[stick]

Well, I wanted to take a stab at some DIY painting to see if I could get the knack for it. I decided to paint a few engine bay related parts first because they won't be heavily scrutinized. I first sandblasted everything down to bare metal. Some of these parts had 1/16th of an inch of white paint on them from the previous owner's ghetto paint job. I then coated the bare metal with POR15. Then when the POR15 was slightly tacky (3 - 5 hours later), I primed the parts with a few thin coats of a Zinc Chromate primer (good adhesion and corrosion resistance properties). And about 8 - 12 hours later, I sprayed the acrylic urethane enamel Vogue Silver Metallic on the parts in several thin coats.

Although the parts came out pretty good, I have come to the conclusion that the engine bay is as far as I want to challenge myself with any kind of automotive painting....especially with a high density metallic flake paint like Vogue Silver Metallic. It is far too difficult for a novice to lay down a consistent metallic pattern, and any slight imperfections are highlighted even more by the distortions it causes in the metallic patterns. For any "A" surface painting (exterior clear coated surfaces), I'm going to leave it to the professionals.

 

[Dodo]

Question, in the pic, are the pieces painted or is that the bare metal?

 

[stick]

They are painted Vogue Silver. They look a little brighter in the picture than they are because of the camera flash.

 

[Dodo]

I would of used some bodyfill, in the deep pits. It would have helped with the look of it. I know that there just engine pieces, and noone is going to see them, but its good practice.

You did good with sand blasting them, but body, then sand, primer, sand some more, and then paint and clear. If you do that, they should look pretty good.

Did you use spray cans or a gun? With the smaller pieces, you could get away with a spray can, but if doing the whole car, use a gun. Using a gun is hard if your just pick it up, it takes practice. Leave a good weekend for a whole car. Not to mention, you need a well ventilated area to paint in. Just adding my know how in this area in. Hope it helps if you need to do more.

 

[rex2nr]

They look pretty good, stic

Its probably not worth making those parts look perfect... you're looking at the front bumper frame mounts, headlight brackets, and battery tray

 

[stick]

Yup... front bumper frame mounts, battery tray, and hood hinges. All parts that hardly anyone's going to look at. I just wanted to try my hand at using my paint gun on some relatively insignificant parts to see if it's feasible to paint the rest of the car myself. Yes, a couple of the parts had some small amount of rust on them, but I didn't figure it was worth filling the pits since they're not "A" surface pieces on the car anyways. I just wanted to make them look presentable and try out my paint gun with the metallic paint. I've painted before with a gun, but never with metallics. Since this is a restoration project (and I've now gauged the extreme difficulty of painting in metallics) I'm going to let a professional paint the "A" surfaces (outside visible surfaces), because I want a premier finish that only years of experience can provide.

 

[CRX_2NV]

thats one sexy color though, I dunno if i should keep with my original plan of RSX blue or switch it to that :S

 

[Masta]

They look really good, I can't wait to get my SE back to that colour.

Was it really that difficult to make it look good? I was thinking of a DIY paintjob, but if it's that tough........

 

[stick]

They look really good, I can't wait to get my SE back to that colour.

Was it really that difficult to make it look good? I was thinking of a DIY paintjob, but if it's that tough........

DIY is not recommended with metallics unless you're a professional autobody painter. I'm not going to attempt to paint any body panels myself. These parts were just a test run to see how comfortable I felt about painting. They may look good in the pictures, but there are a lot of flaws in the evenness and direction of the metallic particles.

 

[Masta]

Good to hear. Since your well ahead of me in your SE resto, I'll be watching your posts carefully for this kind of advice.

Thanks

D.

 

[Ragnaarok]

man it's so hard to get metal flake paint to look great, those autobody painters are true artists.