Painting a car - how long does the actual painting

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gt244, Apr 21, 12:17am
take!

Assume that the car is all ready to go (prepped, masked etc). How long would it take for the colour and clear coat to be applied!

Oh, and how much time between coats usually!

Thanks :)
rob_man, Apr 21, 12:22am
Depends on a lot of factors, no two colours behave the same and some cars are a lot bigger than others.
Anything from one hour to four hours would cover most situations.
gt244, Apr 21, 12:24am
Cheers for your reply.

It's a metallic silver, 2 door coupe so smaller car.
attitudedesignz, Apr 21, 12:25am
Yep, have done many that've taken longer than 4 hours as well.

Also depends what kind of finish you want.
gt244, Apr 21, 12:27am
Not after show car finish, would be nice if it was tidy though lol no major marks etc
attitudedesignz, Apr 21, 12:28am
The bigest question is, have you painted before!
Assuming you're doing the painting, cos if you haven't then i would not be doing silver as a first job.
attitudedesignz, Apr 21, 12:29am
Also, what brand is the silver! Some silvers "lay down" nicely but others are an absolute b***h.

LOL 20 questions time.
gt244, Apr 21, 12:40am
Sorry, I should have clarified. I don't rate my painting experience (nil) so I would do the prep and most of the masking, and I would get someone else to do the actual painting.

I am confident in my prepping abilities (bit of a perfectionist) but don't want to spend all that time on prep to ruin my efforts with a crappy paint application.
attitudedesignz, Apr 21, 12:50am
Fair enough mate.

The only issue there is most (99.99%) painters will want to do the prep' themselves, that way they KNOW it's ready for paint.

That's not a poke at your abilities, it's just how us painters work.
gunhand, Apr 21, 5:51am
I agree with this completly. However a wise painter would quickly write up a disclaimer against ripples, dents, rust, reactions, sinkback, later flaking and anything else he cannot control or know about before he starts. Get both parties to sign and when you start moaning a week later because theres all manner of non painter related issues you can be told to "go away'
As for the time to paint a car. As above an hour to half a day. For me something like a XB Falconfull respray would take an afternoon start to finish includeing final wipe with wax& grease till cleaning the gun. If it was a stright colour i:e 2k well maybe 2 hours tops.Depends on hardners you use, Extra fast allows you to just keep walking the car till your done but slow you have to wait a good while between coats. Useing slower hardner gets a better finish and less polishing but can allow more shit to get in the paint if your in a poor enviroment.And assuming everthing goes to plan A.Some days it all goes well and some its just like "I shouldnt have got out of bed this morning" kind of thing. The painting tends to be the shortist time you spend on a car. It can take longer to mask sometimess than paint.
stevo2, Apr 21, 6:35am
Once sanded, masked and prepsoled, how did you intend to get it to the spray booth! or are you going to do all that at his workshop!
trogedon, Apr 21, 6:57am
It??
rob_man, Apr 21, 7:01am
"take off everything"
The mind boggles, did that get the price down!
bitsy_boffin, Apr 21, 7:29am
At which point they do, to tell all their friends what a terrible job the painter did.

All the agreements in the world won't stop bad word of mouth.
grangies, Apr 21, 7:39am
I dont even like other painters prepping my job to spray. lol.

Apprentices are ok, because you can guide them through it, show them what you feel is not right.

But when it comes to tradesmen doing it, it can cause tension.
gunhand, Apr 21, 7:47am
Thats the same with everything though, theres always two sides to every story. But if you have a good rep a few bad words from the uneducated wont hurt, loosers and liers hang with loosers and liers so thats the kind of business you dont want anyway. We have a business in this town that has been going for many many years yet the horrer stories keep coming. and ive found the "know alls" to be the biggest pains and tend to know squat in the real world of what we do. Just cause they sprayed a pushbike with a spraycan a painter they do not make. Theres a guy down here who thinks he knows it all just cause he owns a Mustang for gods sake. and the types who whinge about everything do everywhere else as well and are quite well known.
the_don_61, Apr 21, 7:48am
1 colour and clear laquer about 3 hours, gun up to gun down.
faster for that new stuff.
gunhand, Apr 21, 7:49am
Yea something about another painter doin ya prep lol, It would become a blame game if something goes wrong a.But I trust the other painter I work with.
the_don_61, Apr 21, 8:19am
A bad painter blames something.A good paintersee's the fry and ajusts the paint air mix flow and air pressure.
the_don_61, Apr 21, 8:21am
anyway if car came ready for spraying masked up ready to go.
1st thing I'd do is prepsol it.
gammelvind, Apr 21, 8:43am
Saw a doozy last week, custy preped the car delivered it to the painter already primed, "just base and clear it!" The painter (he was one from the cheaper side of the tracks) did exactly that, just prepsoling and tidying up some of the masking. I happened to be therewhen the custy arrived, what a bloody performance, moaning about the paint must have been watered down as it didn't fill the sanding scratches, the shut lines didn't look right WTF, and why were there the odd fry up on the lower doors! Turned out he had run out of the correct primer so he used some that looked the same from his shed. This reacted with the basecoat and obviously was the painters fault.
Fewer and fewer painters that I deal with will touch a customer preped car.
grangies, Apr 21, 8:48am
How can air flow fix a fry!

A fry is a paint reaction.
gunhand, Apr 21, 8:55am
It is, but if ya clever and either think or know it will happen you can dry spray a few coats and it SOMETIMES seals it. However 9 times out 10 a problem will develop later anyway.And same goes for a mild fry up, leave it to dry off and dry spray it and you may get away with it, briefly.
But ya dont have to adjust airflow as such just stand back abit and dont pull the trigger as hard.
gunhand, Apr 21, 9:00am
Yep, and doin full resprays without stripping to bare metal is geting rare now to especially on old cars, a mine field of problems occur if you dont strip.
grangies, Apr 21, 9:06am
Yeah.

If it is a dark colour, on a not so great vehicle, I dry spray it with heat on in the booth.

But a light sparkly metallic, any fry up freaks me out and even with a dry spray is never good enough, unless the car is a total shitebox.

On a nasty fry, I usually bite the bullet and mix a tiny amount of thin 2k primer and wet on wet it. ( unless it in the middle of a door etc )

Just a quick dusting of the 2k primer seems to seal it.