In the latest video I give my rusting old van a new lick of paint using the new upcycled air compressor setup. That is to say, I did a complete re-spray – quite the project, that involved learning a lot and making quite a few mistakes. But ultimately, it was successful and we get into many of the details of spray painting in the video, including: setting up a DIY ‘spray booth’, paint prep work, using water based paint and 2k clear coat.

26 Painting Tips

When I was researching this I found lots of conflicting and confusing information, so I made the video I think I would have wanted to watch prior to painting. To that end, there are twenty six (!), tips ordered roughly chronologically. Starting with cleaning and prepping the old bodywork.

The van had a surprising amount of tar and other grime, than needed removing, before we hit the whole thing with the random orbit sander.

I won’t list all the steps here (just watch the video) but here’s a few: Do more than you think you need to when it comes to prep work. I was using water based colour coat, which has advantages and disadvantages, but is very particular about having the painting surface absolutely clean and pristine, being finely abraded and wiped down with plenty of panel wipe solvent (silicone and grease remover).

I was replacing a couple of panels during this job (that had rusted so much there wasn’t enough structure left), and even “new primed and ready to paint” panels need the same de-greasing attention (as I learned!).

How to turn a workshop into the DIY Spray Booth

The location for all this fun was the Flowering Elbow workshop. With both big sliding doors open, it often acts as something of an air tunnel. We added filtration (some old but very clean bed sheets) to the incoming air, to reduce dust, added some fans to encourage airflow, and were set. With water based paints there are only certain weather conditions I could have pulled this off. – not humid, round about 22C and with some wind.

At this point I am grateful we decided to make the workshop as versatile a space as possible. Having made rolling bases for most of the machines, I was able to move the tablesaw, the thicknesser, bandsaw, and large welding/woodworking table out of that bay without too much difficulty. It was time consuming, because it required a lot of tidying up – but possible!

Waterbased car paint flash times

Another thing I learned was that water based paints are nice to use. No where near as smelly, I felt less likely to be killing myself with toxic fumes and I could clean the spray gun with water instead of solvent thinners.

One consideration with water based colour coat though, is the flash times. Whereas the solvent evaporates from standard 2k paint very quickly (ready for over coating in approximately 15 minutes), water takes some time to flash off the water base – I guess it’s more of a dry than a flash… Anyway, one way to test if it is dry enough for the next round of tack clothing and painting is to use a digital thermometer (which is also useful for checking the paint and panels are within proper painting temperature range). I found there was a 2-3 degree C difference between the dry paint (ready to tack cloth) and the patches that weren’t dry.

Spraying 2K Clear Coat

“2k” just stands for 2 component, as far as I can tell – I don’t know why 2k and not 2c? Similar to epoxies there is a paint and an “activator”, and if mixed in the correct proportions, they are almost guaranteed to cure, regardless of the weather conditions. I wanted to use this to cover the colour coat, because 2k lacquer is about the most durable uv resistant coating you can get.

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I did three whole coats of clear, thinking that I would probably want to polish it back somewhat with compound to flatten the surface and remove any orange peel. In the end I was happy enough with the result that I didn’t bother and left it as sprayed.

Taking off the masking was a really exciting time, as the car/van started to look more like a pimped up version of itself. The old plastics and door handles look a bit worn next to the super shinny paintwork – but thats kinda fun.

There are a LOT more details in the video so if you’re interested do watch! If you’re curious about the price of some of the paint materials, spray gun, etc. I have listed all these in the video’s description.

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Posted: 01|3|19 at 5:19 pm. Categorically squeezed into: How To.
Tags: Car painting tutorial, DIY Spray Booth, DIY Spray painting, respray, step by step, tips, waterbased car paint
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