My car has like three coats of paint on it, and then a coat of primer. Should i take it down to bare metal and prime it again? Do you do the block sanding after like two coats of primer? Im gonna buy a book on all of this eventually.
What kind of primer would you put on bare metal?
how does this look to take the paint off?

http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/p...iProductID=752

 

I would go to bare metal. Once you get to bare metal make sure you cover the bare metal with some sort of metal prep otherwise your freshly prepped surface will get rusty in about 24 hours.

I think you'll get better results with a final paint job going down to bare metal. Once you're ready to prime go with an etching ptimer. I like the one dupont makes. Spend a few bucks on the primer it'll be worht it in the long run.

Phil

 

Adding on to what Pak133 said, it'd be best to go down to bare metal. to many layers of paint and primer will really shorten the life span of your newer paintjob if you just paint over.

Youll want to go to bare metal and basically prep the car from the beginning stage. Also make sure that anything that gets stripped, also gets covered in etch primer. Bare metal will rust even if not touched by water, the moisture in the area alone, or the oil on your hands will rust bare metal. Make sure to buy a gallon of wax degreaser and remover so that once you get down to baremetal you clean off all the wax and grease and finger prints from your metal before you prime.

The stripper i wouldn't recommend. It works alright for pieces that you can't particulary sand well, such as tight corners, curved areas or aluminum pieces, but for the overall job, for 3-4 layers of paint. I recommend roughing the entire body down with 40grit, then stripping with 80grit. The 80 will make small groves in your metal but primer will fill them and it'll block out, not a big deal. The stripper gets very messy and is hazardous. Ive gotten constant burns on my hands for days after just using it once (and with "proper" protection gloves). Old fashioned sanding is the way to go...unless someone else on here thinks otherwise, I think that sanding is the best thing to do in my opinoin.

Literature helps, and so do questions. Come here often and ask away, we'll try to help as much as we can. Good luck .

 

Im gonna get a paint and body book. I was just wondering.

 

Oh yeah can I use an electric sander on the body?

 

I would not recommend going to bare metal. I have painted 5 cars in the past. The reason why you don't want to go to bare metal, is that the paint on the car has been protecting it for some where in the neighborhood of 30 years. Are you going to be able to get a good enough primer on it to protect it that long and that well. Also if you block sand it, then you will not have hand marks and other inconsistensies. If you take it to the bare metal, you will have to prime it, then block sand it down so that you will have a flat smooth surface, prime again and sand agian. If you look down the side of a car that was taken to bare metal and not brought back up as I described you will see almost ripples in the paint. The only places to take it to bare metal are the rust spots and damage. Use bondo only on bare metal, and scratch filler only on primer. Good Luck!

 

I partially agree to this, and i would follow this method myself...ONLY if i knew the history of the car. Yes you can go to bare metal on only the rusted areas and repair those parts, but what about the areas that the rust hasn't shown up at yet? If you just paint over, rust could come through in several months somewhere new. If you treat it all the way to bare metal everywhere, you get down to every problem and fix it. Yes it's more work but it pays off in the long run.

Now if i had a car that i knew the history of, where its been damaged, rusting etc then i would approach it using your method becuase then you would know what needs to be fixed and what could be left alone.

 

Well it has been primed and just needs to be sanded. I was wondering since there is already 3 paint jobs under the primer it wouldnt be too good to just keep adding. Maybe ill just sand the primer and one coat and then reprime it with a better primer.

 

Here's what you do. Take all the chrome and accessories off the car, sand the primer and paint down to the metal with 180 grit, it might take longer than using 80 grit, but it will make a much much better surface for priming.

Now, once youre down to metal, prime. The way I would do this is sand and prime one quarter panel at a time, you dont want to sand the whole car and prime it, youll have rust in no time.

Once you have primer on there, spray a light guidecoat on there (ask if you dont know what this means), and then wetsand it with 600 grit until the guide coat is gone. Now, make sure everything is perfect, degrease and clean the glassy primer and then put a sealer coat on it. After the sealer coat, put your first coat of paint on. Next put a wetter coat on, and then after that If you feel like spending the extra money put a final coat. Now do the clear. 3 coats of clear is plenty.

Now colorsand and buff.

Im not the expert on painting a car, but this is the way I learned from a pro who's done it for 30 years.

 

For a normal car i would agree with you on the 180nualln, but remember hes got nearly 4-5 coats to dig through. It'll take him 3 years to sand one quarter panel with 180 grit. I would use a 180 grit in one spot for several minutes just to get used to the layers and how many there are. look at the colors and youll be able to know by the colors of the primers and paint whether or not youre close to bare metal. Now, use 40grit on a part at a time, quarter panel, fender, hood, etc until you sand it down to a color close to the bottom one or two colors, then stop sanding that area and switch over to 180. That way you'll still get down to bare metal without scratching it and you'll also save yourself several generations of sanding.