im thinking of doing some paint work on my car but have a few questions. the first area of my car i am thinking of painting is my door (picture is below). as you can see, its been bondoed, but it is not totally level and needs some sanding and i may need to fill in some low spots with more bondo. i already got a quote from a body shop saying they will re-do the shotty bondo job and paint it for $800. the shop does good work so im not worried about quality, but im wondering if this door is something i can do myself. my dad is a contractor and has a warehouse where we cna paint it and he has the spray equipment. what kind of prep work would be needed for this?



p.s. this isnt something i did, i bought teh car with this work already done.


the other thing i want to do is do a '97 front end conversion and paint the bumper and new stillen lip myself...these i will definatly do myself, but i just need to know what kind of materials i will need.

finally. about how much would a new paint job run me? no special custom colors, just a re-paint of the stock color. i got a ton of small scratches and dings all over the car where a new paint job would probobly be the only fix. it is probobly somehting i am not going to resort to, but i would like to know what it could run me.

 

painting the lip MIGHT be possible yourself. If you have never painted then you WILL screw up your panels. The only way to match the new surface to the prexisting painted surface is to blend it. This is done by spraying into the already painted body panels and feathering it. YOu will have to spray into the rear quarterpanel and also most of the door. You will have to do the same with the clear coat. I have painted many things with my spray gun, compressor, tools, etc, and I would not take this on because I do not have experience blending (expecially such a critical, and large, area of the car).

PLEASE just spend the money to have it done right. If you attempt this you will not succeed without an experienced painter guiding you. If you want it to look like total crap you can try, but I promise you will regret it. Also the proper materials in paint and clear alone will cost you $100, other added equipment and such about $50. If you attempt and fail you will easily spend $1K. Just get it done right and pay around 6-700 dollars. BTW $800 is a little high. I would try to talk them down 50-100$.

Good luck,

Mark

 

like he said the blending is going to be near impossible for somone who has never painted, i know i would never try to do that myself, just my $0.02.