painting questions

[Todd Phenneger]

Well,
  Interestingly enough, I've been doing this myself.  DO NOT
underestimate the TIME it will take you.  I have well over
50hours into my car.  But she is straight and lookign good.  The
more work you do yourself the more you will want to just strip
it all and paint the entire damn car over.  But, for starters
you'll want to pull ALL trim off.  Pull trim from around the
doors, windows, bumbers, etc.  Dont forget you'll likely need to
replace the clips when your re-attach everthing.  I would be
happy to send you some pics of my car In-Progress.  Its all
documented. Oh, and YES, you'll want to go get a DA Sander for
your Air Compressor.
  Anyhow, I did fix all my dents, used as little "bondo" or
"plastic filler" as possible but using what I needed to to make
the car look good.  Basically it goes like this.
1) Wash the car
2) strip the car
3) Mark all your dents.
4) Sand the dented areas feathering out.
5) fix dents.
6) Skim with filler, wiat 30min, sand,skim,wait,sand,skim,wait,
sand, skim, shape, sand.  Done, no wait, its still not right,
7) Great, body lookign straight.  Now get some glazign compound
to fix all the really little imperfections (small chips,
pinholes, and imperfections in your "bondo)
8) Primer over your Bodywork, filler.  Wait, Sand.
9) Do this a few times.  Make sure the whole car is straight.
10) Degrease the entire car and sand it down.  IF YOU HAVE
CLEARCOAT, then get rid of it.  YOu want to paint over your
Clear and have your clearcoat come up a year later.  Get all
clearcoat off the car.  Then prep with 180grit followed by
320grit.  YOu will paint with a 360 grit most likely but talk to
the body shop shooting the car.  See what they want.

Do you Paint it yourself, NO.  Let the guys with the Clean Room
and the OVEN paint it.  But you can do ALL prep yourself.  You
can paint Door Jambs, Trunk areas, Tail Light Buckets, Engine
Compartments.  But the main body leave to them.
  Good Luck
    Todd (First timer as well, its been a FRUSTRATING but a
Learnign experience) "I learned I HATE Bodywork". :-)
l8r
  Todd

--- ScottyCBoy at aol.com wrote:
> --
> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> In a message dated 8/3/03 1:20:50 PM Central Daylight Time,
> oolsen1 at ec.rr.com
> writes:
>
>
> >  Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> > OK, I want to get my 90q painted in the same factory red it
> is, I want to
> > save money by doing the taping and sanding myself, what grit
> to sand it in? how
> > deep to sand it? should I also get some bondo or filler and
> fix the tiny
> > dents in the doors? should I buy a orbit sander for my
> aircompressor or do it by
> > hand? can someone tell me who to contact about buying new
> mid level door
> > trims? the ones that have the audi logo on the front and are
> black plastic and
> > serve to protect door from dings...any advice? can I paint
> it myself if I find
> > a clean garage? I do have a auto paint sprayer but have
> never been to school
> > for painting.
> >
> > tia
>
> There are a few good books which describe how to paint a car
> in great detail.
> Best investment of 20 bucks when it comes to painting cars.
>
> Scott


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