yes i know this is a lot more then just a touch up. but what the hell....
really what makes a good paint job isn't so much the accrual painting, is the preparation work, and the finish work.
i would say its a little more then renting a gun and compressor to get a decent paint job, cheap and dirty nice paint job....
0. don't do this under a tree or next to a dirt road, a garage can be easily made into a temporary paint booth.
1. take off all of your trim, take off items like badges you don't want painted, grills etc, tape off hard to remove items, like attenas or riveted in Vin plates, double and triple tape items that you don't want the sander to hit.
2. Use a duel action sander with 180grid sand paper, the dust from the clear coat comes off white. if the car is any other color then white the dust will change color when you hit the base coat. sand till you just barley hit that color on the whole car.
sand the trim with 200grit to get it smooth and clean, if you choose to repaint it.
3. with the doors open tape off the opening into the car so the door jam can be painted with the car but your not painting the interior. do the same for the engine bay. and trunk
4. clean, use a water based wax and grease remover and non lent paper towels, wile wearing gloves, and wipe the whole car down, this will use many paper towels then wipe the whole car down with a tack rag, you ll be amazed how much the tack rag will find after the wax and grease cleaning.
5. (optional) now your finally ready to paint, spray on a matching primer, light car, like yellow, white, pink, light blue, use a white primer, medium color, gray, reds, light green, use a gray primer, black, dark green, dark grays, dark reds, use a black primer
if you primed the car you should wet sand the car with 200grit start out by spraying a very very very light coat of an alternate color, this is called a guide coat the idea is just sand enough to get the guide coat back off, use medium strokes in one direction then across those strokes in a different direction, do not randomly sand around. the idea is to make the surface smooth.
6 spray color, be smooth with the gun don't stop moving also don't think you need full coverage the first coat, to little is OK too much is bad but you would be amazed what mistakes that will hide once cleared. wait an hour and put on a 2nd coat, a 3rd is fine too if needed, again just wait an hour.
that trim you took off, now is the time to paint it too, you can hang the trim or have it sitting on something, its up to you.
7. spray clear, this is basically the same as the color, not too much, you can put as many coats on as you like. any pearls you want to add, add them in the 2nd clear coat, if you have more then 3 coats of clear then any middle coat for Pearl, but at least never the first and never the last. you can have as many coats as clear as you like. Ive seen show cars with 7-8 coats of clear.
8. wet sand. fun, start out with 800grit, wet sand the whole car, this sucks because your seemingly nice new shiny car is now dull a gain arg..
now wet sand the whole car with 1000grit, then 1500grit, your wet sanding should be done with the paper around a soft sanding block and the strokes should be smooth even and very light, your not trying to take Even one coat of clear of, just the very minute high spots.
9 Buff, now buff the whole car with progressively finner buffing paste and then into the polishing pastes.
10 reinstall your trim and emblems
now the surface should be super duper smooth like a mirror, you should be able to brush your teeth and do your hair in front of you car, and it only took you a week.
