Hey guys I’ve got a ‘63 impala that I’d like to paint myself outside on my driveway . I have a compressor. This is for a daily driver. I don’t want it to look too nice . Any Recommendations? Thanks
basic "paint job" ; wash the car real well, including jambs and under hood and edges, let dry. do any body work and prime spots. scuff with scotch bright or better yet sand smooth with a DA sander using 240, clean and blow off dust. tape off anything you don't want painted use a sealer , then two coats of enamel . go to lunch, come back and remove tape and paper
I have a little over 200$ in paint and materials. Kirker Flame Red single stage. Go back and look at my build. Prep /mask /wash / seal/follow the directions and shoot. I cheated in that I used a portable carport from harbour as a paint booth in side. Not perfect but nice enough for a race car. And can be touched up with out a lot of hasssel. No I didn’t clear it.
Also put enough paint on it to fix if you screw up. Learned that in the Willy’s. Put one more coat than needed. You can wet sand and buff it off lol.
If it's your first paint job, and you do it in your driveway, the odds are pretty good that it won't look too nice. Don't worry about that. But like he said, bodywork is everything...and it takes a while to learn how to do it, so you can't tell it's been done. The usual beginner issue is sanding too much, creating low spots in the filler, that show up really ugly in glossy paint.
I don't understand not wanting it to look as good as you can make it. If the goal is to have not look "nice", then leave it as-is. A crappy tractor enamel or Rust-O-Leum paint job is going to look worse than not doing anything, and will make any effort later on to make it look "good" very difficult indeed. Mitchell Rish's Anglia (above) is great example of the kind of results you can get with inexpensive "Kirker" paints and some effort. My '62 is a driver quality car, I spent about $500 for all the materials to paint it with acrylic urethane single stage. I'd have used Kirker, much less expensive but I wanted to keep it the ginger brown color it was. Try to do the best you can, if it's not perfect that's OK, just don't try to do a poor job.
Clean an wet down driveway or lawn,do on vey low wind or none,n no rain day{ I did most of my own in the back yard with wet grass,{ not right after mowing grass.,.Make as nice as ya can,high gloss enamel works great, 2 qt. plus thinner,is enough for even a wagon { not enough for a full size van though. Just go slow so you can avoid too many runs{ latter can be sanded runs or bugs down an buffed after a few weeks. I never buff,tell a month has gone n sun cooked it hard. Never worry about bugs,let them get hard were they are,buff latter. Shinny is way EZer to keep fairly nice. Flats only looks cheep n not done,plus shows all types of spots,hand prints n crap that can not be cleaned. All flats rust much sooner then shinys do. This is Rust-oleum high gloss, under $40 for all paint an thinner. Yes buffed out after a month,,,I've redone my old rod 5 times,having done the first time [ Same way in 1959} but still have an drive. I'm fair at doing same way now,prep is every thing.
And don’t be tempted to try and “fix” it while it’s wet. Runs, bugs, bits where you caught the hose are all surprisingly easy to sort once it’s dry.
An impala of your year is what will attract a thief, they don’t steal cars because they have shiny paint.
Rust oleum can look great, but generally not out of a spray can. Needs a few coats laid down heavy. It doesn’t take more than a harbor freight spray gun to look good enough. There isn’t enough solids in the spray cans to cover large areas adequately which leads to splotchy looking paint unless you buy a metric ton of cans. That may be what your after? Idk.
It may be worth seeing if you can snag a crashed fender or two from your local auto body shop's dumpster to practice on before doing the car.
If you paint in your driveway with a spray gun be prepared to pay to have all of your neighbors cars buffed out because of your overspray..... by the way we never heard back on what you did about the pulling brakes or the driveshaft that didn't fit after the trans change???
spray gun good. back in the old days, guys used pump-style bug sprayers and vacuum cleaners--i think kirby vacs even had an attachement for that!
When I painted my 30 pickup in the driveway, I parked it under a popup awning and hung a plastic drop cloth from Home Depot up on one side which is the usual direction the wind blows. It's usually calm in the morning, so I got out there early after the sun had come up and sprayed it before any breeze started. I washed the driveway down before I sprayed. I gave each coat about 20 minutes to flash off before spraying the next coat. I think I was done before 10 am.
I didn't think you could spray a car for under 500 bucks but I was wrong. You can always do a so called scuff and shoot I did that on my daily thunderbird driver 20 years ago it was under 200 bucks I'm also a paintless dent guy so I removed all the dents then sprayed it the paint still looks good even after numerous hail storms. Hears what you should do rent a inflatable spray booth hire a paintless dent guy to remove the dents then do a scuff and shoot.
Have fun and don’t worry if you have to do part of it over. Metallics are harder to get right so a solid colour will help you do a better job on a first time paint job. It’s best if you can paint inside something, a garage or a tent will make a big difference in keeping dirt out of your paint and keeping paint off of everything else. Get the car as clean as possible before painting. Here’s a paint job I did this winter. We used paint we got for free that was leftover from other peoples projects.
If you're relying on your paint job to deter thieves, I have two questions: If you want it to look crappy, why bother painting it? Wouldn't it be simpler to have the car the way you want it and protect it from thieves in other ways (club, wheel locks, chain it to something, battery cut off, etc.)? Wanting to paint a car but not have it too nice because someone might steal it doesn't compute for me. Also, you might want to edit your profile to show your general location. People might have suggestions on where to buy supplies/parts relevant to your local area.
If you want a car than won't get stolen buy an old Toyota. It's not the paint job that anyone is looking for, it's the Impala.
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