Painted my SC430 hood-pics
02-10-08, 04:18 PM
#1
Painted my SC430 hood-pics
Had a mishap with a 50 mph rock that shot my direction from under another's cars tire. Needless to say even with a clear bra this stone left a good sized dent on my nose so it was time for a repair once insurance paid up which they did though it took Liberty Mutual 3 weeks to even look at the car.
Unless you have experience or a Datsun 510 to practice with I do not recommend painting your Lexus if your a newbie.
Every painter has different techniques and formulas for what works for them. This is mine.
Also keep in mind that paint is toxic so ensure that proper ventilation and protection is used. One more item to keep in mind are the contaminants such as dust, lint, hair and most of all bugs which are attracted to new paint , so I recommend painting indoors. Myself, as it was just one panel, I made a makeshift paint booth on one side of my garage after a thorough cleaning. If I were to paint the entire car I would have rented a booth.
After dealing with hundreds of shops both professionally and personally I have developed a lack of trust in others with my own cars. It does take up a bit of time to do things properly with much of it the prep and post paint detailing. The painting portion including the clear coat only takes a tad more than a couple of hours.
There were a couple of important decisions I had to make up front:
1) Remove hood or not. Painting the hood on a bench would save me time from masking off the car but then this turns into a 2 person project and there are always some risk with installing a hood. After reviewing the hood and angles required to get the entire hood and edges I opted to keep it on the car as I can easily protect the rest of the car and spray the hood completely.
2) Fenders or not? As perfect color matching is often very difficult my option was to either spray the entire hood and blend in the fenders or just blend the repaired area into the rest of the hood. As my fenders are perfect and the rest of the hood looked good with exception to the front nose area I opted to blend within the same panel. Blending can either be easy or difficult, in this instance it was very easy.
For newbies, blending is used so that the new paint blends into the color of the existing paint and no color difference is noticed. This is very important and must be done correctly otherwise the panels will not match.
For this I sanded the front nose area and popped out the dent the best I could (dentless repair would not work , I tried). Once the minor existing paint chips and dent were repaired I primered and sealed the panel.
Once completed a thorough wash (one of a few dozen washes during this process) and grease/wax remover was used on the rest of the hood. I had also wet sanded the entire hood prior to all of this to ensure a flat surface for the new clear.
To blend a hood properly one does not primer the entire hood as the goal is to blend the repaired area into the existing paint on the hood. Once complete, then clear coat the entire panel (hood).
To paint the hood and then blend I eye matched the paint the best I could to the existing paint. Sprayed the front nose repair area only fanning it out up top on each run of the gun. Once completed, I reduced the paint and then painted over the area again taking the paint up further on the hood. Reducing paint is akin to making it more transparent so that the existing paint comes through. I reduced again and resprayed taking it up further up the hood until I felt the paint was blended well into the existing color.
3 coats of base did the trick with subsequent reduced coats and once the base flashed completely I hit the entire hood with 4 coats of clear. Again everyone has a different technique. I prefer to the use the first coat of clear as a light sticky coat and then get slower and thicker on the remaining coats. They say ,”if it don’t run you did not put enough on there.” Not sure of that but I did get a couple of very small runs on the corners which is good in my book as I know I am putting enough clear on there. Runs are fairly easy to get out.
Keep in mind that some shops would not even clear the entire hood and instead just clear over the repaired area which is against every conceivable common sense factoid in painting.
Once dried overnight I then then wet sanded the clear with a soft block and rotary buffer while the clear is still soft. I am not one to let clear dry for a week and then wet sand as the clear is harder at that time.
I am not trying to get 100% of the orange peel off with wet sanding as this is taken care of in the buffing process with a orbital buffer.
So far I am very pleased. The blend went extremely well and the surface is flatter than factory though I plan on taking it down a bit more. I pretty much stuck with Meguiars products such as Solo and cutting compound along with their glaze. They claim that with Solo the glaze is not required but I am picky about some things. I will most likely try System One instead of Solo next time as I have read/heard good things about that product.
Pads used were blue/yellow foam and wool.
I did not include every step in this so don’t use it as a guide to paint your own panel as again there are many steps involved such as proper masking of the underside of the hood and rest of the car,etc…
Some pictures which are not inclusive of every step.
After painting-dry time
Color sanding with a soft block, 2000 and then to 2500
You can see some orange peel on this section. The haze really brings it out. This will need to go away to get the result i am looking for.
Much better. No orange peel evident here.
Just about there, I would rate this stage as better than factory. Just a little more to go plus a good detailing to get the goop out from everything.
I also painted the grill which fell victim to the many trucks on the road. It still needs to be cleaned up as seen in the pic. Waiting for the new emblem to arrive. No wax has been applied yet in this picture. Absolutely no overspray to be found anywhere. I also installed the front chrome bar and windshield washers.
Care is to be taken when sanding/buffing on the edges/corners as the clear is thinnest there. I go over these areas with my hand only or with the soft block.
Some of the chemicals used minus the primer pictured as I used another brand.
I do not pretend to be a professional painter but my results speak for them self.
Unless you have experience or a Datsun 510 to practice with I do not recommend painting your Lexus if your a newbie.
Every painter has different techniques and formulas for what works for them. This is mine.
Also keep in mind that paint is toxic so ensure that proper ventilation and protection is used. One more item to keep in mind are the contaminants such as dust, lint, hair and most of all bugs which are attracted to new paint , so I recommend painting indoors. Myself, as it was just one panel, I made a makeshift paint booth on one side of my garage after a thorough cleaning. If I were to paint the entire car I would have rented a booth.
After dealing with hundreds of shops both professionally and personally I have developed a lack of trust in others with my own cars. It does take up a bit of time to do things properly with much of it the prep and post paint detailing. The painting portion including the clear coat only takes a tad more than a couple of hours.
There were a couple of important decisions I had to make up front:
1) Remove hood or not. Painting the hood on a bench would save me time from masking off the car but then this turns into a 2 person project and there are always some risk with installing a hood. After reviewing the hood and angles required to get the entire hood and edges I opted to keep it on the car as I can easily protect the rest of the car and spray the hood completely.
2) Fenders or not? As perfect color matching is often very difficult my option was to either spray the entire hood and blend in the fenders or just blend the repaired area into the rest of the hood. As my fenders are perfect and the rest of the hood looked good with exception to the front nose area I opted to blend within the same panel. Blending can either be easy or difficult, in this instance it was very easy.
For newbies, blending is used so that the new paint blends into the color of the existing paint and no color difference is noticed. This is very important and must be done correctly otherwise the panels will not match.
For this I sanded the front nose area and popped out the dent the best I could (dentless repair would not work , I tried). Once the minor existing paint chips and dent were repaired I primered and sealed the panel.
Once completed a thorough wash (one of a few dozen washes during this process) and grease/wax remover was used on the rest of the hood. I had also wet sanded the entire hood prior to all of this to ensure a flat surface for the new clear.
To blend a hood properly one does not primer the entire hood as the goal is to blend the repaired area into the existing paint on the hood. Once complete, then clear coat the entire panel (hood).
To paint the hood and then blend I eye matched the paint the best I could to the existing paint. Sprayed the front nose repair area only fanning it out up top on each run of the gun. Once completed, I reduced the paint and then painted over the area again taking the paint up further on the hood. Reducing paint is akin to making it more transparent so that the existing paint comes through. I reduced again and resprayed taking it up further up the hood until I felt the paint was blended well into the existing color.
3 coats of base did the trick with subsequent reduced coats and once the base flashed completely I hit the entire hood with 4 coats of clear. Again everyone has a different technique. I prefer to the use the first coat of clear as a light sticky coat and then get slower and thicker on the remaining coats. They say ,”if it don’t run you did not put enough on there.” Not sure of that but I did get a couple of very small runs on the corners which is good in my book as I know I am putting enough clear on there. Runs are fairly easy to get out.
Keep in mind that some shops would not even clear the entire hood and instead just clear over the repaired area which is against every conceivable common sense factoid in painting.
Once dried overnight I then then wet sanded the clear with a soft block and rotary buffer while the clear is still soft. I am not one to let clear dry for a week and then wet sand as the clear is harder at that time.
I am not trying to get 100% of the orange peel off with wet sanding as this is taken care of in the buffing process with a orbital buffer.
So far I am very pleased. The blend went extremely well and the surface is flatter than factory though I plan on taking it down a bit more. I pretty much stuck with Meguiars products such as Solo and cutting compound along with their glaze. They claim that with Solo the glaze is not required but I am picky about some things. I will most likely try System One instead of Solo next time as I have read/heard good things about that product.
Pads used were blue/yellow foam and wool.
I did not include every step in this so don’t use it as a guide to paint your own panel as again there are many steps involved such as proper masking of the underside of the hood and rest of the car,etc…
Some pictures which are not inclusive of every step.
After painting-dry time
Color sanding with a soft block, 2000 and then to 2500
You can see some orange peel on this section. The haze really brings it out. This will need to go away to get the result i am looking for.
Much better. No orange peel evident here.
Just about there, I would rate this stage as better than factory. Just a little more to go plus a good detailing to get the goop out from everything.
I also painted the grill which fell victim to the many trucks on the road. It still needs to be cleaned up as seen in the pic. Waiting for the new emblem to arrive. No wax has been applied yet in this picture. Absolutely no overspray to be found anywhere. I also installed the front chrome bar and windshield washers.
Care is to be taken when sanding/buffing on the edges/corners as the clear is thinnest there. I go over these areas with my hand only or with the soft block.
Some of the chemicals used minus the primer pictured as I used another brand.
I do not pretend to be a professional painter but my results speak for them self.
Last edited by Pearlpower; 02-10-08 at 10:36 PM.
haha
02-10-08, 09:38 PM
#5
Lexus Fanatic
Wow, nice job, I admire that you did it yourself as most people would not and it turned out beautiful. I have a few questions. What kind of paint sprayer did you use, would the compressor type that most plastic modelers use to spray paint their model planes/boats/cars work or do you need something bigger for full size cars? Where did you get the paint in large enough quantities to do the hood, did you just buy a bunch of Lexus touch up paint? I would love to paint my hood and front bumper as they just have too many stone chips, sap etchings, scrapes to hide and I will probrably have it done before selling the car but I would be worried doing it myself because I have no experiece painting cars but I guess if I screw up I will just be get it repainted at a shop anyway. My GS is black and I have heard black is the easiest to repaint because color matching is much easier with black compared to other colors.
02-10-08, 10:27 PM
#6
Thanks for the replies. The sense of accomplishment does feel good.
Black is very easy to match but also shows up every imperfection on the surface.
Gun used was a HVLP (high volume low pressure) gravity gun. Harbor Freight even sells a gun for $30 that does a pretty decent job. Of course the nicer guns will run around $250.00 or so. I like using two guns, one for the base ,and other other for the clear. This way I just clean up everything afterwards and do not have to worry about contaminating the clear with some base remnants from a bad cleaning.
Paint was purchased from a paint and body supply store. My local store mixes good paint but gives bad advice. Many have never even painted themselves while they sit around and smoke cigs around the chemicals.
Walking into that store is the unhealthiest part of this project.
I already had a quart of the silver paint and basemaker (mixed with base color) from when I painted and installed my Toms rear spoiler. So I only needed to buy some clear and activator along with some news pads, sandpaper, etc...
Overall I would say I spent less than $100 including the Solo which ran $25. Time is what cost me the most money but the result was well worth it.
Compressor should at least be a 5hp 90psi unit at the minimum. I like to keep the gun regulator at 50-55 psi while spraying. A nice website for good information for those looking to start out in painting is:
http://autobody101.com/forums/index.php
A lot of experts and newbies present and almost every question has been answered at least a few times. Everyone is very patient and understanding there as we all know we started somewhere.
Black is very easy to match but also shows up every imperfection on the surface.
Gun used was a HVLP (high volume low pressure) gravity gun. Harbor Freight even sells a gun for $30 that does a pretty decent job. Of course the nicer guns will run around $250.00 or so. I like using two guns, one for the base ,and other other for the clear. This way I just clean up everything afterwards and do not have to worry about contaminating the clear with some base remnants from a bad cleaning.
Paint was purchased from a paint and body supply store. My local store mixes good paint but gives bad advice. Many have never even painted themselves while they sit around and smoke cigs around the chemicals.
Walking into that store is the unhealthiest part of this project. I already had a quart of the silver paint and basemaker (mixed with base color) from when I painted and installed my Toms rear spoiler. So I only needed to buy some clear and activator along with some news pads, sandpaper, etc...
Overall I would say I spent less than $100 including the Solo which ran $25. Time is what cost me the most money but the result was well worth it.
Compressor should at least be a 5hp 90psi unit at the minimum. I like to keep the gun regulator at 50-55 psi while spraying. A nice website for good information for those looking to start out in painting is:
http://autobody101.com/forums/index.php
A lot of experts and newbies present and almost every question has been answered at least a few times. Everyone is very patient and understanding there as we all know we started somewhere.
Last edited by Pearlpower; 02-10-08 at 10:39 PM.
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02-11-08, 02:55 PM
#11
This is probably one of the most encouraging and useful post published in the last few months.
Did you capture the whole thing in video?
Many thanks,
warrionex
Did you capture the whole thing in video?
Many thanks,
warrionex
Last edited by warrionex; 02-11-08 at 03:24 PM.
02-11-08, 06:02 PM
#13
Thanks, though I do have a camera in the garage the tarps hanging from the ceiling blocked it. I did think about it as the internet could use more videos, especially on blending.
You bring up a good comment though with encouragement as years ago prior to the internet I tried to paint a fender on a 944. I screwed it up so bad I was discouraged for years.
Slowly I practiced here and there and picked up tips from shops I visited while in my last profession.
The best advice is to be careful through each step but not get paranoid as paint can always be removed and repainted. A good prep is key.
Last edited by Pearlpower; 02-11-08 at 06:11 PM.
