Madmax,

When I purchased my bodykit at the end of last year I sprayed it in acrylic and that was my first time spraying. It was pretty easy using acrylic, and any runs or mistakes that are made are usually in the clear coat and can be cut and buffed out. But I've been told with 2pak you cant cut/buff the finish if there are any runs.

The phatom pearl is only available in 2pak so I had no choice really but I found it so much harder getting the clearcoat right using 2pak than acrylic. Not enough clear and it gets orange peel and too much and it'll start running. The undercoat blue and purple pearl are easy to spray and are touch dry within 10-20 minutes.

As for breathing equipment, I've got an activated charcoal mask the paint shop recommended aswell as plenty of ventilation. Also having no real close neighbours helps.

I'd say dont let the undercoat limit your options cause most of my car was done in acrylic and I used and acrylic primer when I did bodywork, not realising I would end up with 2pak, but the guy at the paintshop said he's been doin the same thing for 10 years and aslong as theres a couple weeks between priming and painting it should be alright. But apparently 2pak has a larger range of pearls/metallics.

Definately give it a go and once you get a bit of experience with clear coating (door jambs, under bonnet/boot) and its not hard to spray. Just as long as its all prepared properly.

Cheers
Dominic

Engine bay done, finish spraying tomorrow.

G'day

I like it alot

Looks really good so far.

Cheers

I second that

Go Shockwave

It all looks pretty good so far. Poor Nicco is going to have to get his butt into gear and make his car look just as flash. Then you can have the whole campus talking about how good your cars are

Plus as I told Nicco I might be down there again...

^^ lol. I need to get a job! Fingers crossed i gt one of the ones i applied for last week! Then i'll be back to saving to do stuff to mine again! Its been too long between mods! ha ha

looking good mate =D

im going to get my car respray painted too. but not sure what colour. either black or midnight blue.

btw is this done in a booth or in ur garage? cause wouldn't the dust start to fall on the paint and make it uhhh funny looking?

nooo keep it regency. I get so many comments on what an unreal colour my car is and how shiney it looks.

Haha.

We've got a 3 bay shed at the back of our property and converted it into a spray booth for a couple weeks. Just got loads of black plastic from bunnings to cover the shelves and workbenches. There was a little bit of dust around even after hosing everything out. I also had orange peel on some parts after the clear coat cured and this was mainly due to inexperience, but luckily I was able to cut and buff it out untill it came up like a mirror.

Heres some more pics and you can see the sort of orange peel effect in some areas before I buffed. I need to take some more cause its almost all back together.

Looks sweet as. But a quick question about your venom bar. Have you found any faults in the bar that will cause air bubbles to develop under the paint work? You unsually come across them after painting and it's exposed to extreme heat (yay to the tropics) and direct sunlight. Just curious since mine developed 2/3 very small ones on the top near the ford badge after 2/3 days in some sun.

Nah didn't have any signs of air bubbles. When it was still green it was parked in the sun everyday in Townsville and never had a problem. I did however have the same tiny airbubbles forming on the rear section of the roof. The factory paint on the roof was so gone that when I was masking the edges for the door jams the paint came off with the tape.

The only problem I've had with the venom bar is that it cracked on both sides below the rear of the indicators where it meets the bottom corner of the guards. Dunno if this was partly started by transport and cracked after driving around but I fixed it before painting this time.

Cheers

Nice looking XR by the way I wish mine was a real one.

That's something I'm just so excited about... the wait for the bar to rear it's ugly head and crack. I just wish it didn't suffer stone chips so easily. At least you will have plenty of touch up paint to fill those in

s**t yeah, looks good, cant wait to see it in person... i dont want to go back to class!! lol

Finally finished the car a couple days ago. Only just managed to get some photos today but the quality is pretty poor cause its with my phone. Paint turned out pretty good but I spent days buffing the orange peel back because of inexperience with the spray gun. Theres a few places that still need some work but overall I'm happy considering it cost under a grand and about 4 weeks.






Also retrimmed all the door trims and dash in cream/tan and black suede (seems to be the thing to do lately) and black console and carpet to match my already black seats covers.

Painters these days are made to spray with orange peel