Painting a car can be a tedious and lengthy process and seeing people spraying paint on the car, can make the whole thing seems easier. However, we should be aware that car painting isn’t a task for everyone and many people are surprised to know that they need to perform so many tasks when painting a car. However, with enough preparation, the effort shouldn’t be painful and it can even become a hobby that we enjoy doing. The first thing that we should consider when painting a car is cleaning it. Car surface easily accumulates contamination, even minutes after it is washed. Fine dust could start to be attached on the freshly washed surface.
These contaminates could cause plenty of problems, with oil residues and silicone as the worst contaminants every. In many cases, we should be able to remove annoying contaminants using old-fashioned hand wash and simple wipes with dry cloth to remove fine dust. We should be aware that silicone and wax used to wash the car are number one enemies during car painting session. It means that, we should use simpler soap, instead of those that contain wax and silicone. The goal isn’t only to remove dirt, but also to remove wax layers and silicone; instead of adding them.
The next thing that we should do is to check the condition of the paint. If we are lucky, we don’t need to sand the surface to remove peeled paints and other jutting objects. If the old surface starts to peel, we will need to strip it thoroughly and in less serious cases, we only need to sand it. Another thing to consider is that some cars have thick layers of paints and when the paint is deeply scratched to the inner metal surface, it would be necessary to add some fillers. It means that we need to properly repair the old paint layers, before applying the new one; which may seem like a counter-intuitive step. But unfortunately, without a smooth layer underneath, we can have uneven results and this will ruin our results.
Fortunately, there are many tools under the sun that can help us to properly clean up old paint layer. The most important tool is probably the 400-grit sandpaper, both the dry and wet versions. We also need water bottle with squirting mechanism and a lot of genuine elbow actions. We should be sure to sand all the jagged surfaces and edges properly and we shouldn’t sand smooth surfaces, because they could become good base for the new paint layer. We could speed up the whole process by using compressed air to spray the paint. With proper tools, we should be ready for painting the car.
It is quite likely that we will find spots with different colors after we sand the outer surface. With enough coat of primer sealer, we should be able to get uniform results when spraying the new paint. It is also important to wear mask before we spray the new paint. It is also a good idea to read instructions manual and technical data sheet about the paint.
