Painting a car is better left to the professionals. The professional car painters have all the equipment needed to do a great job at car painting. You need sprayers, masks, and tape among other things to paint a car. Painting your own car can be fun if you have the desire to do it yourself. Last summer my boys decided they like to do it. They fix up their own cars and paint them. It has now become a family hobby. We paint Volkswagens and sadly they are all ours. I figure one Volkswagen in the yard is enough but the guys in the family seem to think we need more.
We have several Volkswagens and each summer we spend a lot of our time painting them. We don’t have all the necessary equipment to do it so we only do our own and it is a hobby more then anything. We have all the important equipment to paint cars with except the garage to do it in. You may think that a garage is an important part of painting a car but we do ok without one.
When you paint a car without a garage you have to spend a lot of your time watching the weatherman. We make sure that the day will be windless and clear of precipitation. Rain can really ruin painting a car so the forecast has to be completely rain free. Once we find that the weather will be right we can paint. It can be frustrating waiting for the perfect weather but it is of the utmost importance for us. One big advantage of painting without a garage is that we do not have to wear much protection against the fumes from the paint.
We take all the rust off of the car by sanding with a power sander and using sand paper. We also use rust converter in a spray can or in a paint bush style. If a dent or hole need to be filled we use a car filler like epoxy or bondo. The anti rusting portion of painting a car is the hardest and most labor some. It can take several complete days with four people working on it to accomplish. It takes along time to get rust off of a car. Sometimes you have to remove some parts of the car to get to rusted areas, like fenders.
After the rust is gone you can start taping the car. You can take off the lights and finders at this point. Masking tape is great for taping the car or you can buy tape that is made specially for painting a car. We use masking take and we put it on all the parts of the car that we don’t want to be painted. Door handles, and all other parts that you don’t want the paint to touch must be covered. Newspaper works great to cover big parts like windows, and tires, The idea is to completely cover all the parts of the car that should not be painted. You must also be careful that you don’t paint anything that is near the car when you are painting, like other cars.
After everything is covered that is not suppose to be painted then you are ready to paint. You must have the proper kind of paint sprayer in order to paint a car and use the directions that come with the sprayer. You can buy all the equipment you need to paint a car from a auto parts store but it is expensive. You must use a steady, even hand when you paint a car to get the paint on the car evenly. It is a good idea to practice of something that is not important so you know how your paint sprayer is working before you start to put the paint on the car. You can apply a clear coat of shiny paint afterwards if you want a shiny car.
Painting a car can be a lot of hard work and it can be expensive. It is not for the meek.
