All of what they are saying. Super clean, fix and scuff, clean again, mask, sealer, paint. Use the best tape you can afford, real masking paper if you can swing it. Follow the paint instructions, mixing, timing, cleaning and safety. Again if you can swing it, use wax & grease remover and new clean rags. Just keep shooting if there's a run and deal with it later. If it fish eyes or wrinkles bad, stop, fix and reprep. As said, a 63 Impala is a magnet no matter condition, so strive to do the best you can if you are going to do it. Don't go in thinking you want it to turn out poorly, you will meet expectations!
Spray it as good as you can…Mother Nature will help you out with the, “I don’t want it to look to nice”.
Judging by the pictures, it looks pretty good to me. Actually - I wanted to ask Ted, 240 grit? Really? I would have guessed 400 minimum, but I sincerely trust your opinion.
Pick your favorite part of the car to look at and start at the other end. You'll get better as you go, and by the time you reach the favorite part, it will still be your favorite part. -rick
Back in the days of lacquer, my ex brother in law painted his '61 Catalina in his yard. Since lacquer always had to be sanded and buffed anyway, it turned out pretty nice. Today, it's easier to find meth than lacquer paint.
I did my first paint and my first lettering on my '39 Chev gasser. Not sure I'd do it outside as insects just love the smell of fresh paint, and anything I ever rattle can painted outside had a bug or two in the paint job. I'd either buy a cheap canopy, or I'd build something out of wood and cover it with clear visqueen to keep the bugs off as it dries. I bought a kit from TCP Global that came with everything from Paint, reducer, hardener, stir sticks, strainer funnels, and measuring cups. I got an upper end Harbor Freight spray gun, and the paint kit was $200, and spray gun was $129 on sale. Gave my car 5 coats of single stage acrylic urethane before I ran out of all the gallon I bought.
Rustoleum with hardner. Lots of videos on YouTube. Since "automotive" materials have gone out of sight this seems viable. I've done a few paint jobs in the driveway. I leave the prepped car in the garage. In the early morning I wet down the driveway (so the dust doesn't get stirred up and the overspray doesn't stick). I roll the car out and as soon as it's done I push it back in the garage to dry.
I would rather have some paint on it as opposed to primer or worse yet, no paint. On the rustoleum paint jobs, the better looking ones are those that are sprayed with a flat enamel and allowed to dry a few days and gone over wth a generous amount of 2K clear. Then of course cut and buff. It will stand up to weather better than a gloss paint with no hardener. I have painted tractors for farmers using enamel tractor paint with added hardener. Even in a farm environment, some of them still look ok after 20 plus years. The base clear method will run you 350 bucks or so on a car that size, plus you will need sand paper and buffing tools and supplies. I would budget $500 and borrow a good orbital buffer and buy a quality pad and cutting compound. Believe me, it will be cheaper than just a gloss rattle can job in the long run. I'm only recommending this because it is hard to screw up a hardened clearcoat job that you have to work anyway. The limiting factor will be color choices.
If painting outside, do it early. Before the bugs get busy Hopefully you live in a rural area without close neighbors. Enamel sticks to almost anything. A bath with a red scuff pad and Ajax/commet both cleans and sands. Wet the ground down. Get anything you like away from the area. $10 HF gun I sometimes get free paint from my paint store that was mixed wrong. Can’t be picky with colors. practice on some junk get a respirator. I’d recommend a cheap paint suit or coveralls. Wear gloves have fun
240 for this type of job would be fine, back in the day I use to prep and shoot two trucks a day for a used truck seller. all low budget, would sometimes use the paper from the first spray. 180 was what I sanded with and the light and bright colors would come out decent. 320 DA puts a good finish for a better job or I block sand with 400
First paint job was in the middle of a shop with one fluorescent light. Me and a friend took turns holding a flashlight. Made $50 each sanded that morning, bondoed as we prepped, glaze putty on scratches, dings and chips. Sand smooth, seal a few spots and shot the same day. fun times
If you use single stage paint with a hardener, you could always sand and polish it. I did a few cars in my driveway using Kirker paints and they came out pretty nice. My neighbors are nice and will usually come over to see the results. No one has ever complained. I have also fixed some of their cars for them as a favor. My 57 was shot by me in lacquer back in 1981. I did it in my friends two car unattached garage with his help.
Ive gotten excellent results with TCP Global acrylic urethane. It’s low priced single stage, sprays easily and very durable. There are lower priced kits on EBay, that might be worth a shot
if the point you are trying to make requires an off topic photo then make your point by PM... off topic is off topic. I have deleted your off topic pics twice now....
I miss those days, one or two days work, cars would look so much better and nobody complained about a gnat , run or dry spot. I wonder how many cars were "saved" by a quit paint job?
Dupli color paint shop, available from Advance and Auto Zone is Lacquer. Of course not the same as it was but it’s there if you ever wanted a basic lacquer job
I have old timey biker Buds , Dulux thinned with gasoline . It’s a wonder they did not blow up the club house as bad as they had to have a smoke .
I used a quart I got at Auto Zone for the interior floor of my car. Very easy stuff to work with, but not shiny.
I have done several in my driveway. I order a 10x15 shelter style awning, paint it under cover! I use single stage paint, my preference. I would never paint a car just out in open air, too much crap blowing around! The shelter is like 220.00 I sell them when I am done because I dont want to store it.
We did plum crazy purple on a 64 dart drag car at work when I was around 18. Sanded in the shop, rolled it outside and the boss fired up the binks#7 Gnats started to swarm about sundown. We picked a few out, let the rest hang on for the ride. you don’t see em when its moving
Crap, we painted regularly outside at a truck shop I worked at. Sanded em with a heavy degreaser. Shot em when they dried. fun fun
Harbor Freight purple paint guns work pretty good if you view them as disposable one use tools. There is a guy in Florida who buys them on sale by the case and has painted a lot of trucks with them. When I was teaching auto mechanics the kids and I made a paint booth using pcv pipe for the framework and visqueen for the walls and ceiling. Sometimes you can find the framework for one of those fabric roof carports pretty cheap to use with the visqueen and then turn around and sell the frame when you are done with it if you don't want it around. As far as paint costs certain colors cost a lot more than others and reds tend to cost the most. For what you want I'd stick with a light color and maybe fleet white. Stay away from metallic because it is too easy to get jail bars in or uneven metallic and costs more. In the boat world most high dollar yachts are painted with a method called rolled and tipped. The paint is rolled on an area of the hull followed with "tipping" it with a brush to flow it out. They usually use a dense foam roller and fine high quality brushes. Done right very little paint gets on the brush as you are just flowing the dimples out.
Painted my car in the garage using an Amazon spray gun and some eBay paint. Masking took the longest.. watched a few YouTube’s videos and said why not.
The Jalopy Journal
