MK4 First Time Painting success!

[bartock]

Thanks to all who offered advise and for the good writeups here. My experience with bodywork was limited to boats, but I think it translated well. My body was pretty good with only minor alignment issues. Ive never painted a car, let alone use a paint gun.

I used:
Vevor 23/13/10 inflatable paint booth in my driveway
Primer gun with 2.5 tip for slick sand
2 R500 LVLP guns, one for colors and one only for clear.
1/2 gallon of rage gold to get the seams re contoured
1 gallon of slick sand (I could have saved time and used 2 and did less rage gold but after just the gallon and blocking it was spot on)
1/2 gallon of 2k urethane primer sealer
For the paint I went with Ford D4 Rapid/Lucid Red Metallic. It is a tri coat...more room for failure but loved the color too much not to try. It came with a gallon of metallic basecoat, a gallon of tinted midcoat and a gallon of clear. I used about 3/4 gallon of each to get the coverage I wanted.

I messed up the stripes, but in a good way. I decided to taper them and based on the diagrams here on the forum I saw it should be 7.5 at the cowl openings...well somehow i went to 8.5 at the end of the hood and cowl opening. I must have measured from the wrong part of the tape. It looks great though. I put the stripes over the metallic base coat, as the sealer needed to be coated within an hour. I used just 2 coats and what that allowed was the red metallic flakes to show through in the sunlight. In the shade its jet black and love the effect. I also offset the stripe on the trunk to the licence plate lamp and the trunk latch. It was about 1/4 inch off but hiding he break behind like Ive seen should work great.

If I can do it, anyone can! worth trying at least!

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[Blitzboy54]

Congratulations!!!

It looks amazing. I have much respect for those ready to tackle their own body and paint.

[sasteel43]

Looks great!! That's the same color combo I will be going with.

[RJD]

Beautiful. Nice work.

How well did the inflatable paint booth work for you? Can you provide some pros and cons. Thank you.

[bartock]

Beautiful. Nice work.

How well did the inflatable paint booth work for you? Can you provide some pros and cons. Thank you.

It was better than trying in my garage with plastic. The one I had has 2 side filters and one on the door....airflow was minimal.

So pros...controlled space to work and keep dirt and bugs to a minimum. Keeps overspray inside.

Cons
Is a greenhouse. A good 20 to 30 hotter inside. Plan your reducer speed accordingly. This could be a pro in colder places.
Minimal air flow. I bought an explosion proof exhaust fan with hose and that solved it.
Leaks water. It rained and leaked on everything. Luckily the paint was dry.

Definitely worth it in my opinion though.

[Mike.Bray]

That looks really nice! I love that red.

[cv2065]

Looks great. Reminds me of the Carmine Red I had before.

[Rebostar]

Great job. Paint looks fantastic. Kudo's for taking it on. I looked into a couple of those inflatable booths. I've heard mixed reviews about about them. Glad it worked for you. I thought about setting one up inside my shop. I currently have a hillbilly booth made of visqueen. Its great for primer and small parts. I primed and painted my chassis in it. I also painted two cars (my Cougar Avatar was one of them) and two trucks in it. (changing out the visqueen each time of course). They turned out OK, good 3 footers, not the quality I wanted for the Cobra though. Hence I farmed out the top coat. As a matter of fact I'm still in "paint jail" as I type this. I went with House of Kolor Brandywine with HOK Galaxy Grey Metalic for the stripes, very similar to your paint. The advice I got was leave the HOK to the pro's as its a pain in the a** to shoot correctly. I think if I do this again I'll go your route and set one of those inflatables up in my shop. I have a great Defilbiss gun and a dedicated compressor and filters set up just for paint. I'm having a hard time waiting on my painter!
Can I ask the cost of the inflatable booth?

Again, well done!

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[bartock]

Great job. Paint looks fantastic. Kudo's for taking it on. I looked into a couple of those inflatable booths. I've heard mixed reviews about about them. Glad it worked for you. I thought about setting one up inside my shop. I currently have a hillbilly booth made of visqueen. Its great for primer and small parts. I primed and painted my chassis in it. I also painted two cars (my Cougar Avatar was one of them) and two trucks in it. (changing out the visqueen each time of course). They turned out OK, good 3 footers, not the quality I wanted for the Cobra though. Hence I farmed out the top coat. As a matter of fact I'm still in "paint jail" as I type this. I went with House of Kolor Brandywine with HOK Galaxy Grey Metalic for the stripes, very similar to your paint. The advice I got was leave the HOK to the pro's as its a pain in the a** to shoot correctly. I think if I do this again I'll go your route and set one of those inflatables up in my shop. I have a great Defilbiss gun and a dedicated compressor and filters set up just for paint. I'm having a hard time waiting on my painter!
Can I ask the cost of the inflatable booth?

Again, well done!

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Thanks! I went with autopainthq for my paints. Cant be happier. I know that base wont look right until clear but first coat looked awesome. second it started looking pink. I had a WTF moment but decided to carry on. after clear it was perfect. I only have a 27 gallon compressor so went with a lvlp r500 gun. After a few test sprays I had them dialed in. I had a few small runs in the clear but that was user error. They are barely noticable. The booth only gave me 2ft on either side so I got too close. If I had to buy one again Id go with a 15ft wide, not the 13 (only 10.5 inside). I got it for about 500, and another 80 for the evacuation fan. The overspray was well contained and swept out, and washed out fairly easy. It condenses into a 3ft by 1.5ft bag. Better than doing in my garage.

[Jim1855]

Looks great! I really like the colors.
My first car was black with red stripes. I've thought about reversing the colors for this build. You just showed me what it would look like. Thanks again.
The spray booth is interesting as well.
Jim

[OB6]

I admire you taking this on, nice job. The color is outstanding.

[danmas]

That is an insanely cool paint job. Very well done sir. Well done indeed.

[John4337]

Outstanding! Looks great

[cob427sc]

Absolutely beautiful! I'm amazed that the booth is that cheap. I have painted many cars over the years with my site built spray booths ( poly and 2x4) but next time I'll splurge for one of these.

[Jeff's First FFR]

Hi there,
Your car looks great. Gives me some incentive. Right now I am hung up on the "driver's side door" issue bodywork. How did you deal with that?
thanks,
Jeff

[GoDadGo]

.....Bravo, Bravo & Bravo Once More!

I ran out of talent when I got to that phase so to say I Am Very Impressed is an understatement.

[runamuk]

That looks great, good job

[bartock]

Hi there,
Your car looks great. Gives me some incentive. Right now I am hung up on the "driver's side door" issue bodywork. How did you deal with that?
thanks,
Jeff

I dealt with it with a lot of cursing. Lol I aligned the door with the body focusing on keeping the side in line with the door and matching the curve on the door top to the body. The horn of the door sat low at that point so I built it up with rage gold to bring that part up. No tweaking could get the door aligned right without building up that area on mine.

[wallace18]

Super Job!:cool:

[cc2Arider]

Very Nice and super impressive :cool:

I thought the inflatable booths were much more expensive. I think I'll need to do more research :rolleyes:

Craig C

[Jim Stabe]

Is that the finish you got right from the gun or has it been cut and buffed.

[bartock]

Very Nice and super impressive :cool:

I thought the inflatable booths were much more expensive. I think I'll need to do more research :rolleyes:

Craig C

On Amazon the one I got is on sale for 467. The larger one is 600. Not bad for what they can do. Still need to add an exhaust fan for better airflow.

[bartock]

Is that the finish you got right from the gun or has it been cut and buffed.

Straight from the gun. I used one for the basecoats and another for clear so I didn't have to tune the gun after. It was an r500 lvlp. I got a small run in the clear on the right rear quarter panel and a little orange peel on the side of the panel but its not that noticeable unless you are right on it. The booth was only 10.5ft inside so it was harder to keep distance on that. The top side was flat as glass.

[Jim Stabe]

Straight from the gun. I used one for the basecoats and another for clear so I didn't have to tune the gun after. It was an r500 lvlp. I got a small run in the clear on the right rear quarter panel and a little orange peel on the side of the panel but its not that noticeable unless you are right on it. The booth was only 10.5ft inside so it was harder to keep distance on that. The top side was flat as glass.

Impressive job, you should be proud

[Winchester67]

Looks great! I have not painted a car in decades, but with the inflatable spray booth I would consider it. Well played, sir!