So, I've been in the process of re-painting my truck by hand using the rustoleum method. So far I have 4 coats on the tailgate (pics taken after 3 coats) and I'm doing body work on the doors, fenders & rear fenders.

To me this is a learning experience, I can see some of my body work showing thru on the tailgate and a small dent or 2 I missed. Basicly I'm just going to do my best and not stress too much as I'll be pleased even if it's not perfect. So far I have had a bit of an orange peel problem on the tailgate and hopefully get it as minimal as possible before the next 2 coats. Then I'll be finishing up the gas flap and moving to the Hood.





I have also painted the tailgate hinges with a satin black & The front plate that goes just below the air dam. I noticed most of you guys take this one off, which I may do. Depends how it looks.



I'm thinking about doing some rear fender stripes like 318's but unsure of the color scheme ( keep changing my mind) I'm thinking red and maybe throw a red/black/chrome combo on the grill. I actually need to buy a new driver side headlight bezel because the orange lens fell off. I'm still meaning to get down to the junk yard and hopefully find some of the the parts I need there.

 

Sweet! Looks good!

 

thanx!

 

Looks good man! my advice after working with rattlecans is to BURY THAT THING IN CLEAR! LOTS N LOTS OF CLEAR!

And I dont think most of us take the trim off the front.... we have probably all accidently ripped it off at one time! Dosent take a very hard snow drift to bust that thing to peices.

 

Hes not using cans if hes doing the method correctly. Hes rolling on actual paint.

 

Am I being retarded? I don't see any pics.

 

Ya there are pics! Maybe yours didn't fully load the page?

 

Ok, so I wetsanded down the orange peel to almost none, spend a considerable amount of time on it and I just got done with the 5th coat and all I can say is WOW. It really looks good and yes there are still imperfections, which I'll go over and minimize as much as possible.

Basicly if anyone else does this on a vehicle I recommend that you primer over any bare metal. The paint just doesn't have the same adhesion where there is no paint/primer.... I don't care what anyone says... So, when wetsanding I was often hitting metal on little spots. There are a few places where when I wet sanded it went through to the factory paint aswell and I just hope that I can cover those spots. I'm going to try and get it done with 7 coats... that's my realistic goal.

The paint does self level pretty good if you have it thin enough and roll it on quick and don't go over it again or touch it in any way, if you go over it again it seems to cause visible lines and it doesn't self level as well which is IMO a mojor contributor to the orange peel you'll get.

This was pretty much my test panel to get a feel for this and if any problems occur later on such as peeling or whatever I'm just going to redo it since it's easy to just take off the tailgate.

I'm hoping and trying to get this to be a GOOD paintjob, but if it's not perfect, then I'm not gonna cry about it... Regardless of imperfections it's going to be alot better than the terribly damaged (and ugly) factory paint.

I'm gonna try and make it look cool by adding red as an accent to the black

 

Yeah, you should always use self etching primer on bare metal. Filler-primer works too, but self-etching will give you more adhesion.

 

I have been using rustoleum automotive primer over my body filler... It works but I don't exactly have great things to say about it, but now I will be primering bare metal aswell, The rusto mothod supposedly goes over metal but I disagree.