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.


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 **** 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.

 

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!