Few questions about prep before color change! *NEWBIEE*

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:49 pm
What's going on fellas, so I've had this itch for trying to do my own paint and body work for a while now, and finally got a car worth of doing so. So here is a few questions and concerns I have, hope some of you guys can help me out!

I've been doing some reading and scouting on this page and others about prep work,

#1 I've read mixed reviews on what to do in this situation, some say to sand to bare metal, others to just use a scuff pad until dull look, then prime.

#2 I have some paint cracking on the hood, and a few dents here and there, what do I do to prep these for body filler? And what steps after the filler?

#3 clear is peeling in roof, hatch and hood, do I scuff/sand these spots the same as I do to the rest of the body, where clear and paint seems good?

#4 is primer required on the whole car for color change? Or what steps should be taken? Going from a red to a blue.

#5 what should I use to sand? Sander? Block? All the steps or a link to steps to take on a color change would be great. (I've searched but couldn't find much to help on my situation)

#6 Can I use a same primer for the whole car and body? Bumpers are urethane.

I feel as I'm missing a couple things here and there, I'll ask as time goes by, but for now these are what comes to mind, hope to hear from you guys and read responses as I am anxious to start on this project. Btw the vehicle is a 90 nissan 300zx

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 7:39 am
welcome. A lot of what you are asking is found in the stickies at the top of the topics list in this forum, so check those out ("prep for paint" and "guide coat" for example) -- then let us know if you still have some questions. I'll touch on a couple of things:

Do you have a large enough air compressor to run a d/a sander? Generally, any area of the car where the clear is failing or the paint is cracking should really be taken down to metal. The rest of the car if the clear coat is in good shape, you can just sand it with 320 grit on the d/a and feather into the stripped areas.

Prep for body filler is always to take it down to metal.

Shoot a couple of good coats of high build primer (yes, same primer over the whole car) then block it with the longest sanding block you can use on the particular panel you are working -- use guide coat to show you how the panels are leveling out. Re-shoot primer and block sand again, as needed, until the panels are ready for paint.

Two products that I sell in the online store here and personally use: Tamco 2K primer, and Dura-Block sanding blocks. Both (figuratively) fly off the shelves here.



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PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:03 pm
Thank you for the response!

Okay, so I took a look at the prep for paint sticky, would filler be necessary if I use the epoxy primer, followed by the other primer? Or how would that work?

Hope I don't get annoying here, just want to scout as much info and advise that I can to prepare for this.

I wanna thank you guys in advance for any help I get now, and in the future from here! Seems like a amazing forum with tons of experienced peeps here!

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 10:40 am
Body filler is only needed when you have minor dents to repair - it has nothing to do with using or not using epoxy primer. You can certainly use epoxy primer on bare metal, but most epoxies do not sand or block that well and you'd need to use a 2K primer on top of it, to give you the build you need to sand/block the panels flat.

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