Hi All,

I am thinking about having a go at painting side strips on the ute and have very little experience in spray painting. Ill be using paint from a can as i dont have compressor, spray gun ect. Can i expect a reasonable finish using a spray can? i was also wondering if im best to sand between coates?

I went to bunnings to pick up some plastic primer and the bloke talked me into getting this stuff called ESP(think it stands for easy surface prep) has anyone used this stuff?is it any good?

Cheers
Dan

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I did this and I was a bit disappointed with the results. However my car was 21 years old and suffered from a bit of paint fade.

What colour is your XG? Mine was red and it was hard to match the colour.

I used 'bumper primer' made by Motospray from 3D paints, but any good paint/automotive paint store should sell it or a comparable product.

You can also get pressure packs made up in about 400g cans based on your cars paint code, some places will also try and match paint fade by the fuel door, if you need to, and they are about $25-30.

Those pressure packs have a nozzle that's supposed to deliver comparable performance to that of a proper spray gun, and it usually does, I've used three different types, two of which were very good.

I'd definitely recommend you paint them in warm weather and let them dry naturally, spray as many coats required but make sure thay are very light coats or it won't turn out as nicely. Take particular care in the lightness of the colour coats.

I found tha Motospray acrylic clear coat to spray on in very large droplets which seemed to spoil the look, so I'd recommend you talk to some reputable paint people about that and test it on something other than the final product, it'll take the frustration out of ruining an otherwise perfect job.


Anyways, sorry about the wall of text :p and I hope you get some good results.

Oh, just one more thing, perhaps get some quotes from body work type places, I've been quoted $2000+ to spray the plastic coloured side strips from my EA series Fairlane to just a few hundred, and spending a few hundred may be worth it to you if you want a professional looking finish.

The utes green the paint work seems ok doesnt seem too faded so hopefully thats not an issue. Id keen to give it a crack myself first and if it turns out that badly ill may someone to fix it up im pretty confident i can getting it looking respectable but i guess time will tell.

What about sanding between coats?if so what grit paper to use?

Thanks for your reply lukey1990 much appreciated.

esp should work with plastics, its just an easy way of scuffing the plastic back so the plastic primer will stick properly. could also use grey scotchbrite for the same effect.
theres no sanding between coats needed. 3-4 coats should be fine.
if the paint is metallic u will need top coats of clear put on, again 3-4.
acrylic paint will need to be polished also once dry, to get a shiny surface

yer the shinyness effect is what i need advise on achieving.. whats the best way to polish it?

and do i do it to each coat of paint or just the top coat before i put the clear on?

yer the shinyness effect is what i need advise on achieving.. whats the best way to polish it?

and do i do it to each coat of paint or just the top coat before i put the clear on?

meguirs no2 polish and a soft cotton t-shirt, then wax it.
paint it then give it a day to dry then polish, the paint will be dry enough to polish and wont be as hard as polishing fully cured paint..
no u dont polish between coats either, otherwise the next layer of paint wont stick.

will i have any issues with the clear coat not sticking after polishing or do i do the polish after clear is on?

no, u polish it once all the painting is finished.

Awesome cheers for that elf100capri