This is my first post and I have searched the internet quite a bit to find this answer, but what comes up is more of a generic how-to for painting a car, and that's not what I'm looking for.

I'm doing a partial restoration on a BMW e30. I removed the hood and trunk lid and have already sprayed those with a SSU Meteor Gray Metallic and urethane clear coat. This is my first time painting a car and using an HVLP gun so I am learning as I go.

Now I'm getting ready to spray the rest of the car. I'm trying to determine a good plan of attack before spraying so I know all of my motions, what I'm painting first, direction, etc. before I actually start spraying. My question is:

Is it best to make a single pass from one end of the car to the other or paint it panel by panel or in sections? I'm sure the professionals can do long passes without issue, but as a beginner, I think it would be difficult to maintain consistency while walking along the car.

Okay, I'm old and get confused easily. You say this is a "partial restoration" however you are NOW shooting the whole car??? And, we have new guy + metallic/silver/gray, whatever = one of the hardest things to shoot even for an experienced guy..... So here is the rub, metallic is one of those "orientation" kind of color base coats. Walking out a car involves shooting "at" the surface while panel by panel is more like "dropping" the color on the surface, well unless you get those side panels oriented up. You will hear some of us referring to the old "drop coat" with metallic s as well. That involves getting the color on and then doing a separate metallic coat kind of dropped on to the surface, carefully watching how the metallic orients itself.
Confused! Well, I know I was when I came to this forum many moons ago. What helped me was talking to seasoned shooters on here and watching a crap load of pro painters shoot stuff in Videos. The more I saw guys doing it the more confident I was with walking the car out....

DarrelK wrote:Okay, I'm old and get confused easily. You say this is a "partial restoration" however you are NOW shooting the whole car??? And, we have new guy + metallic/silver/gray, whatever = one of the hardest things to shoot even for an experienced guy..... So here is the rub, metallic is one of those "orientation" kind of color base coats. Walking out a car involves shooting "at" the surface while panel by panel is more like "dropping" the color on the surface, well unless you get those side panels oriented up. You will hear some of us referring to the old "drop coat" with metallic s as well. That involves getting the color on and then doing a separate metallic coat kind of dropped on to the surface, carefully watching how the metallic orients itself.
Confused! Well, I know I was when I came to this forum many moons ago. What helped me was talking to seasoned shooters on here and watching a crap load of pro painters shoot stuff in Videos. The more I saw guys doing it the more confident I was with walking the car out....

I'm new to this forum and I'm new to spraying a paint gun, but I'm not new to cars and there isn't something car related that I haven't done (other than paint a car). I said a partial restoration because I didn't strip the car down to a bare frame, have it blasted, and rebuilt from the ground up.

The car is complete (other than the hood and trunk). I removed the trunk and hood and all the gaskets so after it was sprayed, the gaskets would hide any color transition to hopefully mask the slightly two different shades of gray.

I think maybe my question was misinterpreted. When I said spray the car in sections, I am not referring to further disassemble it. What I mean is it better to spray the car from end to end, walking along it, or spray, for example, the rear quarter panel with some overlap to the front door, then spray the front door with some overlap to the front fender, then spray the front fender.

And for my first time spraying and it being a metallic, I am more than happy with my results:

I haven't sprayed metallic but I can help answer your questions based on hours of research.

One of the main rules is to always shoot metallics with the body assembled and never piece by piece. The metallic is going to lay out completely differently from those panels you shot (which look good to me) in comparison to the rest of the car.

If you shoot a panel sitting horizontally on a stand and then shoot a panel sitting vertically on a car, the metallic will lay out different. If you try the method you described in your previous post where you paint the quarter, then overlap and paint the door, and then overlap and paint the fender, I can almost guarantee you'll have a build up of metallics on each of those overlaps that wont look right in the sun. It'll kinda look like you have 3 vertical stripes on each side of the car.

Use the walk along method for the rest of the car to give yourself the best shot at it coming out nice. If you install the trunk and the hood and they don't quite match to your liking, then it's a heck of a lot easier to respray those than it is to respray the rest of the car.

Generally you will shoot the jams, inside of trunk lid, hood, doors complete through the the clear coat. Then assemble the car, get everything aligned and gapped properly before spraying the exterior.

You will need to have a step ladder to reach the center of the roof and hood without tipping the paint gun from being perpendicular to the surface. (This will cause tiger stripes)

I like to do the roof first working one side and then moving to the other, after that the hood starting in the center and working toward the fender. When reaching the fender you will walk the entire length of the car with each pass making sure to catch the underside of the rocker panels and wheel lips. (vehicle elevated on jack stands helps)

Maintaining a steady speed, consistent angle to the surface, distance from panel and overlap is critical. Your first coat will be a learning process as to hard to reach areas and how each step you take effects your spraying.

Personally, I like to use slow activators and reducers when spraying completes.

gilber33 wrote:s it best to make a single pass from one end of the car to the other or paint it panel by panel or in sections? I'm sure the professionals can do long passes without issue, but as a beginner, I think it would be difficult to maintain consistency while walking along the car.

The answer you didn't want: Depends.

I don't 'walk' the side of a car, or even a roof. Reason is that I spray close in and walking introduces variances in the distance from gun to panel that then translate to variances in coverage. I also find that maintaining the wet edge is harder with this method. I do vary the point of overlap from coat to coat, however, so I don't get a heavy build at the overlap. I'm able to remember where the overlaps were, but used to put markings on masking to remind myself.

However, what works for me does not work for everybody.

Go through some practice sessions maybe with your primer, and see what suits you.

I agree with Chris and have had good success NOT walking the the length of the vehicle, however orientation of the parts and consistency in all aspects (mixing, gun settings, distance to the panel, spraying speed, undercoat color and number of coats sprayed, etc.) is critical.
After you have been painting a while, these things are second nature but for a beginner tackling a silver metallic (undoubtedly one of the more difficult) it will take some fore thought, preparation and practice.

The key to walking the side is to take smooth steady steps. Kinda like you are sneaking away from somebody. I am sure there are videos out there somewhere.

Well, it seems like this is the same as is with most things car related - there is no right answer and it's all preference.

I will walk through both scenarios in the garage before I spray the color to see which feels more comfortable. It's a small car, so it's not a long walk to go from the front to back. But I think I would have better control over the gun and the spray doing it in sections.

NFT5 wrote:The answer you didn't want: Depends.

I don't 'walk' the side of a car, or even a roof. Reason is that I spray close in and walking introduces variances in the distance from gun to panel that then translate to variances in coverage. I also find that maintaining the wet edge is harder with this method. I do vary the point of overlap from coat to coat, however, so I don't get a heavy build at the overlap. I'm able to remember where the overlaps were, but used to put markings on masking to remind myself.

However, what works for me does not work for everybody.

Go through some practice sessions maybe with your primer, and see what suits you.

If you don't mind, can you share what your process is? How do you manage the side of the car if you're not walking it from one end to the other?

gilber33 wrote:How do you manage the side of the car if you're not walking it from one end to the other?

Ok, an example of a Holden VE Commodore Ute I did this week. A couple of pictures so that you can see what I'm talking about:





Firstly, as you can see, my booth is end draught, meaning that air comes in through the doors at one end and goes out through a plenum with fan at the other end. This is important because it dictates that I paint in the direction of the air flow so that my overspray is not going over an area that I've already painted.

Also, because air flow is mostly horizontal I prefer to work upwards from the bottom of each panel along the side. If I was painting in a downdraught booth then I'd start at the top, to follow the air flow.

In this case I blended basecoat from the repair areas forwards and down over the rear 2/3 of the door and backwards to about where the rear wheel arch starts.

For clear I covered the whole area, starting at the bottom of the "A" pillar, up over the cant rail and down the "B" pillar to the bottom of the window. Then moved to the bottom of the door, taking each horizontal stroke a little past the back of the door. This allowed me to join in to where I'd come down the "B" pillar while the clear was still wet. From there I moved to the bottom of the tub side and moved upwards, joining in to the still wet clear behind the door and working back to the end.

For the second coat of clear I did the same over the cant rail but the first section on the door, again working bottom to top, finished in front of the door handle, then second section to the start of the rear wheel arch and third section from over the wheel arch to the tail light.

Overlap areas on each coat are 200-300mm and by varying the location of these I can avoid a really heavy build in one area.

It is important to say that every job is a little different. I nearly always spend a minute walking around the car and planning how I'm going to approach spraying base and clear.