Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of car coatings

Re:Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of... by akiselev on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @03:44PM (#36049857)

That sounds fascinating and complicated. I scratched my car a few years ago and decided I wanted to DIY a chameleon paint job instead of taking it to the shop (the car is worth less than the paint job if I pay retail). I’ve been slowly acquiring all the gear I need like a forced air respirator and sprayers.

I was wondering how realistic that really is to DIY or if I’m kidding myself. Sound like even if I rented a stall in a paint shop for a few weeks, I won’t have the time to finesse the technique to get a good end product, especially with how much more finicky I understand the chameleon paint to be.

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Re:Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of... by csours on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @04:26PM (#36050391)

My understanding about chameleon paint is that it's very hard to match if it's not all painted at once. I think the difficulty may depend on your expectations for the final product.

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Re:Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of... by akiselev on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @04:56PM (#36050776)

Yep from what I’ve read I’ll have to do the full body in a single shot after spending several hundred man hours sanding down the old paint job and prepping the surface. I’m hoping in Southern California’s weather I won’t have much problem with rust between the prep and actual painting.

I don’t care so much about getting the matching perfect - “it was my first time” is a perfectly cromulent excuse in my social circles - but I do want the paint job to be good enough so that I’m not redoing it every year or two (I hate sanding). What should I exepct?

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Re:Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of... by csours on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @05:17PM (#36050968)

I don't think I can help much more, sorry. The shop I worked in was completely automated and worked on new builds. In most ways, it's much harder to do a one-off repaint of an assembled vehicle.

Only advise I can give is to get some cheap paint and some kind of panels and start practicing.

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Re:Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of... by bluGill on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @08:53PM (#36052673)

Sometimes the local tech school will give you a deal on painting. Students do the work and it will have flaws, but better than you can do without practice

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Re:Watching Paint Dry: The unexpectedly interesting story of... by jasonwatkinspdx on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @01:39AM (#36054484)

Maybe vinyl wrap would be a more approachable solution? https://www.rvinyl.com/Chameleon-Shade-Shifter-Vinyl-Wraps

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