http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

Amazing result

 

That is amazing that he was able to get that kind of a result for so little money. I wonder how long the finish will last though.

 

repost, but still worth mentioning. I would definitely hit that up if I had a beater car...

clayman: One of the people that used it has had his for 2 years with no sign of fading. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

 

extremely impressive.

 

That is very interesting. If I had another ride besides the Max I would give it a try.

 

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/...0&fpart=1&vc=1

here's another link with some more results.

 

Heheheh...I actually used this very method to paint my refrigerator from white to black when I moved into my new house (all black appliances).

Granted, a refrigerator's a little bit easier than a car, but it looks great. Most people never notice. I have to tell them I painted it.

 

I'll be painting the 240sx (its primer red :/) this spring with rustoleum and maybe even the maxima. The paint is pretty scratched/beat on the maxima but they are both 1990's. It should turn out pretty good, and I do want to get the maxima painted next year. Its black so it should turn out pretty good.

Im thinking blue or something for the 240sx, and the maxima is black so it's staying black. I'll definitely post lots of pics.

~Alex

 

time is money.
how many hours (days) did this guy spend sanding and buffing on the car as compared to the cost of a properly applied quality automotive paint?

PPG White, about $60 a gallon. blue, about $20/qt, clear $150/gal. lacquer thinner, $20/gal. Air compressor $350 (you'll already have one if you're doing resto/maintenance work of this caliber)
paint gun, $75
so that's $325 for quality automotive paint and a paint gun.

rust-oleum is about $60 a gallon. rollers, trays, cleaning equipment, let's guesstimate around $40. add in the additional case of 600 and 1000 grit sandpaper you'll be about $125 in materials.


considering only the change in paint and the labor associated with it, you're going to spend 1-2 days painting using conventional methods, and a week using the rustoleum.. so you're looking at 5 days difference. assume 8 hr days working on it (sanding, buffing, masking, painting, etc).. that's 40 hours of additional work to apply the paint with a roller.


So let's look at the time factor of money. my time doing something else in my driveway is worth $35/hr. That's $1400 in labor.

So you're subtracting $200 in materials but adding $1400 in labor to be able to roll on paint that's not designed for this application instead of to spray the proper automotive paint and not have to worry about it.

 

wait a minute....only 325? i was under the impression that paint is a lot more expensive than that.

 

well when the time comes for me to get a project car, I'll actually enjoy doing things like this, so I guess it's up to the buyer.

 

depends on what color you want.
Chevy's Torch Red (what I'll be painting the Maxima with) is about $450 per gallon in the cheapest stuff I can find. Keep in mind though that red is the most expensive color out there, period. (discounting pearls and chromalusion paints)

Nissan Arctic White (Kelly's 97 Altima) was like $17 a quart and under $60 per gallon.

You can pick more basic off-the-shelf colors that don't require custom mixes and save a lot of money. you just have to shop around a bit and see what you can get. (Going with Rust-Oleum, you're only getting to choose a few colors anyway, so you'd got an infinitely better selection going to automotive paints)

 

I still enjoy working on mine too, but when it comes to bodywork and getting the car painted, I'd rather sand and buff it only once, not 10 times. if you've never wet-sanded an entire car, you'll only want to do it once, trust me. it's a 6-8 hour job to properly wet-sand an entire car with 1000 grit- especially when you're using a paint that's been roller-applied and has a ton of orange peel. Imagine doing that after every coat of paint....

my bad shoulder is screaming just thinking about it.

 

I'm very impressed as well - finish looks great. Any thoughts on if the job is worth it? I'm not sure how long a paintjob like this would last? LA02MAX says there is someone who did this and it has lasted 2 years now - is that 2 years of DD, or 2 years of 75% in the garage?

Obviously this method doens't allow for 'long-term' results like a factory paintjob would, but I'm still interested if it would last long enough on a dd car for it to be worth it.

40 hours of labour is a LOT of time - still, must feel good knowing that money you would have spent at the paint shop, is still in your pocket.

 

This looks like a great way to paint an old beater jeep or winter beater or something to that effect, but as Matt said, way way too much work for the result. Make friends with someone with a compressor and you'll be much happier. As he said, if you've never wet-sanded a car before, you don't know what you're getting yourself into..

 

MacGarnicle this guy has had his for nearly 7 years! (at the time this post was created) That's a pretty decent amount of time. I'm not sure whether these cars are daily driven or not...I'm guessing the charger is not, but the beetle might be....this is from the link I posted above.

 

wow, that's very impressive- thanks for pointing that out

 

I'm Glad I found this thread. I have an 89 mustang I'm getting ready to sell that I just put over $2000.00 into. AS-IS I wouldn't be able to get $500 out of it. (unless I parted it out, then I'd probably get $1000 out of it) It's already been sanded and "prepped" for paint, but finding someone to do it is a problem. Seems like this may be a good car to practice on. Maybe I'll do 4-5 coats then wet sand, then do another 1-2 coats and wet sand after the 6th and 7th coat. Anyone see a problem with short cutting to save time and not wet sanding after every coat?

 

problem there is that the paint layers won't stick to each other, so the paint starts peeling shortly after you finish the car. not cool.

 

Well, I bought the paint and have applied my first coat on one fender as a test ..

So far it looks like ****..

 

What was prep like?

 

Sure you wanna go there? Body work FTL. I sanded the clear coat and all grime off the car until it was smooth. Then I cut out the rest and welded in new sheet metal. Finally, I added body filler (yea, I mean bondo) to the welded sections to even the surfaces out. After a few dozen more hours of getting the sections filled with bondo smooth and level I noticed I missed a few spots sanding. What did I do you ask??
I removed the fenders and paid an in-law $7.00 an hour to finish the prep work. (F.Y.I. He doesn't ask if I need any side or yard work done anymore.)
So, I start to paint the car. There are no runs, but there are to many air bubbles in the paint. I'm going to sand the first coat down with 300 grit since the paint is to bubbly and thin the next coat out a bit more. I'm at about 50/50 right now. We'll see how it turns out.

 

mean! if i had the ***** to do that to my car i would