Paint Blending

[Candyman]

Hey their Ironman,

Ok, if I am following you correctly, you will get the paint mixed by a shop, and you will be shooting it, right? If so then I will assume you have access to a gun, compressor with a water trap, respirator with filters, and either are planning on renting a booth for a couple of hours, or have a makeshift booth set up at home. The booth is critical to try to keep any airborne dust, and other contaminants from getting onto, or under the fresh paint The respirator is also very important as some chemicals found especially in the Acrylic Urethane Clear can be harmful if inhaled!

If you are going to just do a spot repair, and try to blend the paint, even with a body shop mixing the color, you most likely will wind up with the paint either being one to two shades lighter, or darker than the surrounding area, and may likely be highly visible on your darker color, which is why I still recommend shooting the entire quarter panal rather than spot repair. In my experience with painting, and body shops, about 1 in 10 cars winds up with a close enough match that you can't tell where the repair was even if they re-shoot the entire panal.

As for the paint, I am not sure what the cost is in your area, so all I can go off of for cost is what I can get paint for here with my discounts which for a quart of Acrylic Enamel base, and Acrylic Urethane Clear, you should be looking at a cost of around $350 - $400, plus the series of wet / dry sand paper, wax / silicon remover, masking materials, a good primer sealer, cutting material, glaze, and wax. Please note, on the Primer / Sealer, make sure you tell the Body Shop, or Paint Supplier what kind of plastic body filler you used so you don't get bleed through!

In addition to the booth, compressor, respirator with filters, and paint / prep material, you will need a high speed rotary buffer which operates at a max 1000 RPM to buff the color sanding scratches out, and restore the shine without burning through the soft paint.

What I am trying to get at is, it used to not be all that hard to shoot single stage paints on your own, and get good results, however with EPA restrictions came high tech paint, which resulted in this big complicated process which unfortunately is extremely hard to pull off if not properly equipped, and well versed in how to pull off proper application.

I am not writing this to discourage you, but rather inform you of how big, complicated, and expensive of a process it is!

I wish you all the best, and if once your prepped, and ready to shoot, you need some more advise, I am here!

Take er easy!

Candyman

[Pteazer]

hey Ironman,sorry for the late response Im new to the forum but I have over 37 years of custom paint and body experiance. You probably dont need the help anymore but for what its worth the guys gave you some prettygood advise as fare as painting the whole panel.Only if I were going to spot in that repair I would try to keep the color as small as possible and not take it all the way to the adjacent panel. this will be tricky at the back but not impossible just go easy and after you get three or four coats covering the primmerd patch let it dry.and then sand it smooth with six or eight hundred grit being carefull not to rub too hard on the edges or it may begin to peel back .my other sugestion would be to remove the gas door and then sand the qauterpanel from the resessed line down to the rocker panel.theres a little ridge on the rocker that makes a nice stopping point on a pt. USE 1000 Grit for this step compared with five or six hundred Grit on the repair.the idea is that if you can end the clear cote at the resessed area you wont have to mask the qauter glass and that will make for a cleaner end result .So before you begin to paint the whole panel should be sanded with 1000 and once the repair is coverd and sanded with six or eight hundred.then you want to reduce the color about ten percent and give it another coat then each pass should be a little further than the one before on the pt you have a perfect curve on the area where the side flares out to cover the wheel. that curve if you can contain the blend to within that part and at the back try to loose the blend on an angle from the bottom corner by the liftgate to under the tail light.if you have to make a light mist coat a little past those points you should be ok,now you can put two good coats of clear over the entire part that you sanded you can reduce the third coat of clear to help it blend at the edges.once its dry you can buff the edges and you should have a nice looking repair that nobody will notice.by the way your bodywork looked good .good luck Ray Pteazer.

[Ironman]

I have not gotten a chance to shoot the paint yet, and likely won't for another 14 months (moving to an apt. so I have no place to do it) But I ran across a problem this winter, my primer peeled away and left me with a light rusting, nothing a quick sanding job and a good rust preventer didn't fix. I do need to find a better primer I guess, any ideas? I also need to do a little more shaping in the tail light recess groove. But I will be posting pictures of the process as I go along ( something I wish I had done during the repair) for reference, critique, and you general viewing pleasure.