paint

[dknight3]

alright so i cannot afford to spend $600 to paint my jdm stuff.. SOO

i was thinking i might as well try to do it myself and the most i will be out is the price of the paint and it might look decent.

so i was just wondering what kind of paint i should use and what kind of clearcoat to use, and how many coats of each. (the bumper is plastic, i dont know if that matters or not)

i think the two major kind of paint are acrylic and urathane? what kind comes factory on the front bumper?

[qnz]

theres cost of paint gun, dustless room, big enough air tank so that you dont have to stop every minute, mask, cost of paint....
just so you know

[8G_GTZ]

alright so i cannot afford to spend $600 to paint my jdm stuff.. SOO

i was thinking i might as well try to do it myself and the most i will be out is the price of the paint and it might look decent.

so i was just wondering what kind of paint i should use and what kind of clearcoat to use, and how many coats of each. (the bumper is plastic, i dont know if that matters or not)

i think the two major kind of paint are acrylic and urathane? what kind comes factory on the front bumper?

there's a lot more than you think. Just get it painted. Save up and get it done. If you don't know, then don't try. There's a lot to learn.

Lighting
Color matching
blending
air psi
dry streaks
runs
sanding
cleaning
buffing/polishing
dust free room
ventilation
paint suit
paint mask
good gun
paint sticks
masking tape
paper
plastic

Thats about all I can think of. I work in a body shop, thats just most of the things.

Steve

[frag_daddy_2007]

Way back when i had the kit on my car, i had to repaint it once.
I did pretty good, but i was only painting half a rear bumper, so i was able to do it im my shed.

[Stewi]

alright so i cannot afford to spend $600 to paint my jdm stuff.. SOO

i was thinking i might as well try to do it myself and the most i will be out is the price of the paint and it might look decent.

so i was just wondering what kind of paint i should use and what kind of clearcoat to use, and how many coats of each. (the bumper is plastic, i dont know if that matters or not)

i think the two major kind of paint are acrylic and urathane? what kind comes factory on the front bumper?

Do what you want to do, but overall its a bad idea. Im not sure what kind of stuff your trying to get painted but when you say JDM stuff if you mean both bumpers and side skirts, $600 is a nice deal. Most shops around here get $300 per bumper for a good job. A decent paint gun is gonna run you $100, a quality paint an clear coat will run you another $150, then you need all different grits of paper, mixing cups, tack cloths, dust free and heated room, preferabbly in an area with little humidity because paint doesnt like humidity. So lets say all that costs you $300, you still gotta do it yourself, when your done you gotta wetsand it and polish it. So then you need a buffer, polishing compound and the know how to do it without burning thru the clear coat you just put on. Plus without a booth, it may take 2 or 3 days for the paint and clear to fully cure. Im not trying to shoot down your idea, im just letting you know what your getting into. I like your ambition, but I did this with my engine bay not too long ago. I have a 40 gallon air compressor and it was no match for an HVLP spray gun, I had to stop every 2 minutes and wait for the compressor to build up pressure. I ended up just towing the car to my friends body shop and doing it there with a 120 gallon compressor and the whole engine bay took about 15 mins to do it. Meanwhile I spent hours not accomplishing anything in my garage..

[dknight3]

alright... nobody has answered my question yet...
i have most of the supplies already.

edit: the $600 quote was just for the front bumper. there is no way in hell im paying $600 to get a front bumper painted.

[Stewi]

alright... nobody has answered my question yet...
i have most of the supplies already.

edit: the $600 quote was just for the front bumper. there is no way in hell im paying $600 to get a front bumper painted.

Then shop around. Im sure there are more shops in your area than just the one place that wants $600. If the part doesnt need any body work and just needs to be prepped and painted, it should cost you no more than $350 at most

And to answer your question, paint brand will also dictate pricing. All modern shops are using Urethane paint, acrylic and laquer are pretty out dated unless your doing some sort of custom project. Spies Hecker and Glasurit are top notch paints, enough paint and clear to do your bumper from them will cost you about $200-$250. PPG, DUPONT and BASF can be had for around $150-$200 and there are some lesser quality sort of no name brands that can be had for around $100. Also you need to consider what color the bumper already is versus what color it needs to be painted. If your trying to paint lets say white over a bumper thats black, you would want to use a sealing primer on the bumper first before your basecoat and clear coat to prevent the old color from "bleeding" thru once your done. Also, where are you planning on getting the paint? Ordering online or from a local body shop supply jobber? If your ordering online, you have more problems. You cant just buy the color paint you need, it has to be mixed. Example to make silver you may need 5 parts gray, 3 parts white, 1 part black and 1 part metallic pearl flake. The way they make the color is they have a special computer that you put your paint code into, then it tells them the paint mixing formula. Often, a single color may have more than one formula which is referred to as a variation. Paint manufacturers give body shops little cards with paint samples called variation chips, once the shop looks up the formula and gets the variations, they hold the chip up against your car to see which one matches closest, then if the match is close, but not close enough, they adjust the paint formula by adding more of a given color to make it darker, lighter, etc. in an effort to match your car. To properly mix paint, you need a special scale as well, because the formula's are given by gram weight not by fluid onces. If you have a local paint supply jobber, they can mix the color for you, you just need to have your car there when they mix it so they can try to match it. I hope you understand how involved of a process this really is. Just take a look around when your driving, look at cars that are silver or tan colored, look at the bumpers versus the fenders and 1/4 panels, you can see the difference in color. Shit, look at silver 8g's, alot of the time they dont match. Most of the time they came like this from the factory due to one part being metal and the other plastic, but up around 2004, the paint technology got more accurate and now when you see it on newer cars, its most likely because the bumper was replaced by a shop and they didnt get the paint formula correct. If you cant get it close enough, they usually do what you call a blend, but thats a whole different can of worms.

[Divinity]

paint 3 coats with 2 coats clear... dupont is good paint... i think it's acrylic or maybe a mix

Make sure you use an adhesion promoter and prime/prep the plastic pieces though

[Divinity]

Oh yeah... have you tried calling a body shop and ask them what type of paint they would use on a plastic body kit piece? Just tell them you want some information about the job before you decide to get it done if they ask why you want to know. They might be able to tell you if they use acrylic or urethane or a mix... that might help also

[dknight3]

okay thanks for the info guys, i might just do all the prep work and sanding and then bring it back to them and see how much because i think the reason the places i went to said it would be $600 is cause i had the bottom side of the bumper facing up so all they saw was all the scratches on the bottom of the bumper from going over curbs and stuff.

i started sanding today and im about half way done, but i gotta go to work.