ok... so let me get this straight after 4 hours of straight researching from this website.. which gives off a whole lot of info ~thx guys~.. im thinking that i have to:

sand to bare metal with 80 or 40grit followed with whatever makes it smoother, but how smooth does it have to be? will i have to end with 2000?

primer heavy and if all is rough do i wetsand with 1000 followed by 1500 then to 2000?

base coat.....not sure how many layers it has to be...thinkin to where i cannot see the primer is where i will stop...and i know i will have oversprays since this is my 1st time... so ill wetsand 1000 followed by 1500 then to 2000 and buffer out all the scratches..

then clear coat it about 3 layers and sand 1500 to 2000 and buffer again..

so do u guys think this process will work???and im not sure about buffing the base color b4 clear coating it..

please help

-Jay-

K... never go more than 600 grit if you're going to apply another coat of paint, 400 is the standard. If you do you get adhesion problems. You can finish the metal with 80 and then take those scratches out with primer-surfacer. Sand the primer with 400 wet, use a guide coat. Shoot enough base to get even coverage, then one more to make sure, espeically if you don't have excessive light in your booth (or where ever you paint). Topcoat the base with clearcoat within an hour without sanding. If you need to remove defects, sand the base an hour after applying and re-apply more base over the repair, never topcoat base that you've sanded with clear, you can't sand or polish basecoat without putting on more paint.

Hope that helped, hollar if you need more clarity.

hmmm..... so i can't light wetsand my oversprayed basecoat???what if the whole car is oversprayed???and can i still light wetsand and buff it if its a very thick base coat???or do i have to do it right the 1st time???cause a man has painted my mitsubishi eclipse once and never sanded the base coat and left the whole car OVERSPRAYED!!! and went straight to clear coating it.... and so im really worried that when i paint my car it will turn out the same way cause everybody says that u cant sand the base coat...and if u do u gotta base coat over it again.....so i dont know what to do...so im thinkin that the only way to get it right is to paint it perfect and not to overspray?? if that is so ill try my best!

oh yea and what is orange peel???and how do u get it???

if i clear coat my car alot it will make my car look like a wet shine?
how many clear coats will make it get to that shine?

rite now im just doing touch ups to my car for practice... and im guna paint my uncle's civic hatchback.....b4 i paint my car just to be more experienced and on the safe side hehe

but id like to have my 1st paint project very satisfying!

You don't buff basecoat unless it's single stage, never base/clear. You only buff the clear coat. You can minimize overspray by starting your coats near your booth air intake and ending near the exhaust. A little bit of overspray in the base coat isn't a big deal because it gets clear over top. A little bit of overspray in the clear is no big deal because you can color sand and buff it out rather easily. Paint is applied unevenly in lots of tiny drops of paint, when they land and don't flow completely even (which they never really do) then the film dries with a slightly bumpy surface, like an orange peel. There are many causes of it, you can search this board on orange peel and find lots. It's not a problem if you're willing to color sand, that is sand the surface down with 2000 grit sandpaper so the orange peel texture is gone. You want at least 4 coats of clear if you're going to color sand/buff, since you're new I'd recommend 6.

What are all the steps of all the drying times for every coat before i put another one. how long do i have to wait for clear coat to be hardened before i can start buffing it?i think i am going to paint over the winter or fall... so itll prolly be a very long drying time.. and also will painting during the cold weather mess up my color?like will it make it look dull or anything? can i paint over the basecoat then go right away on to clear coating it?or will i have to wait for it to dry?and same thing with primer.

oh yea thanks abberant for all the info u gave me
and im not worried about overspraying the clearcoat

and i would also like to know if i can do primer one week, and the next week basecoat, then the next week clearcoat cause im not really in a hurry.id like to have really good results.. and also cause if i can do a coat one time a week since i am a lil school boy that gots homework everyday...,,but i also have some days free on the weekdays..to work on the car for about 4hours straight

You need your temp near 70 degrees, you just can't paint in unheated winter conditions, I don't think it's possible. Flash times (between recoats) is usually 20 minutes or so, the tech sheet for you paint will tell you exactly. 24 hours is the usual for clear coat to be color sandable. You need to let base flash before you apply clear (30 min). You can apply base right over primer-sealer after flash time has passed, but what you think of as "primer" is probably primer-surfacer, in which case there is no point in topcoating without sanding, it's designed to cure and be sanded before topcoating so you can remove imperfections.

Your best bet is to shoot primer, wet sand over a week or whatever, then probably primer again and wet sand again, spend lots of time cause this is the critical stage. After it's perfect you shoot base/clear in one day, then spend another week (or however long you like to get it right) color sanding and buffing. Don't let the car outside from beginning to end or light and moisture can degrade your primer and ruin your job after you're finished.