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Sand and Paint
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The whole paint job—sanding,
masking, spraying pearl and clear, and
drying time—took less than four hours.
The only thing I did before taking this
picture was reinstall the grille and the
license plates.
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This chapter is going to consist of more show than tell. The premise is pretty simple. It’s like the one-
day paint job, except that you do it at home, in your garage, with your own equipment. Of course
there are a few twists.
The example we’re going to show you, which we’re pretty sure you couldn’t get at any Uncle Earl’s
franchise, is how to add a classy pearl coat to an otherwise appliance-like, relatively new 4-door
sedan. The vehicle in question happens to be my wife’s recently acquired commuter car. It’s an
excellent car, and she got it for a very good price, with extremely low mileage, because it’s nothing
special—a utilitarian model. And since she bought it second-hand, she couldn’t choose the color for
it. Of course, it’s refrigerator white. She doesn’t like that. But it’s new enough that–even though it
came with a few dings and scratches—it doesn’t warrant a complete repaint just to change it to a
snappier color.
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A ’93 Toyota Camry sedan in basic white looks like
a refrigerator, so we don’t need a “before” picture.
Plus scuffing it and squirting it with pearl and clear
isn’t all that graphic, so we start with some
amplification of prior subjects. First, we mentioned
that it’s a good idea to clean dirt and grease from
areas such as the engine and suspension before
starting the repaint process—especially on a white
car. I washed the engine with Simple Green and
rinsed with water. I also removed the grille, but left
the headlights in place.
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A previous owner had been rough on
the car. A taillight was broken, the
fender kinked, and the rubber bumper
bonked and gouged. After some
straightening, it called for a little filler.
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The simple solution, in this case, is to add a coat of white pearl over the existing white base. Pearl,
or “pearlescent,” paints used to be strictly the province of custom cars. They were tricky to mix and
difficult to paint. The lore was that they were made of ground fish scales (from Sweden!). I don’t
think that’s true. But today pearl is much more common and user-friendly. Many beautiful factory
colors that used to be simple metallics now have pearls in them. They have a brighter, shimmering
glow, and you can see the hue change slightly as the sun glints off it from different angles.
Pearl white was the first, basic pearlescent color (hence its name). Today you see it on several
upscale car models like Lexus, Cadillac, Chrysler, and so on. A true pearl paint, such as pearl
white, is translucent, so it must be painted over a straight base coat of the same, or similar, color—
such as plain icebox white under a white pearl topcoat. Perfect!
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Now you’re getting the idea. This is the quick and inexpensive way to an eye-catching custom paint
job.
There is nothing wrong with the paint on our subject car other than a couple of dings that need to
be filled and some scratches that need touching-up—and the fact it’s a boring, dowdy color. It
doesn’t need to be stripped, block-sanded, primed, sealed, or anything else except cleaned well
and thoroughly sanded with relatively fine paper (240 to 360 grit, probably wet). Touching-up the
paint is really simple because (1) it’s a plain, solid color that’s simple to match, and (2) it doesn’t
need to be blended or buffed out, because it gets sanded along with the rest of the car.
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If, by chance, the car needed some more extensive bodywork, this type of paint job could still apply.
Do the bodywork yourself, block and prime the affected area, and spot-paint it the same color as
the rest of the car. Then sand this area along with the rest of the car before squirting the pearl
coat.
What makes this paint process so simple, especially on newer cars that have little chrome trim or
other removable outer-body parts, is that you simply close the doors, hood, and trunk, mask off the
windows, peel off the few adhesive emblems it might have, mask off any other trim that shouldn’t get
paint on it (such as those black rubber/vinyl strips in the roof, or elsewhere, if your car has them),
and spray the pearl coat. Since the existing paint is almost the same color, and the car is already
completely painted with it, you don’t have to worry about getting the pearl under body parts, into
nooks and crannies you can’t see, or—in this case—even in the doorjambs or under the hood or
trunk. Most people see the car with the doors closed 99% of the time, and wouldn’t notice the
difference in the paint when the door’s open, anyway. (If it makes a difference to you, it’s not that
much harder to paint in the doorjambs and other such areas, because the base coat is already
there. It just takes a little more sanding, quite a bit more masking, and more work with the spray
gun—not to mention the cost of the pearl paint, which isn’t cheap. It’s not that much more work. But
the point of this chapter is how to do a quick, easy, and inexpensive paint job at home that is very
effective.)
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Pearls and Candies
That’s about all we really need to tell you about this type of paint job. The photos walk you
through the process.
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The taillight is replaced as a unit. Mounting
holes from a bolted-on badge have been filled.
We’re leaving the chrome bar in place
because it has lights and wires attached. So
this is how it looked after a little filler and block
sanding with 80-grit.
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The next step was a coat of high-fill catalyzed
primer (shown with masking removed).
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Then came more block sanding with 180-grit
dry paper, followed by pad-sanding with 360-
grit. Here we’ve done selective masking—over
the chrome bar, license, lower trunk edge,
good taillight, and even the exhaust pipe. Note
the holes in the taillight housing taped from
inside to keep paint out of the trunk, plus
masking over the rear window to keep
overspray off. The rear wheel/tire was also
covered before spot painting.
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I had a pint of touch-up paint mixed in single-
stage gloss urethane to match the color code
of the car. Since we’re going to add pearl and
clear, I could have used base-coat (instead of
gloss) for this, but I wanted to demonstrate
how you can do spot touch-up on your car
even if you’re not going to spray anything over
it.
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The front bumper had
similar dings and gouges,
as did the hood and
other areas, so they got
similar treatment.
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But we need to tell you a little more about painting pearl and its older cousin, candy (originally
candy apple, as in red). These are known as custom colors and, in their truest forms, require
specific paint methods. This book is not about custom painting, per se. But if we’re going to talk
about, and show, pearl painting, we must mention a few guide points.
Several new factory colors have pearl in them. Most of these are formulated as two-stage paints, so
they can be sprayed as a base coat over any color of primer and then clear-coated. Some of the
new factory pearls, however, are three-step paints, which require a plain-color base coat, followed
by a similar-color pearl coat, and then the clear. Check with your auto paint store to see which is
which, but our real point is to look in the factory color chip books when shopping for a pearl color—
the factory has some pretty good ones, mostly in easy-to-paint (and touch-up) two-step base
coat/clear coat. The paint store should also have plenty of shades of true pearl colors, which you
find in “custom colors” paint chip books from PPG, DuPont, House of Kolor, and so on. They’re
nearly all three-step, and the company recommends specific base coat colors to use under them.
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But here we’re doing it the other way around. Your car already has a plain color on it. It could be
white, or beige, or baby blue, or sea foam green—whatever. Most people wouldn’t see a need to
add pearl over a bright color like red or yellow (though it’s perfectly okay to do so), and pearls
generally don’t work well over real dark colors, especially black. But whatever color your car is, your
paint store can probably find a pearl to complement it. In general, you want a pearl shade (other
than white) that’s just a tad darker than the existing color, because the pearl in the paint tends to
lighten it slightly. But don’t stray far from the existing color, or it is hard to spray an even coat of the
pearl over it.
As we said, true pearls are translucent (and candies, though colored, are transparent). Therefore,
whatever is underneath is going to show through. In our case, this means that the base color (the
existing color on the car), and any touch-up painting that you do, must all be exactly the same color
and shade. If you leave any scratches or chips, they’ll show through the pearl. If your touch-up
paint isn’t matched exactly to the existing color (say, if the car’s paint has faded some), this
difference shows as light or dark splotches under the pearl. If, by chance, you want to test a pearl
color over the paint on your car to see how it looks, you must recoat that test spot with matching
body color before shooting the complete car.
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Previous | Next
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This has been a sample page from
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How to Paint Your Car on a Budget
by Pat Ganahl
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If your car needs new paint, or even just a touch-up, the cost
involved in getting a professional job can be more than you
bargained for. Fortunately, there are less expensive
alternatives-—you can even paint your own car at home!
In How to Paint Your Car On A Budget, author Pat Ganahl unveils
dozens of secrets that will help anyone paint their own car. From
simple scuff-and-squirt jobs to full-on, door-jambs-and-everything
paint jobs, Ganahl covers everything you need to know to get a
great-looking coat of paint on your car and save lots of money in
the process. This book covers painting equipment, the ins and
outs of prep, masking, painting and sanding products and
techniques, and real-world advice on how to budget wisely when
painting your own car. It’s the most practical automotive painting
book ever written!
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Click below to view sample
pages from each chapter!
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Introduction - Budget Painting
Chap. 1 - Automotive Painting
Chap. 2 - Paint Stripping
Chap. 3 - Bodywork
Chap. 4 - Painting at Home
Chap. 5 - Paint Products
Chap. 6 - Paint Preparation
Chap. 7 - One-Day Paint Job
Chap. 8 - Sand and Paint
Chap. 9 - Full Paint Jobs
Chap. 10 - Restorations
Chap. 11 - Sand & Buff
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8-1/2 x 11"
Softbound
128 pages
Approximately 400 color photos
Item: SA117
Price: $22.95
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Click here to buy now!
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This is a great book that any enthusiast will love,
whether it's your first paint job or your 50th.
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Other items you might be interested in
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Custom Painting
Custom Painting shows how to produce eye-popping custom paint
tricks. Easy to read and filled with 100s of hints. Includes practical
advice on choosing the right paint, spray gun preparation, and touch-
up techniques, etc.
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Price:
$22.95
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The Paint & Body Handbook
In this book over 450 illustrations and easy to read text are used
to explain how to repair dents and rust, replace body panels,
repair aluminum and fiberglass, perform sectioning, use lead and
plastic filler, weld patches and panels, shape sheet metal, perform
spot repairs and color matching, prepare the surface for final
paint, choose paint supplies and equipment and apply top coats,
graphics and pinstripes. You'll also find the latest information on
body working tools, environmental regulations, and current paint
equipment, techniques and products.
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Price:
$18.95
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Fiberglass and Other Composite Materials
For many years race cars of all types have been constructed with
lightweight materials in addition to aluminum and steel. These
include fiberglass, kevlar and carbon fiber. This space age
technology is also being applied to many street cars, street rods,
boats, and light aircraft. Carbon fiber is now used in everything
from tennis rackets and golf clubs to bicycles, telescopes, camera
tripods, and hundreds of other products. This book offers the
latest technology and equipment to help you construct and repair
your own lightweight body panels and components.
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Price:
$18.95
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Shipping is combined and discounted for multiple item purchases!
Buy more and save on shipping!
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Thanks for your business!
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MRE
PO Box 47
Grinnell, IA 50112
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