STEP BY STEP GUIDE How to Paint a Car at Home

Hey everyone. What you see in front of you is our freshly painted Datsun project and clearly the results are excellent. We want to show you how to paint your car at home and get the same great results. So when diving into the bodywork on a project you may not know what's hiding beneath the paint. In that case the best move might be to strip it to bare metal and start with a clean slate and that's what we did with the Datsun here. Using a combination of tools including a DA sanders, our SCT and chemical stripping we get this car back to the bare bones so we can see what's in front of us. Sure enough we did find some old body filler hiding. We finished conditioning the metal by going over the entire car with the SCT. If you don't have that you can use a DA with 80 grit paper. Now that the car is stripped of all old issues we need to prevent some rusting and give us a base to start working from. So we apply a couple coats of our Eastwood epoxy primer over the entire car. Note that the body filler we'll be using can be applied over bare metal or over the primer. We're opting for primer as it better fits our timeline and gives us a visual indicator of highs and lows. You can do either method just make sure to follow the product guidelines. Now that our car isn't going to rust away on us we can move on to the next step, body filler. Once the epoxy primer has hardened for at least two to three days we give the panel an entire wipe down with pre-painting prep to remove any dust and contaminants. On this project we're also showcasing our new dustless sanding block or DSB which is why we have the shop split in half. We have more videos on the DSB and you can check them out on our YouTube channel but let's just say this thing works. Whatever your preferred block is you can start blocking the whole car with 80 grit sandpaper. Make sure to work on a crosshatch X pattern and move across the panel so it comes out nice and flat. You'll probably have an idea of problem areas going into this step anywhere you did metal work old repairs dents etc but this will quickly reveal the highs and lows across each panel. The dark spots are the areas where your block can't get into that's why they're there it's unsanded primer. These are the areas that we'll work on later using the filler. On this project I made a door skin shaved some holes and replaced lower quarter panels and other rust areas so I knew these areas would need some attention. Once you have the whole car blocked with 80 give it another wipe down with pre and start adding filler. Now there are two general approaches to filler you can either spot repair and just add filler to your low spots or you can skim coat the entire panel sanding most of it off but knowing that your panel is going to be flat. We did a bit of both on the doors fenders and roof we opted to skim coat everything as there were a lot of imperfections across these panels. The hood was mostly straight so we went with the method either way you can get the same results it's just a matter of preference. I mentioned the contour DSP this thing really works it collects about 95% of the dust from your filler which is going to eliminate this ruining your shop and your life. Also we added a nylon blocking plate to the bottom of this thing which is going to cut the filler fast and super flat. If you're going to be doing bodywork I highly recommend getting one of these. After this first big skim coat is sanded down and we think we're ready for more filler we once again clean everything by blowing the car off wiping down with pre-painting prep. We still need to apply filler to the rest of the panels but the highs and lows are not as obvious so we sprayed the car with guide coat to identify these spots as well as all over our filler to check those areas we're also straight and smooth. Now with our highs and lows identified we can continue sanding the car with 80 grit applying filler as necessary to the dark low spots and checking with guide coat until we get the car pretty straight. Another layer of guide coat and we can work on sanding out our 80 grit scratches by working through our finer sanding grits 180 220 and 320. You'll know you can move on when you no longer see scratches in the guide coat from the previous grit. If you find surface defects and pinholes you can use our glazing putty to spot treat those areas simply mix it up just like normal filler and block along with the rest of the body. We're using our glazing putty because it's softer and flows and we can continue with the grit paper that we're using so we don't have to take a couple steps back and repeat the process. This is the longest step in the process so be patient and take your time. We have several eight hour days of body work into this car but in the end your time will pay off. Once you're happy with the filler you can move on to the next step which is applying primer. Our body work is looking good and we're anxious because we're ready to start moving towards paint. Just like anything else there are a lot of preferred methods and workflows when going from metal work through primer and paint. Production shops will often coat with just urethane primer while show car might get two or three rounds of high build polyester. We're going to show you the method we did on this car and if you follow these you'll get great results too. For our first coat we're going to use our Optiflow epoxy primer. We'll go with epoxy to seal all the body work up because it has great adhesion to both metal and filler. The kit also makes it super easy for anyone to do in their driveway or shop without needing an air compressor paint gun or worrying about overspray. The kit includes everything you need to apply including trays mixing cups and rollers. We use the included 2k aerospray cans to hit all the hard to reach areas and then roll two coats of epoxy working from the hood back panel by panel. Next we let it get nice and hard for a couple days before blocking with 320 grit. This stage is also pretty rewarding because we get to evaluate how the car is looking in one solid color. At this point you can go one of two ways urethane primer if your body work is pretty straight and ready for paint which we also offer as part of the Optiflow system or if you still have some sanding scratches you can spray with our polyester primer. Polyester primer is like sprayable body filler and is designed to fill the small imperfections. It's great for beginners as it's an extra chance to get your panel straight before paint. We opt for the polyester to fill in some remaining sanding scratches we had missed and to help sharpen up those body lines one last time. We do three full coats of the polyester and let it set up over the weekend. Our gun settings are 30 to 35 psi, a 2.0 needle nozzle, 12 inch fan pattern and three wet coats with about 15 minute flash time in between. With all the primer we should need on the car we can apply another layer of guide coat and do a final block sand starting with 320 grit then 400 and finish with 600 grit. Just like on body filler your goal here is to not have any sanding scratches from the rougher grits visible as you move on. If you find yourself struggling to get sanding scratches out with the panel is straight you can always wipe everything down apply another coat or two of primer and begin blocking again. So accidents happen got some cut throughs and also some fillers showing so we'll mix up what's called a seal coat. Basically it's taking our epoxy and reducing an additional 20%. What this does is it covers your bare spots it gives you one uniform color on the car in preparation for base coat. This is actually nice because a lot of painters prefer applying base over the sealer rather than your polyester primers. Sealers can be top coated in the same day or sprayed hardened and scuffed before your base. With the primer finished to 600 grit or sealed we can move on to the next step where we'll lay down some color. The car is prepped and you're ready to bust out the paint gun but before you go spraying your now super straight car it's worthwhile to do a test panel to make sure you have everything dialed in just right. You have a lot of options when choosing paint for your ride from single stage to multi-stage system. The single stage paint job is basically a base coat and clear coat in one formula meaning you don't have to apply a separate base and clear it's all done in one step. This is a great beginner and budget-friendly option. The most common option is what we're going to do a base coat clear coat system. We're using our OEM select base coat for this project as it offers over 75,000 OEM colors where we found the perfect shade of gray for this Datsun. If you want to browse our library of OEM select colors check out the link in our description. We prep a spare body panel we had laying around and fill our paint gun while using a strainer. For our base coat we're using a 1.3 needle about 15 psi and we're making sure we have 50 overlap between each pass. You'll start by spraying color on your edges and then making even passes back and forth across your panel. We're not laying clear so we want it to be a medium wetness not glossy with about 15 minute flash time between coats. We apply three coats then since this is a metallic we'll opt to do a drop coat. A drop coat is your final pass to make metallics lay out nice and even. To do one lower the pressure a few psi move about double the distance away from the panel and in a movement as you see here. If you're not spraying a metallic you can skip this step and move on after three coats of base. Moving on to our clear coat we're using our premium show clear and medium activator as it's about 72 degrees in our inflatable booth. The clear needs to be mixed with the activator at a ratio 4 to 1. Using the mixing cup you'll find a 4 to 1 ratio column. Add clear to the fill line next take your activator and add to the corresponding fill line then use a stirrer to mix. We set the gun up with the same 1.3 needle 28 psi and a 10 inch fan pattern. While not necessary we have to do a tack coat on the first pass. A tack coat is a semi-dry coat that helps promote adhesion and prevent runs. Then follow up with two wet on wet coats with about 15 minute flash between. Our test panel came out great so now we can apply these techniques to the car. Now here's where we face another decision how do you get color and clear on the jams of the car also known as cut in. You can either blow the car apart paint the jams panels and body individually or you can paint the jams specifically reassemble and then paint the body. For cut in the goal is to paint all the areas that aren't accessible once the car is assembled so we pop off the doors deck lids and open the hood so we can reach these spots. Now you can tape up the car to prevent over spraying the interior and under hood using a technique called back taping. This is where we tape on the back side of pinch welds and seams so we don't create hard tape lines. We wipe down with pre-painting prep we follow that up with a tack rag which is a sticky cloth that will pick up any remaining dust dirt or lint. With the car clean we can start spraying focusing on the jams and letting color blow onto the body now we'll address this later. With color applied we can spray the clear on using the settings we tested earlier. The great thing about performing cut in is it gives you another opportunity to get used to your gun paints and moving around the vehicle before spraying the part that everyone's eyes will be on. With that finished we'll let our paint get hard for two days bolt the panels back on and move on to painting the body. The Datsun is reassembled now we can address the over spray all over the body we'll grab a DA with an interface pad and 600 grit and give the whole car a buzz down. Additionally we use gray scuff pads for anywhere the DA can't reach well and to make sure our surface is smooth and to promote good adhesion. We shouldn't have any shiny surfaces once we're done here. Next we're on to final prep for paint we blow the car off and wipe down with pre-painting prep. Now we can tape up everything we don't want paint to get on for us this means all the windows under hood tail light gaps and our freshly painted jams. So we use a combination of back taping which we discussed earlier and foam tape to get this job done. With the car loaded into booth our painter gives it a final wipe down with pre-painting prep and then a tack rag and start spraying some base coat using the same settings we determined on our test panel. After three coats plus the drop coat she's on to clear. One note here is to make sure you maintain a wet edge while moving around the full car for example move from the quarter to the door to the fender don't jump around the car you want to avoid spraying over clear that has flashed as it won't lay out nice. After two good coats we're all finished we don't have a heated booth so we'll let this sit for as long as we can before disturbing for us that was about three hours in the booth then we're able to move it out in the studio and let that cure over the weekend and voila you now have a freshly painted car. Depending on how your paint job comes out you might be happy enough to stop here we're pretty happy seeing this thing looking shiny in the studio but we did have a bit of dirt in the clear some orange peel and a couple runs and if it's your first time you most likely have an issue or two as well but that's not a problem at all we'll let this sit for about a week and we move on to the final step cutting and buffing. Alright so you've bodywork primed sanded and painted but maybe you have a few issues that happen to everyone in the booth. We'll start by addressing the runs and then we'll talk about cutting dirt and orange peel. I tackled the run by dry sanding with 800 grit on a block you can focus on the high spots and do a slight bit of cross blocking as you get it close to flat. Once it's about 90% there switch over to wet sanding with 1000 grit until it's completely flat using the cross blocking technique. Now our run's gone but we have orange peel dirt and 1000 grit scratches in our door. All of these get addressed at once. Take 1500 grit on a DA an interface pad and wet sand the entire door including over the now flat run making sure to avoid your edges though. Periodically wipe down the door so you can check your progress. Once the texture is gone, shown here, we hit the edges and body lines with our 1500 by hand and then switch over to 2000 grit on the DA for a few more passes to make sure our 1500 grit scratches are all sanded out. Now our door is super flat and we just need to bring that shine back. To do that we recommend using a three-step system starting with an aggressive cutting compound wool pad and finishing with foam pads and polishing compounds. Applying your cutting compound to the face of the wool pad and spread it around the panel you're working on. Then add a little speed to the buffer and coat the work area in an even layer. Now this part will take a little practice. Ramp up the buffer to full speed and move across the panel with a little bit of pressure. You want to keep the pad as close to flat as you can. I typically ride the right hand side and move horizontally along the panel. This keeps the pad spinning down and gives me the best control. After several passes in an area you should start seeing that shine come back in your panel. Once your panel has the shine back and it's not coming up any further, wipe it down with a microfiber and move on to the next foam pad and step two compound. The goal for step two is to remove any haze left behind from step one. The process is the same just with foam and you won't need to hit this as long or as aggressively. Finally repeat for step three. Now our door is flat with no runs dirt or orange peel. We spent about a day addressing the rest of the car and bam show car Datsun. The results really speak for themselves here. This thing looks amazing. Every step of the process has worked towards getting the great results that we're proud of and that you can do at home too. By following these steps and taking your time using high quality blocks, high quality paint, primers, elbow grease, and buffers there's no reason why you can't achieve this at home. We really want to help you with this process so we've put together a full pdf showing you the six steps we have listed here and which products we used in each. As always for more information click the link in the description or head over to eastwood.com