans and another two as inlet with furnace filters.

I was planning 3 coats but concluded after 2 that it was a death trap in that garage. I could hardly see in there with the fog and I was sticking to the plastic on the floor big time. I remember pulling my shoes off and then my socks before it was done. I cleaned the blue paint off my hands and arms using lacquer thinner. What a job.

View attachment 1716489958

Most of the dirt comes from the car. You are wasting your time with all of that plastic but acrylic enamel will coat everything. I have not shot acrylic enamel for 25 years. Vegetable oil may have taken that stuff off of you. Cool looking ride.

 

[fishmens67]

1500 hours of intensive labor.

 

[Woods74]

Troll on and get behind a sanding block.

 

[PROSTOCKTOM]

I did my own several years ago and I can tell you that all I did besides prime and block a couple hundred times was order more supplies and visit the local paint store weekly.

Finally, I just quit saving the receipts because I didn't want to know how much money I had in it.

Buy yourself some PSA linear sanding blocks Those are what I settled on as the best to get it all blocked out flat.

It will test you mentally, financially, and definitely physically.

When you can't stand working on it any longer go in the house and take a break. Then an hour later go back to it, no matter how much you hate it.

If you have a really nice garage, it will be ruined inside once you're finished with the project. The dust gets into everything no matter how hard you try to keep it clean.

In the end I have a super nice car that I wouldn't do the work for $20,000 if someone asked me to do it again.

You can do it, but the process will test you in ways you've probably never felt.

Good Luck,
Tom

 

[70SwingerGuy]

I agree with almost everything said already. This stuff is hard to do, thats why we went to tradeschool for it. My advice is if you want to do some work yourself, do what you can metal and prep-wise, and take it to a shop for the final spray.
Ask alot of questions and we'll try to answer as best we can
Good luck!

​

 

[Kendog 170]

I did my own several years ago and I can tell you that all I did besides prime and block a couple hundred times was order more supplies and visit the local paint store weekly.

Finally, I just quit saving the receipts because I didn't want to know how much money I had in it.

Buy yourself some PSA linear sanding blocks Those are what I settled on as the best to get it all blocked out flat.

It will test you mentally, financially, and definitely physically.

When you can't stand working on it any longer go in the house and take a break. Then an hour later go back to it, no matter how much you hate it.

If you have a really nice garage, it will be ruined inside once you're finished with the project. The dust gets into everything no matter how hard you try to keep it clean.

In the end I have a super nice car that I wouldn't do the work for $20,000 if someone asked me to do it again.

You can do it, but the process will test you in ways you've probably never felt.

Good Luck,
Tom

When I started my hardtop, everything stripped down, I would go out to the garage after dinner and open the door and get overwhelmed and go back in the house. I finally said to myself, just do one thing a day no matter how small. Once out there I found myself working 2-4 hours at night on it. Took me 8 years! Budget restraints (house, kids ect In the end it's a good feeling it was built not bought. Good luck with it.

 

[tom999w]

I've never painted a car either (besides crappy spray can jobs). So my non-show quality, weekend supermarket shopper, bogue condition Demon will get a Maaco paint job after all the mechanics are finished when it's time for paint.

 

[timk225]

I'd rather paint the car with spray cans than take it to Maaco or any similar fly-by-night half-assed paint place. Based on my one experience with them 28 years ago, they will never get another chance with me. Never going to happen.

 

[1MeanA]

You'd be better off doing what I did...do all the metal work, bodywork, priming, blocking, etc. and pay somebody with experience to mask it up and spray it.

 

[harrisonm]

I've never painted a car either (besides crappy spray can jobs). So my non-show quality, weekend supermarket shopper, bogue condition Demon will get a Maaco paint job after all the mechanics are finished when it's time for paint.

View attachment 1716493356

I'd rather paint the car with spray cans than take it to Maaco or any similar fly-by-night half-assed paint place. Based on my one experience with them 28 years ago, they will never get another chance with me. Never going to happen.

If you just take any old car in there for a paint job and choose their cheapest job, you will get a mediocre paint job. Partly because their prep is a quick wash, a quick scuff, a quick mask job and a quick spray with cheap paint. But they do offer paint jobs with better qualities of paint for higher prices.
I used to flip a few cars. I always had Maaco paint them. I did all the body work, sprayed on some primer and sanded the primer. Then I drove it to the local Maaco. In the parking lot, I would pull out tail lights, headlights, and anything else that came off easily. Then I would mask up pretty much everything except the windshield. They knew me, but they still made me sign a waiver since I did all the prep work. That was a joke, since my prep was light years better than theirs, but it was a rule they had to follow. Then I had them do their base clear paint job and paid for an extra coat of clear. The paint jobs always came out great. Think about it; the guy in the paint booth sprays cars all day, so he's probably pretty good at it. They always gave me the extra coat of clear, and the cars sold easily with a nice new paint job. The Maaco in Topeka would even let you bring in name brand paint. A good friend of mine had them paint his 65 Impala SS with PPG base and clear after we did the prep. It came out beautiful.

 

[Kendog 170]

I've never painted a car either (besides crappy spray can jobs). So my non-show quality, weekend supermarket shopper, bogue condition Demon will get a Maaco paint job after all the mechanics are finished when it's time for paint.

View attachment 1716493356

I had good luck BUT. Make sure you do all the sanding as they will just hit it with a scotch pad. We did this with my brother in law's Grand Prix. Looked beautiful for years then he sold it.

 

[Car Nut]

Here in my area, you can rent paint booths, I don’t know about your area.

 

[340six]

If you just take any old car in there for a paint job and choose their cheapest job, you will get a mediocre paint job. Partly because their prep is a quick wash, a quick scuff, a quick mask job and a quick spray with cheap paint. But they do offer paint jobs with better qualities of paint for higher prices.
I used to flip a few cars. I always had Maaco paint them. I did all the body work, sprayed on some primer and sanded the primer. Then I drove it to the local Maaco. In the parking lot, I would pull out tail lights, headlights, and anything else that came off easily. Then I would mask up pretty much everything except the windshield. They knew me, but they still made me sign a waiver since I did all the prep work. That was a joke, since my prep was light years better than theirs, but it was a rule they had to follow. Then I had them do their base clear paint job and paid for an extra coat of clear. The paint jobs always came out great. Think about it; the guy in the paint booth sprays cars all day, so he's probably pretty good at it. They always gave me the extra coat of clear, and the cars sold easily with a nice new paint job. The Maaco in Topeka would even let you bring in name brand paint. A good friend of mine had them paint his 65 Impala SS with PPG base and clear after we did the prep. It came out beautiful.

They are franchises. My buddy who used to work at a high end shop needed to slow down and wanted 9 to five few days week. He quit the late night and weekend highend. Went to Macco told them wanted to fix some minor things missed and mostly just shoot paint. He was used to shooting House of Color Kandys and such.
When someone wanted good real name brand paint not the regular stuff ( or even the high end Macco paint) they got a real good job.
Yes the location also did scuff and shoot. But if a car came in stripped and wanted real name brand paint and just needed a great painter it b was a great deal.
Keep in mind the painters, paint day in day out and can really shoot a car in a good booth. So if you got it there and body was right beforehand it's going to come out fine. And look better than your back yard-driveway doing it ya self.
Some shops are not good some are great. Depends go see painted cars there a few times to see what work gets done there.

 

[SpeedThrills]

I'd rather paint the car with spray cans than take it to Maaco or any similar fly-by-night half-assed paint place. Based on my one experience with them 28 years ago, they will never get another chance with me. Never going to happen.

I’m pretty sure things have changed (one way or another) in 28 years. (Yeah, sarcasm.) Nothing stays the same.

I’m getting my Duster ready for paint. I searched Maaco out of curiosity. (I had a car painted there in the 80’s that I prepped. It was a driver, and looked good.) The theme these days seems to be that you check out your local Maaco’s reputation. Some are pretty good. Depends on the painter’s experience and skill. It’s an entry level painting job.
I have a guy, who I know and trust, working up a quote now. There’s not many choices where I live. If he doesn’t work out, I’m seriously considering the Maaco route. My biggest problem is the mess the prep would make of my garage.

 

[Jim Kueneman]

I have painted 6 cars in the last 8 years. This last one was solid single stage, won't do that again. It fought me every step of the way. Automotive Arts Motobase and Southern Polyurethane's Universal Clear have been the rest. It is so much easier cutting a buffing high solid clear than cutting and buffing SS and it hides a lot more of the trash you will get in it. My suggestion is join the Southern Polyurethane forum (NOT the Facebook page). Extremely talented and nice people there that will help you out (I have found 99% of online groups with autobody/painting are fill with idiots).

The owner of Southern Polyurathanes told me much of what is here. Most of the trash in the paint comes from not cleaning the car enough before shooting it and the blast of air from the gun throws it up in the air and on the freshly laid paint. Second is it comes from you. I was shocked how many hairs I picked out of the paint on the first few cars. Buy a real disposable painting suit, stocking hair net and full face mask helps tremendously. The next is using plastic for a booth. Plastic get static charged and will _attract_ more dirt/dust. The owner of Southern Polyurathanes shot a '57 Chevy in is garage walking through blasting media, but following the above advice, mid week then took it to a show that weekend and won best paint without cutting and buffing it.

Bottom line,

1) Use good materials. Cheap material will cost you just as much as mid range because they cover like crap and will likely need 2x the material to get the same coverage. Motobase/Universal Clear are excellent materials that don't cost a fortune (like PPG).
2) Wash the car with Dawn and water multiple times focusing on blowing/power washing out all cracks and crevices of dust/dirt before paint.
3) Seal yourself from letting hair/eyelashes/etc from getting on the paint
4) Keep plastic far away from what you are doing. If you need to mask use the blue paper specifically designed for that job.
5) Base/Clear seems like more work than SS but it is not if you are going to cut and buff it afterwords, IMO.

All mine were shot outdoors the way it was outlined here, early in the morning and all have won many, many shows (including best paint). I actually found slices of time during the day different bugs came out during those days.

Jim