Art & Inspiration Cheap Paint Job. You can do it.

Any enamel that is 'quick dry' will fade quickly. Air dry, as in tacky after a couple of hours and touch dry after 24 hours, will last a lot longer. Tractor paint is possibly in the quick dry category.

 

I painted my truck last summer (base/clear) in the exact spot where I took this picture today, in my backyard. I didn't use cheap paint and I bought an expensive paint gun but for less than $5k I did this in gloss black. That aint exactly cheap but it beats $40k in a shop.

 

Is the Kirker Hotrod Black SG , as you mention in another post , the same as the hotrod Black in there catalogue? The SG has me confused. Want to do my 32 Chevy in the Hotrod Black Satan finish.

 

I finally got mine ready to paint and did it last week.
I know we do not need hardener with Rustoleum ..... I was told it will help keep the pint from fading like all cheap enamels do. .... Time will tell.


About $100 in this setup here. .... I plan to do more bodywork to it in the future and want something that is presentable, and easy to color match & spot repairs.
For a old beater with a heater it looks fine to me. ..... still wet here.

 

I replied in the Kirker paint thread. But thought i would repeat here. I painted my OT V8 Sonoma, using Kirker base, clear and some primer. All urethane with the hardener. Got a great deal for gallon of each, with qt of respective hardeners, and a gallon of reducer, for about $300. Bought at NSRA Louisville from a paint discounter. Smoking deal for the materials. So far it's down to 3000 grit color sanded and ready for polishing. I'm happy with the results now, will see how well it holds up in future.

I'm not at all an experienced painter. I use a cheap HF purple gun and my driveway. Might not be show car level, but can make it look a lot better than it started out looking. For something I really want to look nice, I think a booth and an experienced painter can be worthwhile. I can do a lot of the preparation and even up to primer though to save considerably on total paint job costs.

 

That's not the type of job I strive for . The difference in money isn't that great, and the effort is the same. If you're happy with that, that's OK. I look for this though...

 

Not sure if "happy with it" is my exact feelings .... although it is true I am.
I painted everything frame up with gloss black paint ..... was going to do the same with the body, in fact a few of the pieces such as tailgate and bed parts were already painted gloss black.

Then when I was getting serious and I painted the nose, I was amazed at how every little ding just popped out and shouted LOOK AT ME!

Keep in mind this is my first attempt at paint & bodywork. I welded in patch panels, new floor pan, took out a few big ugly dents .... I left the little dings for character. She has lots of character.
My plans for the truck is hauling lumber for my household projects .... going to the ranch to pick up cow manure for my garden, grocery store ... post office.

I had to do some soul searching and sleep on it ..... I went to town the next morning and picked up the low gloss paint. Or my other choice would be to put off driving it for another year while I meticulously removed every little ding out of a old construction truck I want to use for a daily driver.

I also have a fear of getting burned out on the project and never getting anywhere. End up selling it as a basket case with parts scattered all over the yard. We all hear the stories and look for the deals.
Soon it will be a running driving project and will have the rest of my life to get the paint I really wanted.

 

I get that it's a beater and that you hope to make it better, but... You're going to find that squirting un-catalyzed Rust-O-Leum (or tractor paint or implement paint) on it is going to make your job repainting it twice as hard, because all that stuff, and I mean ALL of it, will have to come off to do it nicely. Any topcoat other than more cheap enamel will lift the paint wherever there's an edge broken, wrinkling like crazy.
The point of my thread was that it's not that much more work to end up with a decent, if not perfect, job with just a little more effort. Good for you for saving the truck, and it'll do fine as a firewood hauler, but you'll find it's going to be much harder now to undo that tractor paint finish when you get tired of it.

 

Once you have the target in your sights, stay over it. Don't get distracted by "...and Louie said you have to..." because you probably don't even know Louie and it isn't his or who's telling you. Stay focused. "Look at what I did with this $59 gallon of car paint from (wherever)!" Good, if that's what you want. Let's talk in 2, 5, 8 years. How is it now? Somewhere along the life of a finish a fail is bound to happen. Own it. Don't piss n moan about doing it again because it was probably worth it at the time. If you want "I'm never doing this again." then step up where you must. All the car's I've done are more pampered than a Kardashian. Still, time is always against the materials as well as environmental decay even in controlled care. So far I'm pretty happy with some of the forever efforts over the years, some paid whatever it takes, some were just don't wanna do it again. I admit freely I beam with pride when I see a job from 1990 or 2001 that still looks like last year. Not a lot of show cars can say that. But back where I started, stay over the target and don't get distracted. Finish it, and you'll be happy 90% of the time.

 

There is no question that you can do excellent paint work within a limited budget, and many of the cars here are proof positive, including @flynbrian48 's wagon. I would add these few thoughts;

-I say this not trying to sound like a dick, but there is a significant different between a legitimate paint job, and turning a car all one color. Some folks are fine with the latter, but I'm not for something I own and care about.

-The second you have to add labor to your job, the budget is blown. And let's face it, prep is the foundation of any quality paint job. Hours and hours are spent getting metal fairly straight, then primer, epoxy primer, blocking and more blocking, and so on. Then after you get color down, the sanding and polishing. It's a ton of work, and as expensive as some materials are, the labor is always way more.

-The type of paint job you're going after is also going to dictate whether or not a "budget" job is realistic. There are some great looking cars in this thread, but most if not all are solid colors and many are a single stage. Again, nothing wrong with that if that's the desired look. But the application of solid colors and avoidance of pearls, metallics, and especially candies, is going to keep the cost in check. As will using only one color.

-I'd also add this. Paint is the absolute last area I would skimp on a build. Generally speaking, you're going to get one crack at it to get it right. Otherwise you're spending more hours and hours and hours sanding off poor work or materials to get back to a point where you can try it again. No thanks. I could have an engine and trans out and back into a car in a day or so, but I couldn't hope to sand down an entire body to reapply paint in that same time. It's for that reason that I purchase high quality materials that will give me the effect and durability that I'm looking for.

My 61 Olds just got painted a couple weeks ago, and I supplied all of the paint materials. I used House of Kolor, and both the main color and secondary color are 3 stages each. Pictured here are 2 gallons of base, 2 gallons of intercoat, 5 gallons of reducer, several quarts of the second color, effects packs, 2 gallons of clear and catalysts and so on. This here came to just under $6000 in materials alone, and I have virtually nothing left.

 

^^^^^

In the not very distant past you could buy nearly everything pictured above for under $2,000

 

Absolutely correct. When we painted my 57 Ford back in 2010, similar materials from HOK were $1400.