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So my friend wants to save some money having his car sprayed and wants to prep the car for paint and has roped me in to help my question is how hard is can it be done wrong and what would we need is it worth trying ourselves to save some pennies

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From what I've picked up heard/read over time is that with a paint job all the work is in the prep.



The skill I believe is obviously in laying the paint down and mopping it afterwards.



That said the prep is where it will go right or wrong, but I think if youve never done it before then there is plenty margin for error.



If using filler you need to get the mix bang on to avoid it deteriorating over time, and I believe without a smooth surface it is also difficult to spot/rectifiy small dents.


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What colour is the car now and what colour is it going?



I would start by washing the car to get rid of contaminants (I use fairy liquid on things that I'm going to spray). Panel wipe it down a few times to get rid of any old polish etc.



Key up anything that is getting painted with 600 grit wet and dry. keep it even. For stonechips or cracks in the old paint etc use some filler but like above be accurate when you mix it and let it go off for as long as possible. Depending on what/how much you've filled you could also use a bit of stopper over the top.



Once everything is keyed up I tend to go back over it with 800/1000 grit to get it really nice and flat on the bigger panel areas like bonnet, doors etc. make sure you key up sharp edges and textured areas really well (by textured I mean like the area on the front of the glanza bumper that fixes it to the car, fog light surrounds, the part of the wing that sits under the bonnet in the engine bay etc) or the paint will flake off if you've not keyed it up enough.



Masking takes a lot of time too... but don't rush it.



I'm not a sprayer by any means but I've sprayed a few cars. That's how I would tackle it. I make mistakes every single time, it's a very fine art for sure...


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As flat as possible really but don't go for too fine grit- the paint won't adhere as well if you've gone over it with really fine stuff. I go to 1000. the texture should be even and when you dry it off after flatting you can see if you've got it truly flat- the colour should be the same (dull) and if you get up close and there are small areas of dull and other areas of not so dull then it's not flat enough if that makes sense.


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I prepped my car myself, over a period of about 6 months it took over 100 hours to do. (By hand)

Now saying that, I wanted it to be perfect, which it is due to the prep that went in. This involved sanding the whole car back with 240 grit, another full going over with 800 and block sanding with 800. You'll be surprised how many imperfections you'll find whilst blocking.

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