This is finally it—the step that makes all that other work worthwhile. Many painters get real satisfaction from learning how to lay down a smooth, glossy, wet coat of paint with no orange peel or runs. But, even for a first-time amateur, seeing that glass-smooth gloss appear from the dull, color-sanded paint after a few […]

The paint job outlined in the last chapter is by far the most common, whether in professional bodyshops or in home garages. It’s the type I have done on the majority of my own cars. Now we’re going to take it further, by removing all glass, doors, trunk, interior, probably driveline, maybe even the body […]

In the previous posts, we’ve laid a foundation covering the tools, skills and knowledge you needed to paint your own vehicle in your own garage. By now—or the second time you read this when you’re ready to do the job—you have taken care of any dings, dents, or scrapes in the body; removed all readily […]

This chapter is going to consist of more show than tell. The premise is pretty simple. It’s like the oneday paint job, except that you do it at home, in your garage, with your own equipment. Of course there are a few twists.   This tech tip is from the full book, HOW TO PAINT […]

You’ve got a car or truck that needs painting. But you can’t afford—or don’t want to pay—the two, three, or five thousand dollars it realistically costs to have a local body and paint shop do the work. Or maybe the vehicle in question really isn’t worth a two to five thousand dollar paint job, but […]

Preparation (“prep work,” or just “prep”) is certainly very important to a good, long-lasting paint job, but not necessarily in the same ways it used to be. In the old days stripping the car to bare metal wasn’t nearly as prevalent, and we didn’t have high-fill, catalyzed primers. So carefully hand-sanding the entire surface of […]

You might think it’s impossible to write a book about how to paint cars without talking about paint, but that is essentially what I intend to do. If it weren’t such a cliché (and if it weren’t largely untrue), I would say that the paint itself is one of the least important parts of this […]

Believe it or not, there was a time when using lead as a filler when doing automotive bodywork was considered “quick and cheap.” The proper method, then, was called “metalworking,” and it consisted of hammer-and-dollying the metal straight as much as possible; shrinking or stretching other areas of metal as needed, possibly using heat from […]

Of all the cars I’ve painted, the only ones I’ve had no problems with, either immediately or later, were the ones I stripped to bare metal to begin with. This could be a coincidence. But more likely it has to do with what lay below the surface of the dragged-home derelict vehicles that I didn’t […]