Amen to the metric system and the rest of SI.

Ok, I've finally had some time to start finishing everything off. First up is the race boot. I've decided to thin the Brightside out more than I have in the past (I'm thinning it with mineral spirits) and I'm really happy with the results.

For the first time for ages, I didn't get any roller marks in the paint.

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0402174458.JPG


The reflections from the boot are really good. This shot shows some of the neighbour's trees.

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0402174458.JPG


Thinning the paint more than usual (plus wet sanding the living hell out of everything before I started painting) reduces the orange peel considerably. The next shot shows just how little orange peel there is now, (look how easy it is to see what brand my new camera is). Please remember that this picture was taken about 10 mins after painting. It hasn't been polished or anything.

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0402174458.JPG



I'm planning on sanding the whole car tomorrow (400 - 600 - 800 - 1200) and depending on the weather I will hopefully be able to paint it the day after. I'm finally getting close to finishing this thing off once and for all.



I just had to include this pic
I bought a tripod along with the new camera, so of course I had to take some more pics of the boot once it got dark. The area around the lights shows the usual dust/crap/etc that gets on the fresh paint. I can't wait to see what this will look like once it has been wet sanded and polished properly. As one of my students mentioned to me the other day "I'm bringin sexy back".....

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0402190923.JPG

wow ... that is really stunning quality. I am 100% convinced now

So I am thinking do a first coat with 5:1 paint to thinner, then go 4:1 for a second coat, then wetsand and do a thin coat of 3:1 and polish it up. That about what you have done now?

Time for another update.

First of all I've discovered something wonderful about wet sanding, 240 grit wet and dry sandpaper!!!! This stuff absolutley tears through orange peel and gives a nice flat surface in no time at all. And the best part is that if you sand carefully, it will give a finish that's good enough to paint straight over.

I don't know how many hours of sanding the 240 has saved me/will save me but it's pretty colse to being the best $1.60 that I've ever spent.

Anyways, onto the painting. I've prepped my hardtop, the 'road' boot and the rear spoiler (not the same ones as I've posted about above) and today I painted the hardtop and the spoiler. The front of the spolier came out perfectly but the back has some runs in the paint that I didn't notice until it was too late.

I am also pretty happy with how the hardtop turned out...

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0404190220.JPG

I've also discovered that it's a lot more effective to take the pictures with some background light and no flash.

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0404190220.JPG

There is still a bit more orange peel in the paint than I would ideally like but once it has recieved its final sanding and a good polish......

Sweet.

I did a $0 paint job over the weekend. Decided to screw around and finally fill the holes where my front emblem was. Figured I got nothing to lose since my bumper is shot to heck already.

Whipped out the sandpaper, bondo, and touch up paint bottle...

It doesn't even match at all. Plus I need more interim grits than just 300 to 1500 because one leaves scratches the other can't remove. C'est la vie. At least it's black! Eventually I'll just get a new cover to replace my busted one, but for now.... it'll do. Photos when I get the scratches out.

Matt

Time for another Aussie update.

I spent two days sanding down all of my other painting efforts on the car and prepped it for it's final paint (yeah I know, I've said that before....)

In an effort to constantly improve the results I made a big change to my painting. Previously I had thinned the paint with mineral spirits, but for this coat I thinned the paint with something called Penetrol (and I know that it's not a real thinner). I'll let the results speak for themselves.


http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0406203934.JPG


I can't believe how those big white marks got on the paint...

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0406203934.JPG


And lastly a subtle one

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0406203934.JPG


I get bored pretty easliy, so instead of watching paint dry I started the final wet sand and polishing of the hard top that I posted about last time. Here is a little teaser as how my polishing is going so far

http://swoolmer.bigblog.com.au/data/...0406203934.JPG

And that was after two passes of Poorboy's SSR3 (cutting compound) with a cutting pad. I'm not at the actual polishing stage yet. I'll post some pics of the hard top once I'm finished polishing it.

so thin the paint more, watch out for runs in the paint, and work out the
orange peel with wetordry 240 grit.
Any chance you could show a pic of the roller? I've been looking at several ones, i still think the paint could be thinned 50/50 for a final coat...

holy shit. nice.

Hmmm Looks like Uncle Arthur has Gray Hair and plays with a Miata. That's two of us so far:bigtu:

Car is looking great, about 6% of my hair is gray.

More Pics, Lol...

yes please. This thread kicks ass.

Aussie, can we get a summary on what your currently doing for painting if you are starting from scratch to final product??? It seems you keep changing your techique with respect to how your painting and sanding!

Thank you

hmm, a Write-up for the budget painter, specifically for the
miater drivers!!! Yes!!!

Painting Guide from Start to End

Prep Work
The extent or level of preperation needed to successfully re-paint a car depends on the condition of the original paint. Most of the paint on my car was really faded but the paint was in pretty good condition other than the nose cone. For the nosecone (specially if it has a lot of stone chips in it) I would use 240 grit wet and dry sandpaper, and for the rest of the car I would probably use 600 grit wet and dry sandpaper.

The sanding technique that I use for all of my prep work is to start with a wet panel and gently sand in a small circle (about the size of a CD/DVD). When I sand, I listen and feel more than I look. The sandpaper sounds 'raspy' when it moves over uneven paint and the sound dies away as the paint gets smoother/flatter. I then feel the paint and if it feels totally smooth then I'll move on to the next area. If it still feels bumpy then I keep sanding.

When I sand I use two buckets of water with dishwashing liquid added (about the same amount as what you would use to do the dishes). The first bucket is for the sanding blocks and sandpaper and the second bucket is for a clean rag to either add more soapy water for sanding or for wiping down the next area. I also use a watering can to wash down the areas that I have sanded to clean them from all of the sanding debris. I just use the water and wipe the sanded areas with my hand to clean them.

Painting
I prefer to use the Brightside paint so the rest of this guide will be based around my experiences with the Brightside.

Paint Thinning
I add about 400ml of paint to one of the big measuring jars that I pinched from the kitchen (No honey I don't know where that thing has gone. Are you sure that you didn't lend it to your mother??) and then I add 100ml of Penetrol to the paint. Now it gets a little artsy. I use a zhan paint viscosity measuring cup and I dip it into the penetrol/paint mixture and time how long it takes for the paint to run out of the cup. I then add mineral spirits to the mixture (and shake the hell out of it to mix it) until I get a time of 20-30 seconds for the cup to empty.

Paint application
The most important part of the paint application is to make really really sure that the surface that you're about to paint is as clean as possible. I use a wet chamois and wipe the paint down with it at least two or three times before I paint.

When I roll the paint I use two rollers. One is a painting roller, the other is the 'smoothing roller'. I use a small roller paint tray, I load up the roller with as much paint as possible and then push most of the paint back out onto the tray. When I roll the paint I use the smallest amount of force possible and I don't try to do it too quickly.

I roll one panel and then I use the smoothing roller to very very gently go over the fresh paint to removde the bubbles. Because I try not to use any pressure it sometimes takes a little while for the bubbles to go but they always come out in the end.

Between Coats
I try to paint in the morning and then let the paint dry for the rest of the day. I will usually only try to wetsand between coats after leaving the paint to dry for about 36 hours.

I wetsand between every coat of paint but I try to sand with the highest grit paper that I can get away with. If gthe paint is really smooth with hardly any orange peel in it then I will try 1200 or even 1500. If an area of the paint is really rough then I have used paper as low as 240 grit.

When I wetsand between the layers I try to get the paint totally flat and I try to be really careful not to leave any scratches in the paint that could show up through the next layer.

After the Last Coat
I define my last coat of paint as the one after the coat that gives me total coverage. Last year I had two coats total, including my final coat. Then I stuffed up my final wet sanding and re-painted the car again. Then my car was hit by a FWD and I ended up doing three more coats on the whole car to makesure that the accident repairs were properly covered. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that stuff happens and what you think may be your final coat may not be after all.....

In all honesty this is the area that has caused me the most grief. I want a perfect finish after completing the final wet sanding/polishing. And pretty much everything that I have tried has left me with problems. To me a problem is any mark in the paint what-so-ever. I have found that the final wet sanding is scratching the paint and then I have to cut it back so much with my polisher that I end up cutting straight through the top coat of the paint....

So I have changed my final wet sanding to a claying. If you are into detailing you will already know the benefits of using clay to clean paint. And it does a great job of getting the crap off the top coat of the paint.

After I clay the paint I then get out the heavy polishing artillery and use a cutting compound with a cutting pad on either my random orbital polisher or (if I have way to much orange peel) I'll use the rotary polisher. I do a little bit of detailing on the side, and when I detail I like to use the Poorboy's range of products along with Wolfgang buffing pads. Very basically I tend to use SSR3 - yellow cutting pad, SSR2.5 - orange pad, SSR1 - white pad, Poorboy's Professional Polish - grey pad and EX-P (synthetic sealant) and Natty's Blue (wax) - blue pad. I usually do 2 passes with each product/pad combo but when I was trying to cut out the scratches that I mentioned previously, I have done as many as 5/6 passes with the SSR3.

I also like to wait for the paint to stop 'smelling' until I give it a proper polish and I don't seal or wax the paint for about 1 month.

ask and ye shall receive...
can i have a sequential HKS BOV now? lol, j/k

Thanks for the write up Aussie

it sucks everyone seems to be sticking to the "normal" colors with brightside...

Ok i just bought 3 quarts of black brightside paint so that I can finally after 8 months fix up the body damage I inflicted last summer on my black, stock, 97. Headlight lids from B1m2x3s messed up car are on the way and I will be buying an aftermarket replacement fender. Will be nice to see the car looking fresh again :).

Oh an ya I know its just an ordinary paint color, but i want to retain the original color, im considering doing the dark red on the race car with black A pillars and a hardtop would be nice, but i just cannot justify buying one at current market price :(

get a quart of red paint and a quart of white... mix them together and paint your car with that, lol...

so you are a fan of pink miatas?

wow so nice .. !

the black miata is looking amazing!

i did a rolled on rustoleum white job on the miata over a year ago and its held up pretty well and looks pretty good.

now i am going to fix a few dings that i missed last time, and the new ones, and paint it a new color.

i am going to do a custom color mix of brightside but you'll just have to wait until i post up the results here to see the color. i dont want anybody to try and steal my thunda :-p

I'm gonna post this for posterity: I did my front bumper with off the shelf primer, black paint, and clear coat. It took 9 days. lots of prep, bondo, and sanding work as well as post clear sanding to get the shine. a little rubbing compound and a little swirl remover go a long way. I could really have used a couple more coats, but the biggest problem I had was overspray going from one end the the other. If I were to do it again, I'd find a way to start at one end with the can pointing only toward the unpainted side.

cilck image for huge 5 megapixel version. my car is the black 01 on the far left.
http://y8spec.com/gallery/d/100-2/DSC02734.JPG

another:
http://y8spec.com/gallery/d/101-1/DSC02735.JPG

your car looks really nice y8s

Wow, this is amazing. Both these cars look good, the black buffed out great! I am interested in doing this on my White '95. Was looking at their 'Flag Blue' color.

As the car is a daily driver, if several weekends were spent on it, could prep be done one week, two coats the next, and two coats on the third weekend and it OK to drive in between?

And another question for those who have done this...

For crevices such as between the hood and fenders where you can see the paint inside, did you use a foam brush or still manage to get the small roller in there? What about the windshield cowl area?

If you were happy to pull all of the lights, reflectors, etc off your car on a Friday evening, then spent Saturday sanding, you should be able to have a blue car by Sunday afternoon (well a first coat at least). Then put it all back together Sunday night and you're good to go for the week.

One week between coats will really allow the paint to harden properly and after three coats of Brightside you will hopefully be finished with the painting. Then wait for a month or so before polishing.

The foam brushes are perfect for all of the fiddly areas and you can use something like 18 gauge wire to lift up the edges of the windscreen rubber so you can get proper paint coverage.

I want to extend my gratitude to you Aussie for being a pioneer so that I did not have to. Today, i sanded and repainted my bumper and barndoors with the brightside black and it was a trip to see how well it came out for my first coat, and I know it will be better with a little practice. Was also surprised at how much coverage I got out very little of the paint. Biggest surprise was how bubbly it came out with the first brush on, but after going over the whole bumper a few times the paint spread and flattened nicely. Second coat should come out much better I think.

Alright this isn't for a miata. I've got an '88 Rx7 GXL that I race and drive to work on fridays. It races in STS2 right now, hence my name but ST2 changed to STS2 when it became a national class in autocross. It's a future CSP car and this is an aluminum hood I've used as a practice piece for the forty dollar paint job. It seems b1m2x3 beat me to the color even though I chose gloss smoke grey before I owned a miata. I think it will perfectly compliment the flat black rubber door trim on the 86-88 styling.

So here's what I did up to this point. I stripped the black primer over blue metallic paint it had when I bought it. Did body work. I sanded with 320 400 600 grit and applied two coats with the roller between each sanding. It was taking too long for the color to build so I said fuck it and bought the same color in rattle can form. This is one coat in addition to what was left of what I put on earlier. The opaque section has been meticulously sanded with 600b ensuring there is no roughness. The strip is where I used some meguiar's polish from a 3 step waxing kit applied with soapy water(upon aussie driver's suggestion) and a 5" electric buffer.

http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint1.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint2.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint3.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint4.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint5.JPG

Congrats on your efforts ST2udent. The reflection of the window on your last shot is looking great!!!!

It's the pre sanded area. It doesn't look so great from up close. I'm getting a real feel for the sanding. You're right it's not the way it looks but how it feels when you are ready to move forward. What makes me cringe is when I'm sanding and I feel a grain of sand slip under the paper and I know I've got deep loopey scratches from the big 220 grit grain of sand.

Received the cans of Brightside Flag Blue in today and also did my shopping @ Home Depot to pick up the foam roller / brushes, tray, mineral spirits, tape, etc. Total spent so far is about $72.

Have already de-badged the car over the weekend. Bondo'd the holes and sanded them down. Also fixed some bumper damage (minor marks). Found a mark on the driver fender I want to fix also. Did anyone bondo their car before painting? Did you hit it with a spray primer first before using the Brightside?

There will be 1 more Brightside painted Miata out there soon. Will post pics as I progress.

im pretty sure b1m2x (sp?) did body work and just applied paint directly over it. From the MANY pages I have read from the mopar forum this originated at that is what everyone is doing.

Yeah, I did the same. I painted straight over all of my dent repair work and so far it has been fine.

A lesson I learned: Do not put your paint and thinner mixture in a Polyethylene vessel. It will react. I'm finding a metal can and saving money in the future. I now dub this the 60 dollar paint job.

Aussie, have you ever done a final buffing of you whole car? I really wanna see some full car shots of the finished product. I am debating doing this to my car sometime but wanna see some more examples. Also not sure what color to get since I have seen very few different actual jobs with the brightside paint.

Today I spent a good couple of hours taking off whatever trim I could and sanded down the previous paint with 320 grit. On the areas that needed filler or had cracked filler from the previous crap bodywork, i sanded down to the metal with some 80 grit. I should be hittin up the filler and the first coat of paint tomorrow.

I have a few questions:
1. is 320 grit small enough to not leave sanding marks?
2. I am thinking of using a small brush to apply paint around and under trim that I did not remove, anybody else do this?

I haven't had the time yet to get the wetsanding and polishing done. I'm a teacher and things at school have been pretty nuts lately so I have ended up just sleeping most weekends lately. I have school holidays coming up in the next few weeks and I will probably have to wait till then until I can get anything done. (But I'm also planning to get my full underbody aero done then too so it should be an interesting few weeks).

Help...

I did the first coat today. It looks awful right now, but I am guessing its because of the uneven way it went on, plus the fact that I am going from white to dark blue. Looks like a tie-dye shirt. :)

I did 4 parts paint, 1 part mineral spirits. Used high density foam roller 4" (which was still very squishy). Rolled it out and had bubbles. Kept rolling over it until the bubbles were gone. Can still see roller marks on first coat, normal?

In addition, how did everyone get in the nooks of the car? I bought a bunch of those $0.50 foam brushes but they don't work well at all with the paint. Dabbing seemed to work the best, but brushing only caused streaks. Is there a better brush/tool for this?

I am going to let it dry 24 hours and then sand it tomorrow and put on a second coat. Hopefully it goes better.

Don't worry about not getting full coverage with the first coat. That is normal. Now when you say that you have roller marks, are the marks from the edge of the roller or from the entire roller?

I have found that the "tipping" needs to be done really really gently with a second clean roller, othewise you can turn a nice finish into crap.

I also ended up adding 100-200ml of Penetrol to the paint which helped with adhesion and with the paint flattening.

The roller marks I had were from the edge of the roller. It was as if the paint was thicker on the ends.

After rereading your walkthrough I think I was rolling it on too fast. Going to wetsand with some 600 grit (maybe 400...) tomorrow and I already picked up a second roller so I can do what you had suggested, rolling it on slowly and then going over it with little to no pressure with a clean roller.

Do you keep the second roller in thinner to keep it clean? Or just use it as a gentle top roller and not worry about the light paint clinging to it?

I also picked up some smaller foam brushes for the edging. Will have to try to search for penetrol tomorrow at the store. Thanks!

damn... thats amazing

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

Not a miata but some decent information

thanks nick that was a cool little link to look at

Ok so i got sick of just talking and went out and took some photos. I rolled on the first coat yesterday with a pretty thin mixture of brightside black using a shurline foam roller. Apparantly my sanding was not perfect as there are some sanding marks that show thru on picture 4, though they are quite superfucial and so hopefully they will cover up with a bit more paint. Also, I am not quite sure what to do about that tear in the bumper on picture 2.

I hate to say this mate but those sanding marks will just look worse with more paint on them. I'd cut the losses now and make sure that its sanded perfectly before putting any more paint on it.

With that crack in the bumper, I'd suggest that you have a go at some plastic welding with a soldering iron and if that doesn't work you may need to drill and counter-sink some holes either side of the crack and rivet a backing plate behind the crack and then fill it with bog.

Looking at your car after the first coat certainly brings back a lot of memories of my old red beast. Keep up the great work and before you know it, it will be looking perfect!!!!

thanks for the quick response, guess ima do some vigorous sanding with 320 - 400 tomorrow then. So I will be able to fix up that tear possibly by simply melting the pieces together? That is absolutely brilliant, had not thought of that ... it was the one major imperfection that I could not figure out how to fix. As for how thin this first coat was, I maybe used 1/15th of a pint and it was thinned nearly 3 parts paint to 1 part mineral spirits. From initial testing of the paint I discovered that the best way to keep orange peel at bay was to not pile up too much paint in one coat.

The plastic welding is a trick that I learned a few years ago. Get the soldering iron nice and hot and then run it across the crack four or five times (so it sort of looks like this | | | | | ) from the inside. With any luck that will be enough to close the crack right up.

I've seen baddass plastic welding, plastic injection welders actually lay out a nice bead with excellent penetration. I almost bought one just so I could farm out work on tank repair for fuel/water tanks that had cracks in them. You're able to sand it down after welding so it comes out great. There are actually tips for soldering irons that are a flat disc so you can "weld" it a little more thoroughly.

i did a roll paint job for my friends civic i wish i knew about the orbital and that cutting pad it makes that paint shine for the price you cant beat a roll on paint job you dont even need a garage to do it thats what makes it so nice

I have seen plastic welding kits in HF for about $20...

Well I am going to jump in. I've been body prepping my 92 mr2 turbo since last september. This thread only really covers painting - you would not believe how hard bodywork can be!
Instead of the roll on method, I decided to order up a harbor freight hvlp gun, which I will run off my 5hp, 30gallon craftsman compressor. The brightside paint supposedly is sprayable. I ordered a gallon of Plain old white - the greys and colors I think look too much like...well boat paint. The black looks great, but having a black miata, I know how hard it is to keep clean. not that white is so much better, but it will better show the nice body details of the mr2 design, like the side vents. And supposedly white is a more forgiving color for bodywork errors, and paint errors. folr little details like the edge of the engine bay, and door jams, I may try a little foam brush.
Also ordered the penetrol to thin the paint, I'll have to practice on some spare panels and get the ratio right.

Hopefully, for those with a compressor and a garage, this method will work a little better by eliminating roller and brush marks. Has the potential to introduce more orange peel, runs, and overspray though. I will update with pics once I start - probably will be a month before I finish the bodywork and actually start spraying though.

here's a pic of my inspiration though. I have the earlier spoiler and my side vents have the middle bar delete. I do want to do gold wheels though :-)
http://carpron.com/multisite/d/71663-2/MR2+046.jpg

Has any one tried removing the textured surface on the bottom half of the doors? I guess I be trying this on my new hood, soon and if it goes well then I'd like to do the whole car and smooth the bottom of the doors?

well, I can tell you from experience with my MR2 that yes you can knock that stuff flat - however, it ain't easy. The mr2 doesn't even have the textured bit, but it has the same heavy duty strip on the lower section of the car. I am just knocking the edging down a bit so that the line is not so obvious. Based on how hard this has been to do, I would say that sanding that area down to bare metal would be extremely difficult. I'd just leave it there - it's protection for rock chips. Yes, I know, your paint is going over it - but what it can do for you is make it hard for a rock to go down to bare metal. And that can be the difference between rusty rockers, and a harmless paint chip.

polishing sucks, it keeps looking a bit cloudy for me :(

What are you using to do the polishing and how are you doing the polishing?

After wet sanding I normally use either a swirl remover or a cutting compound with a cutting pad on my random orbital polisher (with similar specs to a PC 7424). I only do a small section at a time and I keep polishing until the polish residue has almost gone.

The only time that I have ever ended up with a cloudy panel was when I tried a cheap-assed Kitten cutting compound with my less-than-great "Wax Attack" polisher (even though it did cost me $150.....). As soon as I went over that panel again with some decent swirl remover (I love the Poorboy's range) and my random orbital polisher, it came up looking like glass.

Post some pics of the polishing/polish/polisher and maybe I could offer some more specific tips.

Well, i am using a rotary ($80 "advanced tool design") with a lake country foam polishing pad with some meguiars "mirror finish" polishing compound. After unsatisfactory results, I hit it with some turtle wax rubbing compound by hand followed by another attempt at the polish. I have been meaning to get a cutting pad and compound, but just have not done so yet.

With the interruption of a suspension project I finally got back to working on my rx7 hood. A couple during the process picture so people can see what it looks like when it's applied. I put on two thin coats tonight. I'm still deciding whether to go to 800 or 1000 next. I'll check in the morning. I put on my last coat just now.
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint6.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint7.JPG
http://www.msprotege.com/members/mel...hoodpaint8.JPG

the pimples in pic 2 look strangely familiar, luckily I am not one to go for perfection the first time around. I put on a final coat last week and plan to go to the local auto paint store to pick up a more agressive pad and compound so i can start the buffing process. Pics will come when I start I guess

Yup. My mix seems to bubble up more than my last formulation. They all popped with a little help from some quick breaths. Just for clarification too, the 2nd and 3rd pics have half the first coat dry and the second coat freshly applied.