Ghetto Car Paint, Better than Maco Options

[celicaboy04]

Hows it going all. Been bored so I thought I would make a post of my progress. Back in December I made the mistake of letting my live-in (<-first mistake! lol) girlfriend take my car to dance practice and she got it into a wreck

A ford ranger smashed into the right fender and destroyed the fender and tore a gaping hole into the doors skin.

I could not afford a body shop to do repairs so I undertook the task myself. I purchased some z3 fenders and a scrap yard door from east coast. I began to look at my paint job and the clear coat was fading, there were scratches all over, and to top it off in Februrary I went to a party and some punk **** kid kicked a dent in the passenger side of the car.

So starting at the end of February, I made a ghetto make shift shop outside my grandmas place (I live in an apt and cant do it here) and began stripping my car apart, sanding, and doing the body work.

I have never done ANY of this before and just PLUNGED head first into it.

I started painting the actual color of my car and heres the result so far:

I still have to color sand and polish it, then clear coat it, then all I have left is the bumpers and sideskirts which wont take nearly as long (maybe a week to do the rest)

Is it the best paint job? No. Am I happy? Yes. Like I said it is the very first attempt Ive ever made at bodywork and I went full out. It is a Jet Black paint from house of kolor, the pictures dont really do it justice its NICE I like it a lot. When I complete the entire car Ill post some pics.

I did this for all the poor college guys out there that cant afford body shops and arent body work pros!

This post has been edited by celicaboy04: Apr 22, 2005 - 1:51 AM

[celicaboy04]

I used a DA to strip it, and the scratches werent deep at all, just from rubbing on metal the sand paper sort of darkened it.

As for the color, it doesnt look black in the pics because of the lighting and I took the pics during the day and the roof is a semi transparent green color :S.

The surface might look weird and uneven to you blakout because there is orange peel in the paint so its not very shiny right now.

Because of it being a makeshift booth, it made the car prone to orange peel and other unwanted matter.

That is why I am polishing it, it gets out orange peel and stuff that settles in the paint after you spray.

So far between cost of tools and material it is about $1500. About $2000 LESS than the CHEAPEST quote from an autobody shop.