Learning how to paint a car in your garage is not the same as painting a wall in your home. One project only necessitates a few paint rollers and a can of paint. On the other hand, the other requires many supplies, including clear coats, primers, and sprayers. It is why professional car paint jobs may be quite costly.
Therefore if you do not want to incur those costs, you can paint your car at home. The procedure night gets complicated, and it hence requires some talent. However, the good news is that you can learn how to paint a car and give your ride a new look. This article will show you how to paint your car on your own.
How To Paint A Car At Home
The first thing you will do is clean your car with soap and water until it is sparkling clean. Once you wash your car, you will tape it over to prevent paint from going to parts you do not want. You will then fill any dents on your vehicle and sand your car. After preparing a suitable workshop, you will start the painting process.
Steps On How To Paint A Car At Home
If you want to succeed in painting your car at home, here are some steps you can follow.
Step 1: Washing The Car
Before you start painting your car, the first thing you should do is wash your vehicle. You should ensure that your car is spotlessly clean. When washing your automobile, ensure you turn off the hot waxing.
Step 2: Remove The Removable Parts
When washing your car at home, detaching the removable parts will save you a lot of time. The removable components include lights, blinkers, ornamental strips, spray nozzles, hubcaps, windshield wipers, etc. Moreover, you should ensure that nothing gets painted accidentally. In addition, it provides a perfect time to inspect and maybe replace broken components.
Step 3: Taping your car Over
The next thing to do is thoroughly tape your car. It would help to keep in mind that high-grade crepe tape is ideal because it gets easily removed. You will, therefore, tape the windows and window rubbers.
Moreover, ensure you tape over the hollow spaces inside the headlights and rear lights if they’ve been removed. The purpose of taping your car is to reduce paint wastage.
Step 4: Filling Dents And Doing Repairs
Painting your car at home will help you highlight dents and places that need repairs. Taking the time to remove or fill all dents yields a much better result. Beat out the dents and do filling as little as possible. By doing so, your paintwork will turn out to be the best.
Step 5: Sanding
The old paint layer should get roughened to allow the new paint to adhere well. It would be best if you used sandpaper 400-600 grit and a sanding block. Moreover, ensure you do the sanding by hand only. The paintwork is thinner at corners and edges. As a result, you will reach the plating faster. Therefore, you must avoid this at all costs.
Step 6: Removing Fat Using Silicon Cleaner
The Silicon cleaner removes sanding and filling dust. Moreover, it also degreases the car well. To paint a car, it must be free of grease. Therefore, having silicon cleaner when painting your vehicle at home is essential.
Now is the time to decide how to proceed and paint the car. If you plan to sell the car, you will leave the rest to the pros. However, if it is for personal use or recreation, you may proceed as you wish.
Step 7: Set Up The Workshop
You need a roof over your head to paint a car yourself. A suitable workshop should be a place with a closed space. However, a carport or a garden pavilion are also suitable alternatives.
You should ensure that you tape the walls with foil. During this time, you should ensure no insects, leaves, or dust touch the car. It would help to remember that spray painting creates a lot of spray mist.
Therefore, If you aren’t working outside, tape the entire area with construction foil to make it clean enough to paint your car. If you’re using a roller or wrapping, skip the part of using construction foil.
Step 8.1: Car Roller-Painting
A wide range of colours is suitable for roller application. In addition, colours can also get mixed easily. Cheap white radiator paint is ideal for buses and vans. When roller-painting the car, you will require:
- A velvet paint roller for rough surfaces
- Paint basin
- Newspapers
- A foam paint roller for smooth surfaces
You do not need a mouth cap when roller-painting your car. In addition, to avoid soiling the ground, ensure that you lay down newspapers. You should ensure to start roller-painting your way down from the car roof. Moreover, apply the paint crosswise to provide full coverage.
Step 8.2: Spray-Painting The Car
You can use spray cans can touch up minor damage spots. You must always paint the entire bodywork part. Moreover, ensure you work joint to joint while carefully taping off the rest of the car. In addition, you should ensure you stay 30cm away from your vehicle while spray-painting to avoid dripping.
A compressor, a spray paint gun, and a mixing bucket are required to thoroughly spray-paint a car. Moreover, wear protective clothing all over and have a mouth cap. It would be best to apply the paint crosswise and start from the top and go down.
Step 8.3. Car Wrap
Wrapping a car is the cleanest and most efficient way to upgrade the exterior of your vehicle in your garage. However, it takes practice to apply wrapping foil bubble-free, and it is a bit expensive. That said, with the right skills and knowledge, this method yields excellent results.
Step 9. Finishing Car
You can always improve DIY paintwork with fine-grained sandpaper and a polisher. However, you cannot do this if the paint you are using is Matte Paint. Once you follow all these steps, you will have a successful car painting.
Types Of Car Paints Chemical Make-Ups
Urethane
Urethane car paint is the most durable option. It resists chipping and fading for about ten years. Moreover, It can also get painted over any previous paint job. Like enamel Paint, urethane paint dries quickly and does not run.
It is more expensive than enamel paint due to its superior quality. Urethane is a lacquer substitute, but be sure to love it because Lacquer cannot get painted over it.
Urethane is not recommended for self-painting because it is challenging to work with. Moreover, you should be aware that some states ban aliphatic polyurethane paints.
Acrylic Enamel
Acrylic enamel paint lasts a long time because it creates a robust and hard shell. Single-stage and two-stage enamel paints are available. Single-stage enamel paints have the basecoat and clearcoat mixed. On the other hand, two-stage enamel paints require the basecoat and clear coat to be applied separately.
The Acrylic Enamel paint is also not recommended for DIY projects for two reasons. Acrylic enamel paints, like urethane, are challenging to apply. The second reason is that shops can “bake” paint onto cars to make it last longer.
Lacquer
Lacquer was the first and only car paint option for many years. Acrylic lacquers are the easiest paints to apply and have the highest gloss. One problem with using Lacquer is that it quickly fades when exposed to UV rays. Moreover, this paint is now illegal in many states due to its environmental impact.
Types Of Car Paint Finishes
Solid Paint
Solid paint is the most common and least expensive paint option. Solid paint is less costly, easier to repair, and conceals scratches better. Many of these paint finishes and other essentials could get obtained quickly using Home Depot coupons. The only flaw of this paint is that it is the dullest.
Metallic Paint
Metallic paint is what gives certain cars an eye-catching, subtle sparkle. The aluminium powder in metallic car paint catches the sun’s light and helps cover minor dings and scratches.
However, Metallic paint is more expensive. Since the colour is difficult to match, it is more challenging to repair dings and scratches. Therefore, it makes it more costly in the long run. Metallic paint also has fewer colour options than regular paint.
Matte Paint
Matte paints are trendy now. However, the matte paint job is expensive and difficult to maintain. Trying to buff out a scratch at home could leave your car with one glossy spot in a sea of matte.
Is There A Difference Between Car Paint And House Paint?
Yes, there is. The first distinction is between the paints’ adhesion. All vehicle paints will attach to the metal if specified as such. However, house paint chips off metal after a few months. Moreover, Car paint is more durable than house paint in terms of weather resistance. The latter gets utilized indoors, where harsh weather is infrequent.
Conclusion
It is clear that painting your car is different from painting a house. Painting a vehicle needs more skills as it has challenging procedures. Its complexity is what makes it expensive to take your car to a professional for painting. However, you can also paint the car yourself by following the above procedures to avoid extra costs.
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