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.