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Want to prep body for paint.

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trapspeed

15+ Year Contributor
1,189
3
Jun 16, 2004
Sacramento, California
Well, I want to get rid of my shit Earl Scheib paintjob and return it to factory color. Anyone have a link on what tools to use and steps to prepping for paint. I'm going to bring it to a body shop to have it sprayed.
 
If your going to take it to the body shop, you might as well let them prep it. Soemthing I learned about prepping and doing body work is that its kinda not as money saving as I thought when you dont have the tools needed. Its also VERY time consuming and how much is your time worth to you?

But if you still wanna do it yourself here are somethings you have to ask yourself. Is the paint well enough to paint over? To check, see if you can scratch any of it off with your nail. If you can scratch it off, then your gonna have to sand down to a layer that is holding well. Your gonna need a LOT of sand paper and a power sander. Have access to water for wet sanding but you wont really need to wet sand in the INITIAL prepping faze.

Of course fill in any dents with filler and patch any holes and fill 'em with bondo. Try to use as little as you can because it will crack over time if you cake it up. Be sure to let each layer properly dry before applyign the next one or the final result can be disasterous when the paint completely drys.

I wouldn't put down the fixative or the primer and let them do that. They sometimes have to usual special primer for their paint and since your not painting it, you dont know what kind they needed. (Leading to more problems. Etc. Etc)

I hope you found any of this helpful. If not, tell me and I can take it down as easily as I put it up. Good luck and we would love to see pics.
 
Okay, I am aware of how time consuming it is. I will have a few buds helping me. I am talking about what grit sandpaper do I use and a method on how to body prep. I'm new to body work so I'm clueless.

The coat of paint that's on there now is NO GOOD. I can literally peel it off the bumpers if I wanted to. Earl Scheib just sprayed over my factory paintjob.
 
gridlyne said:
If your going to take it to the body shop, you might as well let them prep it. Soemthing I learned about prepping and doing body work is that its kinda not as money saving as I thought when you dont have the tools needed. Its also VERY time consuming and how much is your time worth to you?

But if you still wanna do it yourself here are somethings you have to ask yourself. Is the paint well enough to paint over? To check, see if you can scratch any of it off with your nail. If you can scratch it off, then your gonna have to sand down to a layer that is holding well. Your gonna need a LOT of sand paper and a power sander. Have access to water for wet sanding but you wont really need to wet sand in the INITIAL prepping faze.

Of course fill in any dents with filler and patch any holes and fill 'em with bondo. Try to use as little as you can because it will crack over time if you cake it up. Be sure to let each layer properly dry before applyign the next one or the final result can be disasterous when the paint completely drys.

I wouldn't put down the fixative or the primer and let them do that. They sometimes have to usual special primer for their paint and since your not painting it, you dont know what kind they needed. (Leading to more problems. Etc. Etc)

I hope you found any of this helpful. If not, tell me and I can take it down as easily as I put it up. Good luck and we would love to see pics.

Saving money is a reason people will prep themselves, but another reason (& Most important), is so you KNOW the car is prepped well. Since places like Maaco have so many cars some in for paint jobs, their prep-work isn't exactly the best.
 
trapspeed said:
Okay, I am aware of how time consuming it is. I will have a few buds helping me. I am talking about what grit sandpaper do I use and a method on how to body prep. I'm new to body work so I'm clueless.

When your fixing a dent use like 80grit to get down to bare metal then bondo it up, when your just sanding the paint use like 800-2000 to get it really smooth before primer.

Just make sure your bondo work is perfect because if it's not it'll show:notgood:
 
I plan on shaving the antenna, rear squirter and rear wiper. That's all the bodywork I'll be doing.
 
Use 38 or 40 grit sandpaper and a grinder to take the paint off to get down to bare metal. Make a swipe with the body filler (DON'T GET ANY ON PAINT, it will not stick). Use 40 grit to cut it down a bit and then move to 80 grit to smooth out the scratches and then use 180 grit to get it pretty smooth. If you want to (to get the best result), use a coat of "glazing putty" over on top of that. It will take out a lot of the scratches that the filler left behind. Use only 80 and 180 grit on that. That should be ready for primer, sealer, and then paint from the body shop.

I am going to school for bodywork and I can tell you, it's not easy to get it to turn out good unless you know what you are doing. Make sure you know someone that knows how to do it well because if you really don't have any idea what to do, it will be a nightmare to get done.
 
totaleclipse_05 said:
Use 38 or 40 grit sandpaper and a grinder to take the paint off to get down to bare metal. Make a swipe with the body filler (DON'T GET ANY ON PAINT, it will not stick). Use 40 grit to cut it down a bit and then move to 80 grit to smooth out the scratches and then use 180 grit to get it pretty smooth. If you want to (to get the best result), use a coat of "glazing putty" over on top of that. It will take out a lot of the scratches that the filler left behind. Use only 80 and 180 grit on that. That should be ready for primer, sealer, and then paint from the body shop.

I am going to school for bodywork and I can tell you, it's not easy to get it to turn out good unless you know what you are doing. Make sure you know someone that knows how to do it well because if you really don't have any idea what to do, it will be a nightmare to get done.

This is the only piece of advice in here which is correct. However because Earl Shieb did not prep the car correctly before spraying it, you do not want to spray over their work. There are many ways to remove the old finish, all of which will involve a lot of extra work. I would try a putty knife for starters. If you can strip most of the old paint off with a putty knife, awesome. If it stuck well enough that you can't get it off with a putty knife, but still flakes and chips and you still want to remove it(which I would recommend) I would hit the whole car with 80 grit on a random orbital or dual action sander. The 80 grit will cut down the bullcrap quick enough without going through to the metal, however you will have to prime the whole car to fill the scratches. After priming the car I would block the whole thing dry with 180 to get it pretty straight, and then block it very thoroughly with 320 to get the 180 scratches out, and then step it up to 400-500 or even 600 max. This will allow you to see if there are any 180 scratches left, but anything finer is pointless and will only hurt the adhesion of the paint to the vehicle. As far as bodywork, since you are shaving a few holes, you have a two choices, and neither of those involves putting bondo over them. The first choice is to weld up the holes, and then bondo over that, or for the antenna hole use what's called panel adhesive and glue a plate underneath and bondo over that. I was skeptical about adhesive at first, however the correct adhesive to use is a structural component in most modern cars and will work. I can't make any promises about JBweld or other types of epoxy. Gluing a plate underneath will not only save you time welding and grinding, but you won't have to worry about warping the metal (which will save you time when it comes to bondo). Bondo work is not hard at all. If you have the right blocks to do it, and have a general understanding of how the bondo acts and certain general concepts about the techniques to use you should be able to make it come out fine. I think that about covers it.
 
well for starter's you just need to scuff the paint on top so a red scotch bright is best! if your really in the mood for a good looking body in the end DA the whole car with 180 grit sand paper! as for the dents you DON'T need to sand them down to metal you feather edge the dent back till there is a smooth paint ring and a smooth primer ring around it, if it takes you to the metal then your still fine but if you just dig it straight down to the bottom yow will just have more work to do to fill it up! then just fill the dent in with bondo but when you do your first layer take just a little and press it firmly into the dent area then let it harden and use a cheese grater file and shape it then sand it down with 80 grit and put another coat of bondo on and don't cheese grate it this time now just block sand it with 80 grit and then knock the 80 grit scratches down with the 180 grit DA sander, another note with red scotch bright you can also use 1000 grit wet sand, the scuffing thing is just to take the shine off the clear coat so paint will stick, so the better you scuff the better the paint will stick. if you have any more q's just IM me or PM me cause i have a book on this from my auto body degree!!
 
will90Eclipse said:
When your fixing a dent use like 80grit to get down to bare metal then bondo it up, when your just sanding the paint use like 800-2000 to get it really smooth before primer.

Just make sure your bondo work is perfect because if it's not it'll show:notgood:


800-2000? How long do you plan on sanding, a year? Listen man use 180 grit to sand the whole car, so thats its just bare metal and primer, should be smooth as glass when your done. After you sand it all down let the body shop do the rest.
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-nick-
 
AgntorangeDSM said:
well for starter's you just need to scuff the paint on top so a red scotch bright is best! if your really in the mood for a good looking body in the end DA the whole car with 180 grit sand pape....the scuffing thing is just to take the shine off the clear coat so paint will stick, so the better you scuff the better the paint will stick. if you have any more q's just IM me or PM me cause i have a book on this from my auto body degree!!

Don't listen to this guy, Adam.

I am trying to get a new job so I can get weekends off, then you can come down here and we can do some work. There are too many people saying too many different things, and almost all of them are wrong.

Dan
 
Scrymerr said:
Don't listen to this guy, Adam.

There are too many people saying too many different things, and almost all of them are wrong.



i agree with Scrymerr...

i work at a body shop, and this is what i do for my job... i mosty prep high end german and japanese cars... i'll let you imagination run wild...

the guys you will have help you, do they know much about it?

it might be best to find a body shop that you are going to have paint it and ask them how they want it prepped... thats what i would do...

takerEz
wade
 
Scrymerr said:
Don't listen to this guy, Adam.

I am trying to get a new job so I can get weekends off, then you can come down here and we can do some work. There are too many people saying too many different things, and almost all of them are wrong.

Dan

Alright Dan. Yea, I see people explaining like 3-4 different ways which is confusing the hell out of me.
 
im just telling you not to GRIND your paint down thats not good, and there are many diff ways to do body work i work in a body shop myself and have a degree so obviously i'm not just blowing smoke out my ###! i'm not here to argue but i don't need to told i don't know what i'm talking about! you need to keep an open mind and know there are many diff ways some better than others and i'm just trying to help in any way just like the rest of you!
 
AgntorangeDSM said:
im just telling you not to GRIND your paint down thats not good, and there are many diff ways to do body work i work in a body shop myself and have a degree so obviously i'm not just blowing smoke out my ###! i'm not here to argue but i don't need to told i don't know what i'm talking about! you need to keep an open mind and know there are many diff ways some better than others and i'm just trying to help in any way just like the rest of you!

I understand, however if you read the posters original question, as well as my original response, you would see that he is trying to take off an entire coat of paint that was applied incorrectly the first time. Painting over a previous substrate that has no adhesion is not a good idea, and I think some of the recommendations you made were not right for his application. That is why I told the poster to disregard all the different comments and that I would be able to assist him. Having done body work before, you should know that when working over previous paintjobs and repairs there is never one way to do it because you just have to see what you are working with.

Dan
 
all i was trying to say was You just need to take the bad paint off,so i was agreeing with you on that but i was not agreeing with taking a grinder to the car! you dont want to go down to the metal if you don't have to. so were arguing aginst each other for no reason here you have your main point i have mine which ever way he chooses to do this is up to him! he posted and i voiced thats all!!
 
Okay, I got what I needed from the thread. Thanks guys.
 
If you want, I'll post up how to, I just finnished two semesters taking autobody and collision classes unless you got what ya need...
 
Red Recluse said:
If you want, I'll post up how to, I just finnished two semesters taking autobody and collision classes unless you got what ya need...

I'm down for some free info. :thumb:
 
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