$40 Paint Job
 

Hi folks,

I have been requested to do a write-up on my $40 paint job that I did on my Miata/MX-5 and here it is;

Background:
Thie idea of re-spraying my car started at the back of my mind a few years ago, and as the "Classic Red" looked more and more like "Sunburnt Pink" I was getting closer to making the jump into re-spraying it no matter what the cost.

Then I stumbled across the moparts forum where there was a post circulating about a "paint job on a budget" where some guy was talking about the $50 paint job that he did on his Charger, and damn it looked great in the pics that he posted.


http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d1...n/DSC02769.jpg


Testing:
I had a spare bootlid sitting in my garage, so I decided to give it all a try to see if the whole thing was crap or gold.

The paint that was used on the charger is called Tremclad (as sold in Canada) or Rustoleum (as it's sold in the States). The paint is thinned with mineral spirits, applied with a high density foam roller and after seven or so coats and a whole lot of wet sanding, a finish like that of the charger can be achieved. Or so they were saying on the moparts forum....

As you may have guessed, I live in Australia and I had no hope of buying either the Tremclad or the Rustoleum, so I ended up using a local paint called Tremco Metal Armour. I have always thought that black Miatas/MX-5s look like sex on wheels, so I shelled out for a litre of the Gloss Black.

Anyway, after 10 or so coats on my spare bootlid, I was confident and skilled enough to give it a go on my car.

Technique:
I applied the same technique as described on the moparts forum of thinning the paint with the mineral spirits until the mixture was about the same consistency as water. That is really, really thin for paint. As I was doing all of the painting in my dusty garage, I changed the moparts recipe of wet sanding between every second coat, to my recipe of wet sanding after every coat with 1500 grit paper.

Painting:
It would take for ever to go through everything I did with my seven coats of paint, so I'll mainly let the following pics do the talking.

Ready for the first coat


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019190204.JPG

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019175457.JPG


After the first coat


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019190204.JPG

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019190204.JPG


So after doing one coat of paint per day, a week and a bit later my car was looking like this.


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019180821.JPG

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019180821.JPG


As you can see it is quite a transformation over the old "Sunburnt Pink" and I was really happy with the results.

Unfortunately though the paint was prone to water damage and every time that it rained the paint changed from a gloss black to a satin/matt black.....

In the mean time the first moparts "paint job on a budget" thread filled and the new "paint job on a budget - continued" thread started to include the trials of a marine paint called International Brightside.

The Brightside is available in Australia, so I went to the local marine supply store and $37.50 later I had a litre of Brightside Gloss Black. After sanding most of the previous black paint off the car and applying two coats of the Brightside (without using any thinners at all);


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1019184154.JPG

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0930190346.JPG

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0930190346.JPG


Those three shots of the car are before I do the final wet sand and detailing of the car. From all of my recent sanding practice, I am expecting to get a near perfect finish from the paint once the last step is finished.


Anyway, that is the story of my $40 paint job. If anyone is thinking about re-spraying their car, hopefully I have shown that the 'roller' paint job is a great quality and low cost option for someone who is prepared to DIY.

If anyone has any questions or comments then please feel free to ask them. If anyone has the urge to bag this post or myself for trying this painting technique out, then I'll say in advance that I don't care what you think, I'm happy with my sexy black Miata/MX-5.

Steve

that looks awesome... im doing mine over winter break...

here are more miata results:
http://www.clubroadster.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2720

does it still get flat/satin when it rains on the brightside paint? or will it stay glossy?

This is very interesting...I'll be repainting my front bumper this winter after repairing some damage that the PO did, and might just try this out! Keep us updated as to how it turns out...which paint you liked better and how durable it is. Thanks for sharing!

The Brightside is certainly a much better paint compared to the Metal Armour that I first tried. The gloss jumps out at you in comparison and in the two-three weeks since I painted the car, the gloss hasn't changed at all. The Metal Armour started to fade after a only couple of days.

The Brightside also has much better UV protectant and it also contains Teflon which will make it a lot more durable than regular paint.

In the links you posted, there is a few people having trouble buffing the paint to a shine due to lack of paint hardeners. Did you have that problem, or did the final sanding and detailing that you mentioned work fairly well? Thanks

As anyone done this and then did a final sprayed on clear coat? Seems like it should work and give you more depth and shine.

From memory, all of the people having problems with the hardness of their paint are using the Rustoleum. None of the people using the Brightside have reported any problems with the hardness of the paint.

I also think that one of the resaons why people are having problems with the hardness of their paint is they may not be letting the paint cure for a month or so before doing the final sanding and detailing. I won't be finishing my car until early November because I want to give the paint time to properly cure before I seal it with a wax.

There is no way that I would spray a clear coat over the Brightside.

Firstly, spraying my car would involve so much more hassle over using a roller that I simply don't have the space, or the oven or the ventilation system, etc to do it properly.

Secondly, my car doesn't need a clear coat to make it look any better. As you can see from the pics in my first post, the car already looks like it has a bc/cc paint job, and here at school there are three other teachers with black cars (a new BMW, a VW Passat and a Monaro/Pontiac GTO) and my car certainly doesn't look like crap when any of those cars park near mine.

Thirdly, International don't make a clear in the Brightside range and there is no way that I would ever contimplate using a different brand cc to the bc. That would be just asking for trouble.

Forthly, any clear coat will make fixing minor repairs a major job. With the straight Brightside, I can fix a stone chip or scratch by giving the car a quick sand in the appropriate spot, get out the roller or the foam brush and fix it in less than five minutes. If it had cc over the paint, then I would have to sand the entire panel back to the black (or even maybe the original red), roll the Brightside back on, let it cure for a day or so, then get everything ready to spray the cc, then spray the cc (where I would have to be really careful about masking the car so as not to get any overspray on the other panels). In my book that's simply unnecessarily difficult/annoying.

Lastly, the Brightside has excellent UV protection and Teflon in the paint. I don't know of any clears that offer the same levels of protection (certainly not in the $37.50 per litre price bracket anyway).

Steve

i just took it to Maaco with a coupon for a Presidential paintjob (clearcoat mixed) for $279.

i tried doing some bodywork fixing rust spots. one spot, i made it 10x worse. got rid of the rust, but getting all of that to level up was the hard part (with Bondo). bodywork ain't easy at all.

if the paint lasts 2 years, i'm ok with it. maybe next time i'll spring for the clearcoat.

btw, your car looks great...especially for what was spent on it.


http://usera.imagecave.com/dntlx50/90GT-2/DSCN1854.JPG

so you think it's ok to wax when it doesn't have a clear coat on it? i had another old Mustang where either the clearcoat was gone due to age...or maybe it previously had a cheap/no-clearcoat paintjob a few years ago.

waxing this car, caused the paint to come off in smudged on my towels/rags.....not chunks of paint, but noticeable smudges.

the paintshop told me to wait 1 month. handwashing with soap, they said was ok...but no commercial/machine wash and no waxing until 1 month later.

paint without clearcoat will do that, including the factory miata black i used to have. just have to be a little more careful with it, no reason not to wax it

everytime I wax my car I'm left with red applicators.

Guys, no offence intended here, but what on earth do you use when you wax a car??

Waxing a car should be the last step in detailing paint as wax is a sealant and it shouldn't have any abrasive properties. If you wax a car properly, then there shouldn't ever be any paint transfer onto your applicator or buffing pad.

A swirl remover will certainly leave you with a lot of paint transfer, but any half decent wax will just add depth to the shine of the paint and (hopefully) protect the paint for a few months.

There is no reason why a wax can't be applied to a single stage paint. In fact Zaino Bro's (who make some of the best polishes and sealants that you can buy) make the Z3 Show Car Polish specifically for regular paint.

Once I wet sand my car in November, I'm planning on using Poorboy's SSR2.5 with a light cutting pad, followed by a second coat of SSR2.5 with a polishing pad. Then Poorboy's SSR1 with a polishing pad, followed by a second coat of SSR1 with a finishing pad, then one coat of Zaino Z1 followed by 2-3 coats of Z5 and then as many coats of Z3 that I have time to do.

thank you for posting this, it looks friggin great. I want to copy your car really bad, but I dont have the garage space right now :crx: Would you mind detailing how you exactly did each coat, painting technique etc so others like me can copy you?

The first thing that I would suggest to anyone wanting to try this out would be to practise on something else first. If you have any spare body panels, or an old fridge or maybe an old metal filing cabinet, then learn how to roll with that first. Get yourself any gloss enamel paint in a tin and get the four inch high density rollers and some mineral spirits. Personally I would get some 320 grit wet and dry sand paper and then a few sheets of all of the major gradients that are finer than that. So maybe 600, 800, 1200, 1500 and 2000. Also get yourself a foam sanding block that you can use to wrap the paper around.

To wet sand, get a bucket of water and soak your desired grade of paper in the bucket with warm water and some dishwashing liquid. I also have two pump pressure bottles, one with warm water and some more dishwashing liquid, and the other with plain water.

I get the panel nice and wet with the dishwashing liquid mixture from the bucket and then sand from front to back, using about the same amount of pressure as I use when polishing by hand.

I keep wetting the area that I'm sanding with the pump bottle and I stop every minute or so to feel the paint that I have just sanded. Most good wet sanding can be done by feel alone. If there is the slightest imperfection in the paint than you will feel it long after you will stop seeing it.

I also have a rag handy to wash each panel and I use a chamois to dry the panel.

So once the fridge/car substitute is sanded down with the 320 grit paper (or 600 or 800 or whatever you decide to use) the next step is to make sure that the surface is free of dust etc before you can start painting.

[I am assuming here that the panel doesn't need any bondo or other prep work]

The painting is the easy part.

Make sure that the roller is properly soaked with paint, then use the ribbed part of the paint tray to remove most of the paint from the roller. A dripping roller is not a good sign as it has way too much paint on it. In terms of an area to paint, I would typically divide a miata boot into three sections and do the left side, then dunk the roller into the paint, get most of it back off on the tray and do the middle section of the boot, then finally (well usually within a minute of starting on the panel) do the right of the boot.

Now once the paint is covering the panel I then go over the panel with the roller at 90 degrees from the way that I applied the paint. So on the boot, I would apply the paint from front to back and then change direction from side to side with the roller to help flatten the paint and remove any bubbles. I don't use as much pressure as when I applied the paint, and I ease the pressure off so that my final strokes with the roller are basically just with the weight of the roller.

The panel should then look really flat and there should be no roller lines in the paint. Once you get to that stage the panel is done and you can move to the next panel. I can do the bootlid in 2 or 3 minutes max. After that time the paint starts to dry and the roller will leave some very nasty marks.

That is pretty much my technique. As I said though, amyone wanting to try this method really needs to practice on something other than the car so you can learn exactly what works for you, and to get some confidence with what you are doing.

I'll have to admit, just before I started on my first coat I had the shakes because I realised that there was no going back to the original finish once I started with the black. And I have cut holes in my car, messed around with pretty much everything mechanical on it and even installed a Megasquirt in it with a very limited electrical knowledge base. Yet I had the shakes before I started to roll my paint job. For me at least, that was the most difficult part of my paint job, even though I had done over 10 coats on the spare bootlid for practise.


When I did the Brightside job, I wetsanded between coats with 800 and did the second coat the same way as I wrote everything above.

I'm going to replace my wife's bumper cover shorty. I need to try this out and maybe tackle the job myself this summer! Sweet job!

I wonder how tough it will be to find a Brightside paint that matches Brilliant Black. I'm betting not too difficult...

Here is the Brightside website.

Their off white looks pretty close to Championship White on my monitor. Would CW be sacrilege on a Miata? Their white and steel grey look sweet too.

The paint looks good on both cars, nice job. Body work isnt hard at all as long as you have the right tools and some time.

Man. Aussie Driver, you are one brave soul (Down Under variety). Looks good, though. Be sure to update us as time goes on. I had a CRAZY GREAT AUNT that lived out in rural Oklahoma. After her husband died, she decided her old car needed a paint job. She, too, used the roller method. But the Exterior Latex paint didn't turn out looking nearly as good!!!:gay:

That's just unbelievable... Does it look that good in reality???

Mark

Well, I'll have to make a little admission. In the last pic, you can probably see some small marks on the door. They were there because I had taken the doors off and left them out in the backyard overnight and it rained. The rest of the car normally looks like the rear quarter panel in the last pic (unless it rains).

There is one obvious roller mark on the US driver's side of the car (read the 'passenger's side' Down Under) which happened bacause a butterfly landed on that door after I had finished painting it. I managed to get the damn thing off but it had left some marks behind. So I re-applied the roller to that area and made things worse..... It will sand out though so I' not too fussed about it.

So the Brightside has trouble in the rain too?

im assuming that he meant he left it out in the rain and it hadn't dried yet. You would have that problem with any paint. Its not the same problem he had originally with the other paint.

Gotcha. Phew.

There is a mountain of orange peel in that final picture, but I'm very anxious to see it after then final treatment. Good luck with this!

So how much taping and masking did you end up doing for a rollon paint job?

Man what a job.. I am thinking about changing the color of my ride and I was wanting to do it myself because of terrible experences with 2 other painters. This looks like it may be a way forward!

Great job. Interested to see how it looks now - post some more pics!

DB

Not quite right. The door was dry and then it was rained on because I was to lazy to go outside and bring it inside once it became dark. They are just typical marks that you would get on anything left out in the rain. They washed straight off.

I didn't do any masking on the car at all. I removed almost everything that I could (lights, reflectors, doors, door handles, that plastic trim thingy around the rear of the cabin, etc) and then just painted it. I did get some paint on the rubber around the windscreen which I later (mostly) removed with some mineral spirits. And I also managed to get some paint on one of the tyres which I didn't bother about at all.

I agree about the orange peel in the paint. There is a lot more than the previous job with the Metal Armour, but it is still about the same as some of the factory paint jobs that I have seen. And this is before the final wet sand and detailing which I'm planning on doing from November 4 - 7. I'll post some pics of the final product then.

Done buffing yet? :D

yea, how is your paintjob looking after a month now? show us some pictures or something.

I went for a big final sand and detailing session last weekend. And I totally stuffed it up (I managed to leave some deep scratches in the paint with the wet sanding that I couldn't get out unless I went through the top layer of paint). I just ended up giving it another coat of paint......

Here is a pic of the new coat of paint;

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1105164908.JPG


I'm hoping to be able to give the car a very gentle wet sand with some P2000 this weekend and then detail it. This time I'll be staying away from the more agressive grades of sand paper. I'm still coming to terms with being such a bone-head with my sanding!!

www.paintscratch.com sells professional style spray cans. I suspect that'd improve the results of a DIY job. A little more dough but time IS money :)

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0930190346.JPG

in this picture the paint looks like its not smoothe, kind of feathery. is this just the picture/angle? if you want a comparison of a pro paint job check out my vb garage. It was a two stage paint, and after seeing that you got yours done for $40 with those results im kind of kicking myslef....

The new coat of paint came out a lot better than the previous ones, mainly because I changed the rolling technique. With the 'roller' paint jobs, the paint isn't anywhere near perfect until the car is wet sanded and then polished. With a spray job, the paint should be perfect from the word go.

Unfortunately I stuffed up my sanding, so I'm going to have to wait a little longer until I can complete the final sanding/polishing steps. Once it has been done the paint should be flatter (less peel) and it should be a nice deep gloss black.

As to the time it has taken, well I'll just say that mucking around on my car with the both Megasquirt and the $40 paint job is a very cheap hobby. And considering that I can now build/install/tune an ECU and prep/paint a car, the experience is priceless.

Im going to do this to my miata this winter I think. the only ting im worried about is taping the rubber trim. Did you just use blue painter's tape? Any taping tips/hints you can give me?

I wonder if a color other than gloss black would be more forgiving? I would think gloss black would be one of the hardest to get perfect.

White is a lot more forgiving than black. I'm getting my spare boot lid ready to swap for another boot lid with a rear wing on it, and I've had to paint the thing white to match the other guy's car. The white has been so easy to paint compared to the black that it's not funny. There is a huge problem if I wet sand the thing in direct sunlight, but the painting and the results are really easy to achieve in comparison to black.

Aussie- looks good.

Metallic silver is pretty forgiving as well.

Is there any reason not to use this method to apply with regular auto paint? (other than expense) use appropiate thinners and hardeners?

When I did my car I removed everything except the windscreen rubber and the rubber seal for the lip of the soft top/hard top. Because I was using black, I didn't worry about masking those bits. If you are planning on using anything other than black paint then I would suggest that you remove everything that you can, then mask the hell out of what-ever is left.


Jefe, I wouldn't recommend that you tried the roller technique with regular automotive paint. My understanding is that paint is specifically designed for an application technique as well as the desired results. Paint that is meant to be sprayed will contain a lot more solvents than a 'normal' paint such as Brightside. Those solvents are bad for your health and would probably wreck the roller in no time at all, leaving you with the possibility of spending your last few seconds on earth (while the solvents destroy your lungs), lying on the floor of your garage, looking at a really stuffed up paint job.

Thanks for the tip ;)

What was the problem with white when wetsanding in the sun? Just out of curiousity. I have a beater white neon in need of a trunk and rear fascia. It'd be cool if I could paint the parts this way.

The main problem was nearly going blind looking into a direct reflection of the sun. It was bad even with sunglasses on.

looks great! what seats are those, if you don't mind me whoring your thread...

No idea what brand seats they are. My dad gave them to me for a christmas present last year. I think that he got them from his mechanic. They have no logos on them so I don't know if they are a Chinese "no-name" seat or if they are known name seat that has been re-trimmed.

I'm really happy with them but since I have installed the roll cage I almost have to do a few warm-ups before I can get into the car.

A more realistic evaluation of the seats would be probably my wife's less positive (and un-printable) thoughts on them.....

That gary fishhead picture in your profile is just killin' me. LOL.

Mark

True.
No matter what method of painting you do white is the easiest and most forgiving color to paint. As a body shop friend of mine puts it "white hides a multitude of sins" ;)

Wow
Thanks Assie Driver for taking the time to give the rest of us an education - now that I wrote that I remember something in one of your posts about other teachers car so I guess you're staying within you profession. I look forward to more info

One trick for painting around the windshield moldings / seals (?) is to take some weedeater line (works best because it has flat edges), lift the edges and lay under. This will give you a space that you can get paint underneath the seal. Over time seals tend to shrink a bit so old colors or old paint wouldn't show through.

No excuses for my paint job now other than time

I was following that other thread before about the enamel paint and thinners but gave up on it because of all the problems guys were having with orange peal -> using the wrong thinners etc.
This sounds very interesting though and it's got me back to thinking of painting my car myself again.
Keep us updated Aussie Driver !
It looks like one great job you've done so far.
I defo want to see the end results on this one !!

I managed to get some time over the weekend to start working on the final sanding and polishing of the car. I only worked on the hood, and I sanded everything down with 1200 and then 1500 sandpaper, and tried to get everything as flat as possible.

My first polishing experiment was using TurtleWax swirl remover with a fixed speed polisher, using the foam polishing pad that came with the polisher.


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1119100452.JPG


You can see just how little work that combo achieved. I was fairly surprised to be honest. That polisher is a $150 unit and that pic was taken after about 20 mins of polishing.

My next experiment was to use Poorboy's SSR2.5 with a random orbital polisher (similar specs to a PC) and a cutting pad.


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1119100452.JPG

Now that is a finish that I'm happier with!!! To get the paint looking like that I had the polisher going flat out to generate as much heat as possible with the polish. I also kept polishing until the polish residue had almost totally disappeared. There are a number of deeper scratches in the paint that the SSR2.5 didn't get out, so I'm going to try again with some SSR3 which is a heavier cutting compound.

One thing that I'm really impressed with is the depth of shine that the SSR2.5 was able to produce. Normally an aggressive swirl remover like the SSR2.5 will leave some holograms that need to be removed with a pass of a normal polish with a polishing pad. That pic was taken after only doing the cutting. Potentially a polish will further improve the reflection.

The last pic is sort of a progression pic. The reflection of the garage roof is where I used the SSR2.5, the top of the hood has not been polished at all after the sanding and the left of the pic is the area that I polished with the TurtleWax. The headlight covers and nose cone haven't been touched since they were painted.


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1119100452.JPG


I'm actually really impressed with the polishing experiment. As the guy who started this whole roller paintjob thing has said, it's not how the paint is applied that matters, it's how it is finished that makes the difference.

Plan on painting the engine bay? I've seen it done the motor still in, just wrapped in cloth and painter's tape.

Any updates or pics?

heres mine after the first coat:

http://www.neonshaun.com/miata/first%20coat.jpg

My main update is that my car was hit on the left hand door and rear quarter panel by a Ford Exploder and it now has about $1K of damage done to it. But thankfully the Ford didn't roll on top of me and burst into flames (that's unusual for a Explorer isn't it?) and the Ford only ended up with my black paint on the side of its bull bar....

Other than that I have been playing with my 'track bits';


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1206151026.JPG


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...1206151026.JPG


So far I haven't polished the boot/wing, those shots are straight after it was rolled.

That is looking VERY neat!!!

What paint and color are you using?

using brightside "steel grey"

i dont know though... its turning out REALLY REALLY weird. I did my first wetsand a few days ago, and have since put on 2 more coats.

For some reason, these last 2 coats havent gone on nearly as smooth. I can see streaks from the edges of the roller and stuff... if i go over it again with the roller before i tip with a foam brush, it seems to make the streaking worse.

The first coat, right over the base red paint, went on really really smooth. I dont know what is happening.

Tomorrow i plan on wetsanding again with 1000 then 1500 grit, before the final 4th coat. Hopefully in 2 weeks it will be hard enough to wetsand with 2000 and buff with a PC. I'll have it sitting in my garage at 90 degrees each night till then... although it seems plenty hard after only 2 days of sitting (i cant scratch ANY off with my nails...)

humm. i hope the 4th coat goes on better...

If you are getting any marks from the roller appearing in the next coat of paint then I would suggest that you go back to maybe 800 or even 600 grade sandpaper and give the car a really gentle and thorough wet sand until everything is perfectly smooth.

I spent an hour or so sanding the boot in the pics above with 600. I did the sanding in small circular motion, covering about the same area as a cd/dvd until the paint felt really smooth, before moving onto the area next to it and repeating the technique. It felt like I was sanding forever but the results were really worth it.

When I do my painting, I don't use a foam brush. Instead I use another clean roller and go over the paint very lightly with that to remove all of the bubbles and to remove any 'lines' left in the paint from the first roller.

uhhh! Sorry brother but get that HUGE-ass-Erector-set wing off of there!!! There is no need for it unless you want your car to be laughed at and called rice all day. REally, who needs that much downforce???

maybe ill get another roller then...

do you think 2 weeks is long enough to wait before buffing?

If the extra downforce results in a faster lap time then I want/need it. Besides, that bootlid will only be fitted to the car for the track, and the rest of the time the car will be running with the other bootlid which has the rear lip spoiler on it.

And if anyone wants to laugh at my car with these 'bits' on it so it is faster at the track, then they can knock themselves out. I don't care cause I'll be the person taking home our Club's Motorsport Trophy (Modified Class), not them.

Waiting two weeks before buffing should be fine. Just make sure that you only use a swirl remover and a polish on the car. Don't use a sealant!!! Any sealant (either a wax or a synthetic sealant) will literally seal the paint and the paint then won't be able to out-gas and harden properly.

By all means do your polishing, but don't seal the paint.