Technical How Old Were You When You Painted Your First Car?

I don't remember for sure, 15 or 16. What I do remember is the result was bad. All I had been around was solid colors and a friend wanted a blue metallic.

 

Awesome Jeff,

Binks #7 was my 2nd gun as my first 4 or 5 paint jobs were enamel. I borrowed a #7 from a close friend & shot my 66 LeMans in lacquer , I was hooked & ran out & bought one the next week. I was in "high cotton" then as I had the Binks #7 with an agitating cup for Lacquer & the Sharpe 75 for enamel!

I have a nice large paint room now & love it, but not a U.L. listed legit booth, that was a big battle with my shop insurance company years ago.

My deceased friend (Mike Kasper R.I.P.) ran the local paint store back when HVLP & Basecoat/Clearcoat was becoming the norm. He basically said the same thing! In fact he gave me a Finishline (Devillbis lower line gun) from the store & said to try it a couple of times, if I didn't like it I didn't have to buy it. After I got used to it, I never looked back. .

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

Around 17. Painted my ‘47 Ford coupe Rangoon Red (a Ford color) in my parents driveway with Dad’s homemade compressor and a Craftsman spray gun. It was acceptable for the time, horrible by today’s standards. The car before it got a $49.95 Earl Scheib and after painting the ‘47, the next one got an Earl Scheib too. Lol

 

I was a late bloomer worked 70 plus hours most of my life. 3 times got a garage i could do something in then life happened and had to rebuild. Finally settled down in my 60s, built my garage when the better half and i combined households and finally sprayed my truck at 67.

 

I was 18 when I painted this Chevy wagon for my girlfriend's father.

 

I think I was about 4 years old, dad was painting the house and me being a rambunctious kid I picked up one of the brushes and started painting his sedan delivery parked in the driveway.

I would think it was more defacing more than anything else. HRP

 

Ha, I did my first as the most beautiful suede paint job on an elco with a 2 gal. sears air compressor and gun (great for fences!) The paint said gloss single stage, i thought it would "cure" that way==but NO.

 

Do model cars count?
I helped several of my friends paint bikes and cars but didn't paint my own stuff until I was in my mid 20s. I never cared for bodywork all that much.

 

I did a rattle can lace panel job on my '54 Pontiac when I was 16.. Turned out pretty good, but it seemed no one else knew what the heck I was thinking!
Painted this one when I was around 25/26:

Friends were asking why I chose no. 11; Had to tell them it was easiest to mask!

-Dave

 

When I was 16, I worked for a Texaco filling station. The owners also had a commercial sand blasting and tuck pointing business. They had a lot of compressor trailers which they brought in after big jobs to be steam cleaned and repainted; along with company trucks. I got the steam cleaning job because it was nasty. After I did a few, one of the older guys said I might as well learn to paint. We used enamel and had a Binks gun. I was told to put it on thick enough to be shiny, but not enough to make the paint run. That took some doing.

 

What is tuck pointing? HRP

 

Started out at about age 10 helping my Dad and Uncle. They both decided to paint their cars themselves with no previous experience. They got a deal on several gallons of paint that when mixed, after drying, came out as what best can be described as "dull, dead gr***". Used the vacuum cleaner gun, which I still have today. The paint was thinned with gasoline.
Years later I started painting boats, bicycles then motorcycles, trailer, construction equipment etc. before graduating to cars. This progressed into painting for family and friends, then actual paying customers.
I was hired by the Chrysler Corporation in '69 to work with the newly developed electrostatic systems used for production priming. I stayed on and painted several thousands of vehicles in a high volume setting for several years before moving to the more lucrative industrial/maintanance painting biz. I have been retired now for 25 years, still painting whenever the need arises.

 

That’s when you grind out the soft and broken mortar between the brick on a wall. And then refill it wth new mortar with a pointed trough.

 

WOW,

You truly do learn something new every day! I honestly thought is was a voice to text mistake & it was supposed to be "truck painting" LMAO

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

On brick or stone buildings, the mortar between the bricks eventually cracks or falls out. Tuck pointing is replacing the lost mortar. You kind of tuck it between the bricks using a pointing tool.

 

I think almost everyone’s first gun was a Binks model 7. They worked great for lacquer or acrylic enamel. I wore out one and then the Japanese copy of one before I moved into Sharpes. Used marbles in the cup to keep metallics agitated. I’ve only done one overall lacquer paint job. It was a shiny smooth ******* when I got done!!!

 

In our neck of the woods it's just call masonery, be it brick, block or stone. HRP

 

17
Western enamel

shooting primer around 14

 

I was an old guy by this post! I was 30, I had inherited a 1955 Ford Victoria which needed a little body work. I had been doing body work since High School shop. So, after doing a pretty good job on the '55 Ford I decided to paint it. It turned out O.K. if I say so myself!

 

I was 4 years old when I painted my first Bike..... I painted the chrome fenders with silver rattle can paint....
I dont remember my exact technique spraying or if I just did the fenders or the whole bike, or if I pinstriped it too, but later I do remember alot of rags and some kind of paint thinner or acetone trying to whip it all off with my dad

 

My first paint job was at 15, did it in orange lacquer. I got the thinner at the hardware store, didn’t know about auto grade for painting lacquer on car (very very fast drying thinner). The car looked a big orange, the fruit.

 

42, unless you can call painting a coat of primer on a 57 Chevy dirt track car with a roller painting. I was 15. People who know me know just how much I hate painting anything. I’ll either do without, or get it done by someone else…

 

16 years old. Stripped, primed and painted our 66 F100 for my High school ride.
Bought a $50 Craftsman spray gun and used a wayyy too small compressor to spray it in our dirt floor shed. Sprayed single stage and didn’t use hardener so it wouldn’t kill me as quickly. Looked great!....from a mile away.
Started me on a career in Auto body repair, restoration, and teaching.
Repainted the same truck 30 years later for my dad who now attends car shows with me each summer.
I owe a lot to that old truck and to my folks for letting me play around with said truck.

 

About 16. Primered a '49 Lincoln with a bug sprayer.

 

My Dad and his brothers were very talented, spraying cars, building engines, building homes. I enjoyed learning from them all. So when I was 15 I sprayed a friends '53 Victoria. I had learned that when spraying enamel that the first coat was fogged on to create a foundation. That's how I earned the nick name "Fogger". I sprayed numerous friends cars when in high school and made enough to build my own cars. I painted my current '32 3W 26 years ago and it was my last paint job. Back then I was still able to buy acrylic lacquer but no more.

 

14, With a vacuum cleaner

 

I was 18, took a 9 or 10 month pre-employment course at a community college in 1979-80.

 

Browsing thru this thread, it appears most of us started early, and are now old incurable old car addicts.

 

I was prepping for my dad at the ripe old age of 6. Held my first paint gun by 16, sprayed my first car a year later.

 

It was 1959 and I was 17. I had bought a 1951 Ford 2-door. It was all original and stupid me couldn't leave it alone. Painted it. ****py job that to this day I regret.