ThE OfFiCiaL I'm PaInTin my Own TRuK! WhAt? Thread :crazy:

[Devs93]

yup wetsnaded any texture and imperfections out then buffed

 

[Southern Pride]

That's awesome. Where did you paint it at? In a shop? Only thing that sucks for us we're going to be making our own paint booth :/ But when you're wet sanding do you actually see when the imperfections are gone or more so FEEL when it goes smooth? Any time I've wet sanded I always just felt it go real smooth and then I knew I was golden. It's hard to really see what you're doing with all the soap and suds everywhere.

 

[Dragit]

Ill say first I didn't read all 6 pages so I don't know what everyone else told ya but a $1000 paint job lol? Don't know were theses guys went but we'd prolly charge $5000 at the least to over all a truck its just a ton of work and time involved. Are you doing any body work or primer and blocking first? Base/clear or single stage? If you do a color change you gotta do all your jams and stuff so going back black will be cheaper. Also I seen something about colors sanding the dust out but if there's dust in your base there nothing you can do about that. Painting is something that takes years to get really good at some people can just do it tho my first paint job turned out really good. If you can have someone help you out with spraying techniques and what not that will help alot. I could go on all day with the stuff you need to know but ill try and help ya out if ya got any questions.

 

[Southern Pride]

Ill say first I didn't read all 6 pages so I don't know what everyone else told ya but a $1000 paint job lol? Don't know were theses guys went but we'd prolly charge $5000 at the least to over all a truck its just a ton of work and time involved. Are you doing any body work or primer and blocking first? Base/clear or single stage? If you do a color change you gotta do all your jams and stuff so going back black will be cheaper. Also I seen something about colors sanding the dust out but if there's dust in your base there nothing you can do about that. Painting is something that takes years to get really good at some people can just do it tho my first paint job turned out really good. If you can have someone help you out with spraying techniques and what not that will help alot. I could go on all day with the stuff you need to know but ill try and help ya out if ya got any questions.

Hey buddy glad to finally hear from you on this! I'm not going to call off painting my truck because someone painted a truck for $800 ya know...I know around here the NORM is like $3000 easy. Yes sir I will be doing a ton of body work and preparation. As much is truly needed and I'll be posting progress in here. My body is straight though, no rust, few dings and a jackknife spot on driver rear of bed I'll need to fill with bondo after I straighten it out best I can! Of course I'm going back to black! Not only for the obvious reasons but because it looks the best! We will be doing a ton of practicing to get our techniques down and basically I just need to familiarize myself with each step of the prep and painting process. From there I can break it down and analyze and practice each step! I've learned a couple of tiny tricks like using a primer that's red over the grey primer and sanding till the red's gone so you know you got an even sand...Then keeping same pressure and even strokes while painting along with the spray pattern and pressure of nozzle needs to be a certain spec.


I know it's a ton and probably as a professional you're saying good luck! but I'm willing to be in this for the long haul and by that I mean a couple months even to get it fully prepared. The good thing is my buddy is doing his too so there will be two of us prepping and painting each truck. We have a bunch of scrap metal to practice on, and his brother is letting us paint his jeep so we have a whole vehicle to practice on, then were doing my buddy truck first (which is best..more practice) and then saving mine for last when we fully have our techniques down I know it seems overwhelming even from a viewer standpoint but I'm more than willing to do this for cost of materials rather than pay a fortune. When you own a 15 year old truck a $3-5,000 paint job doesn't make much sense epecially when you have the means to do it yourself esp with a great forum like this. Were supposed to be practicing on our fender today but we've had alot of rain that got me backed up yesterday and this morning so I've gotta go out and work for a few hours :/

We came to the conclusion today that we need to head up to sherwin williams and talk with folks there. Trying to get as much info from as many sources as possible is key.

 

[96k1500]

When working on your friends truck dont slack on the body work and treat it as tho you are doing your own truck so you can get a feel for what it will actually be like and also make sure your friend dont slack on your truck

 

[Southern Pride]

Yeah I know I'll be working hard on the jeep and his to get practice but I am worried that when it's my turn he'll slack because his is all done I dunno we'll see we need to get a plan together. Maybe each of us could do our own body work and paint them at the same time?? I dunno if we'll be able to build a booth big enough for all that though. It would make sense painting them at the same time so we only have to mix the paint once ya know.

 

[96k1500]

You would still wanna mix it more than once, usually every coat you wanna mix some up, and if you wanna paint 2 at once you would want a divider between them

 

[Southern Pride]

Yeah I talked with him earlier. This paint booth is going to be like 10ft tall by 12ft wide by 25 ft. long so we'll be doing one truck at a time. Trey (my buddy) also had a badass idea after we paint this jeep, that we should JUST paint our tailgate's to get some good practice with the color we're doing and making a nice perfect finish. My tailgate right now is by far the most faded crapiest part of my truck so no matter what we do to it, it will look great IMO.

 

[96k1500]

If your doin your tailgate just pull it off pull out your handle, sand it down lay a thin layer of filler on it, block it to make sure its completely smooth, make sure its free of any dust or any other particles on it, prime it, wet sand it let it dry and get all the dust off of it again, then repeat this step, but make sure to never sand it all the way down just a light wet sand, after your second coat of primer and have it free of dust again lay down your base coat let this dry until it is tacky(approximately 45 min depending on temp) then lay your second coat and so on and so forth, depending on how good you want it you can do 3-4 coats of paint make sure with dragit but i believe after we finished laying color we wet sanded again before laying clear, then spray light coats of clear allowing it to dry until tacky(which doesnt take as long as the color) then after your third or fourth coat of clear(depending on how shiny you want it, but wouldnt recommend more than 4 coats) is dry wet sand again, get your paint free of dust then buff it

 

[Southern Pride]

Will do. I put a PM in with Dragit because right now we are in this step of retrieving as much information as possible.

Aside from the body work and bondo we would love to get a complete list A-Z of the prep work all the way until ready for paint. This way we can analyze and practice each step to make sure we fully understand everything so we can truly start practicing. If anyone feels up for it please get a list going and people can add in their opinions etc. of diff techniques or tricks they use! I believe the Jeep and our tailgates will be our first true tests of painting. Again, just looking for a complete list of what to do A-Z in prep for paint along with the materials like what grit sandpaper to use here and there. That would be just awesome fellas. Thanks.