Alright im tired of my blazer's paint. It was fine when i got it, very pretty dark blue blazer right? Wrong the original is fire engine red(not bad, i like red) So the paint starts to chip around the edges, looks like they didnt take off the weather stripping when they did this so now i'm paying for someone else's mistake.

Now i'm no noobie when it comes to painting, i've done some nice work with plastic and steel when it came to computer cases. This is different, my computer cases dont go 90 mph, dont hit bugs, and dont touch water bird **** and what not.

I understand the need to completely go to metal by sanding, bondoing(figure of speech) the nicks, primer


but then comes the painting, what type of paint is best under the poorman's list? How to apply the paint? And how do you protect this paint from the elements, will the normal wax routine work or do i need to put a **** load of clear coat on it next.


I read jharper's post thats all i can find on this. Unlike him i am DIYer that has time on his hands. FYI im going with the factory red.


max im looking at spending is 200

 

dont be mad when i tell you this but 200 will get you nowhere, not even a decent gun

 

I'd have to agree.

I did this back in high school with my dad over the course of a 2 weekends, one for the yellow, one for the black stripes. It used to be white!

The whole idea was save $$.....but the catch is that we already had the heavy duty air compressor with 40 gal tank. We picked up 2 paint sprayers (the basic can under sprayer, not the gravity feed) at Harbor Freight, then bought the paint from a local shop that supplies most of the body shops around us.

Bought fleet yellow paint, which was acrylic enamel or something else tough sounding , and the 1 gallon paint, together with the required amounts of reducer and the hardener (hardener is the 3rd part right? it's been a few years) cost <200 for the yellow, but the black was about 100 bucks itself.

Then on top of that, we used power drills with metal stripping pads, and ended up killing one drill (+$90), lots of sand paper and stripping pads, then 1 gallon of bondo and some rust dr. to fix the spots ($30ish), about 6 cans of Krylon spray primer, and 5000000 rolls of masking tape to count to prep it for spray.

There were quite a few other problems we had that made it more tricky, but all in all it ended up costing about $500 and a whollleeee lotta time, but like I said, it was summer
And just look at finish! No clear



It's worth looking into, but if you don't have the compressor already, or a local shop that can supply you with paint, you're looking at a whole lot more than $200 [&o]
Also Maaco or one of the cheaper places I believe charge about 500 for their lowest level (one spray, no prep) of paint. My 500 got me door jambs, engine bay, multiple coats +sanding, 2nd color, and a finish

 

i have access to a compressor. No spray guns, I could get some thought.

How do you maintain it wolfpack. So my guess is it being acrylic enamel it was pretty glossy by itself, did you put anything ontop of it. And how to maintain and protect it.

 

Acrylic enamel was THE car paint through the 60's into the early 80's until the two stage (base coat/clear coat) paints took over. It is durable and will have a nice shine when it's taken care of.

I'm stretching my knowledge limit here, but if I'm not mistaken you shouldn't take it downto bare metal except for rust spots and dings you need to repair. The primers and paints that the factories use are very durable and are applied using an electrolysis process that really binds it to the metal. You'll have less chance of rust bubbles or poor adhesion (plus it's a lot less sanding!). Just get yourself through the blue paint and have a good scuffing on the original paint and you should be fine. (Attention all painters witha lot more experience than me...this is where you pipe in and make sure I'm not misleading Curse!!!!)

 

lol well bad thing is, there is rust on the bottom, very little but its noticable.

 

you can go the single stage way if you want (as mentioned). It will look good for awhile, but dulls out over time, and there are only so many times you can buff it back up before you go thru to metal.

Still though, your going to have more than 200 just in supplies with sand paper, tape ect. And gary makes a very good point, you do not have to take it down to bare metal, just feather out your chips on the hood, ect. i would hit it with some 320 all the way around, body work it and scuff the rust with a pad the rust you mention should be fixed Paint will not fix it, it will be back.

if you have anymore ?'s let me know

 

i can go over 200 i was just guestimating, at max 500. I just want to take the blue off and paint it red. Lets go ahead and say 500 for the budget i keept forgeting im getting another check from the government.

Do you want pictures? I can work on some, i can show you the chipping and the rust.

 

yeah get the pics. There is no need to sand all the blue off when your just going to cover it with red. just scuff the blue up so the red will stick, save yourself a lot of time.

 

I can't say much for maintaining the finish...the pontiac developed a nasty exhaust leak about a year after painting, which eventually caused every sensor to die....and so we towed it to the junk yard and bought my blazer

For that year though, just the fall/spring wax kept it mirror-y-ish. And come to think of it, we didn't go down to bare metal on all the panels..But there was a substantial amount of rust at pretty much every seam/corner...so there was alot of metal we got to.

If I recall though, clear coat is VERY expensive, so you might want to stick with enamel, and maybe just one light coat of clear to give some buffing longevity?