Anyone have any suggestion on prep? Not looking for perfection, just looking to do a 100' decent, simple job with rattle can. Thanks in advance!
I've been down this road a million times. Sand it and paint. It aint worth too much time. For me, the prettier I make it, the worser the stuff that happens to it!
Sand just enough to rough it up? Or sand ALL of the old paint off? And thanks for any input from experience.
I would do that, can be done quick, then primer with spray paint, fill any imperfections with bondo, then paint it up. There are a bunch of good painters on the board for reasonable prices, esp if they are close and you don't have to ship them.
Yep. Just enough to get the new paint to stick. My shit looks like an Everlasting Gobstopper when I sand it.
Just make sure you clean them really well first...start with dawn dishsoap and water, and then follow up with a solvent cleaner/de-greaser. If you start sanding before a thorough cleaning, you will actually just be grinding grease and oil into the plastics which will never clean out, and your paint will fisheye, wrinkle, or just not adhere well in those areas... Then wet-sand with 400 grit, just a smooth even rough-up, but more than just "scuffing". Chase the edges and bolt-holes with red scothbrite. As long as you do a nice even sanding job (wet will help that), 400 grit is the perfect number to ensure good adhesion and smooth finish. Proper 400 grit scratches shouldn't show at all with a coat of primer and basecoat on top. Most spraypaints even hide 400 grit (except for really fine metalics, in which case use a 600 grit). Then wipe down with a plastic paint prep solvent, and you are ready to begin the painting process...either spray paint and done, or begin a proper urethane paint process...:up: Best of luck...
I used to paint for a living. One of the base rules are if the surface already has good paint on it, then that paint becomes the primer for the next coat or color. No need to remove existing paint. If the existing paint is not compatible with the collor to follow (test the color you're intending to use to make sure it will not cause a chemical reaction), then shooting over the old surface with a compatible primer will be necessary after sanding the old paint. If compatible, then you can probably go straight to the new color after surface prep. The only other issue is the ability of the new paint to cover the old color. If the paint is too thin to cover the old color, then either more coats of paint will be required or primer will be necessary. Remember to decontaminate the surface before painting. Prepsol solvent will work very well after sanding to remove residual grease and fingerprints which cause a contamination called fish eye. Make sure you clean the sanded surcafe before you paint.
Thanks for the all the feedback guys - GREATLY appreciated. Now if I want to redo the gas tank, is that the same/similar process? or different because it is metal?
same thing Matt. If the tank is in good shape I would probably just wet sand with 320 then spray. :up:
