need advise on cheapest way to paint hood&fenders?
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i have a 1990 honda crx si,with 240,000miles, with newer engine, it runs great and has no major problems, the worst thing is the paint, its been an outside car since dont have garage and been in the texas heat.
it was painted at Maaco in 2003, (10yrs ago), with the ultra-urethane package, did a color change from white to a dark midnight blue, and painted over the plastic side moldings. they did a good job, and it looked great & lasted longer than i expected, but has started chipping a lot on the hood & front fenders, down to bare metal, it seems like they didnt put primer on the hood & fenders cause rest of car is fine?, theres small rust spots 1/4″-1/2″ in diameter too,i want to paint just the hood & front fenders so it matches the rest of the car, which is still decent, ive looked into using color-matched spraypaint products from AutomotiveTouchup.com, which seem like are good prices compared to other similar companies, but its really hard trying to estimate how much paint, primer or clear you need to buy in order to be able to paint the body parts i want ? after adding up stuff, and trying to get an estimate, it looks like it would cost around $150 – $180, at first the main reason i was looking into doing it myself with colormatched spraypaints was so it would be cheaper, but after estimating how much everything would be, its a little more than i thought, now im wondering if its even worth going this type of route ? or if i should just get the car painted at a shop somewhere thats affordable ? also, if it makes it easier, i can remove the hood & fenders and bring it to them.
another option would be to just do myself with a spray gun & compressor, even know i’ve never used one before, someone said it just cost around $31 for a quart of urethane paint, (but probably be more since i need colormatched paint), some primer, $13 for activator and $10 for reducer (thinner), and i could look into borrowing or renting a spray gun & compressor and find place to paint car to use, and a guy said its cheaper doing it this way, and could do it faster, it said you can do it in 1 day since dries faster than if you used spraypaints, and be even faster if i were just to paint the hood and 2 front fenders. but if i were already doing all that, then i would have to think if i should just paint the whole car while i’m at it, since its such a small car anyway, but would have to mask everything off and stuff and do more prep work, but if i did just hood & fenders, i could just take them off of the car and paint by themselves, without masking car and stuff.
i just wanted to get opinions on whats the cheapest way to paint hood & fenders ? colormatched spraypaint?, a shop? or myself with spraygun & compressor ?
thanks for any advise
As a professional, the only way to do a good and correct job is to sand down the hood and fenders making it all flat and feather edged. Re, prime, and seal. You will have to blend into the doors for a true match. Panel painting is not correct. Hope this helps.
thanks for the reply,
keep in mind i’m not trying to get a perfect paintjob, and don’t care if the colormatched paint is’nt perfectly matched to the rest of the car, cause i figured it would’nt be, unless i had a pro shop do it that has one of those color matched computer system things, but i was just wanting to order the colormatched spraypaint in a can from automotivetouchup.com, which matches it to your paint code, and was just hoping it worked good, but was going to just order 1 can first so i can test it out to make sure the color was a good match and not too dark or light or anything weird, and if its good, then i would go ahead and order the rest of the cans i need.i realise i am new at this and your experienced, so forgive me if i sound stupid, but when you say i will need to blend into the doors, what does that mean?, are you talking about painting the fenders but also to keep painting beyond the fender line, over onto the doors lightly, so its faded into the paint already on the doors ?
really i was hoping not to touch the doors since the paint is still real good on them,when you say panel painting, does that mean just painting a couple seperate body parts ? like hood & fenders ?
as far as the different methods i mentioned, whats your opinion on the cheapest route for me to go with ?
thanks for your input
Hello. The answer to your new questions is yes. in it’s simplest form, yes. There is a great deal of technique and prep involved in the blend method. Also I forgot to mention that this would be using base/clear. This is the most expensive approach but gives the best finish.
Earlier you mentioned a color change from Maaco, so I am concerned about paint code and color match. Spray bomb, in my opinion, will not last long and produce the least appealing finish. I understand you are on a budget, so if indeed you must do this method at least take time time prepare the painted surfaces well. Use primer and block sand it out before applying the final paint.
Another solution is to buy yourself a cheap spray gun from Harbor Freight Tools ($20) and get some urethane single stage paint from a local autobody supplier. Nason makes an affordable solution.
Figure on
-$30 quart of Nason single Stage
-$20 (2) spray bomb cans of primer
-$20 cheap spray gun
-$15 tape and roll of masking paper
-$30 cheap d.a. sander
-$20 roll of cheap 320 grit d.a. paperRoughly $135 plus labor and spot to paint.
P.S. A gallon of NAson would cover the whole car and would take too much longer to prep. Consider the whole roll of d.a. paper , tape, and masking paper…why not do an over all?
Search youtube for tips, tricks and techniques on surface prep and paint application. Hope this helps!
http://www.tcpglobal.com/restorationshop/itemgroupdetail2.aspx?WebsiteCategory=Classic%20White&WebsiteCategory2=Gallon-Kit&AU%20%E2%80%93%20Acrylic+Urethane+Single+Stage&selectedsku=thanks for the good advise and for your opinions,
the paint code i chose at maaco was LC5H, Atlantic Blue, which is a dark midnight blue from a 2001 volkswagen jetta, i did find that exact paint code after doing a search on automotive touchup.com website, so all they have to do is make some paint thats the same as that color code, it should’nt matter if my cars a honda, and that it was white before, the main thing would be just for them to colormatch to the paint code of whats on my car now.
i did’nt realise i could paint my car with a spray gun for that cheap like you listed, and i do think i would be pretty good at doing it even if its my first time, cause i have an art background, went to art institute of dallas, and i just tend to have a good eye for detail and good at lining things up and just naturally good at all types of painting and art related methods of applying things.
if i went that route, my only dillemma would be finding a place to work at ? cause i live at an apartment, and i know some friends with houses that have garages but they would’nt want me painting in them, making a mess, so i just don’t know where i could go to paint it at ??, maybe i can pay someone to use their place to paint it at ? but that would be more money,
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