Painting tips and your favorite tricks

When painting the horizontal surfaces of the car, throw your air hose
over your shoulder so there's no chance of dragging the hose against
the car.
Don't use fisheye eliminator. Buy a better brand of paint, clean your
gun out, clean your surfaces...leave the fisheye eliminator for the next
guy to experiment with.
Never lay a roll of tape flat down on a sanded surface that you are
going to paint. You don't know where its been or what could be
smeared all over the sides of it.
If you take paint out off a can, when finished replace the lid and
carefully turn the can upside down briefly. This action creates a seal
and prevents solvent evaporation, with striping enamels stops skin
from forming.
After finishing always tear down the gun and clean using gun
cleaner/lacquer thinner and the right brushes.
Buy a cheap masking machine but don't cheap on tape. Stay away
from wal-mart.
Use blue FINELINE tape for striping.
Always use an air filter at the gun.
After you are finished masking the whole car...or panel wipe down one
last time with W&G Remover for sure and tack.
Wet the floor before shooting top coats. And tack rag your hose from
the couple to 6 ft back.
Spray edges and lips of the panel first then proceed. When you spray
the edges it lessens the chance of dry spray on your large area of the
panel. If I am spraying a hood on the work stand I spray the edges first
then proceed.
Let your first coat of clear flash good from minimum hand slick- to
preferably not stringy to touch.
Throw the paint cup filter in the gun away.
Always strain your material into the cup.
Buy mixer/pour spouts for your primers like on the mixing rack at your
jobber.
Tip on getting a chunk of trash that falls into clear as you are spraying.
tear off a small strip of 1-1/2" or 3/4" tape, make a u shape out of it
where the sticky side would be facing the panel and gently dab onto
the trash until the adhesive of the tape picks up the trash. Easier than
a trash pic or tooth pic...quicker also. I always have a roll of tape on the
table in the booth.

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

For homemade booths, use paint booth filters. They're inexpensive,

and a lot more efficient than duct filters for removing dust and
overspray.
Always pour paint out of your gun and back into your can of paint in
between coats of pearl or met. base. these are polished rocks, and will
settle to the bottom, so stirring the paint in between coats will help
keep the color consistent.
The other thing I learned painting in the garage is lighting. You NEED a
good light showing your spray laying down on your surface. If you
actually see the texture of the paint or clear you are applying it makes
a huge difference on the outcome.
Need a tricky body line or curve sanded? Put some filler and hardener
in a ziplock bag and mix it well and press it against a perfect part of
the curve and when it dries you have molded your own sanding block
ALWAYS do a walk through as if you were painting before you shoot.
You never know what might get in the way. I failed to do this once and
was doing a fender. Blended out the door and when I went to clear I hit
the mirror with my hand on my first pass and got a run.
Cleaning clear coat spray off my gun is a chore and I hate taking a long
time to do it. Recently I took cooking saran wrap that has a tacky side
and wrapped my gun. Starting at the cap and working backwards.
Takes me 1 minute to prep my gun and Ive saved 15 minutes clean up
time.
Use draw string trash bags for disposable wheel covers.
Back tape for priming, put your paper on so it covers repair area then
pull outward over tape to get a "soft edge This technique can be used
in many masking situations.
If painting to a windshield or other glass... its to be removed...when
the glass cant be removed you can often take a 16gauge wire ( I
believe) and stuff it under the rubber holding the rubber off the panel
you are painting...then you just tape the edge of the suspended
rubber...after paint remove wire and tape and your clear will be under
the edge of your windshield rubber...this helps with the risk of clear
peeling at the rubbers edge...and gives a cleaner look...if done
properly you cannot tell the windshield wasnt removed
Pinholes are the devil...but when priming and you see one...you can
take a corner of a paper towel and dip it in your primer and fill your
pinhole after your first coat...then continue with 2nd /3rd coat of primer

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

A simple formula to remember is orange peel is fluid adjustment and

run control is an air pressure adjustment. If youre getting a few runs
try upping the air pressure 5-10 pounds more.
3M spray gun settings -- 1-3-20
1: full out/opening of air
3: 3
turns out/opening for fluid
20: psi at the gun
When pouring from a full container, roll it on its side and pour with the
spout toward the top of the can. That way the fluid wont pour until the
can pitches well over.
To put it simply, dont swing the gun in an arc. Painting rewards
consistency: consistent pressure, consistent mixture, and, not the least
of which, consistent spray distance. Reducing the spray distance
concentrates the sprayed paint in a smaller, denser area; increasing
spray distance distributes the paint over a larger, thinner area. Well,
swinging a gun in an arc increases the distance at the ends and
reduces it through the middle.
A panel may look shiny when viewed head-on but it wont tell you
squat about the surface condition. Instead, look at it from an oblique
angle. What reflects in the painted surface will tell you volumes about
the quality and consistency of your work.
Hutton advises prepping surfaces for solvent-based paint with 400 grit
paper.
The solution to cure a tack cloth from leaving a trail of its own
contaminants is simple: unfurl the new cloth, shake it out, refold it, and
continue. More than eliminate the potentially flaky residue, the
refolded cloth will often better conform to complex shapes.
A mechanical bond doesnt require very muchin fact too much of a
good thing can harm a recently applied finish. Hutton maintains that an
extra-fine gray abrasive pad creates a sufficient opportunity for a
mechanical bond.
When you are painting, you often cant plan what the weather is going
to be like. Summers can be hot and humid and ruin a paint job, even
with the best set up and technique. Use the time of day to your
advantage. Typically mornings are the coolest, least humid, and most
bug free time of day. Get all your set up done the night before and
wake up with the sun to shoot first thing in the AM.
A common mistake people make is in being lazy, or reaching too far
ahead of themselves, and not keeping the spray gun perfectly
perpendicular to the surface being painted. When the spray nozzle is

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

not held 90 degrees from the surface, the spray pattern causes one
end to get too much paint, and one end to get too little.
Another mistake people make when they start painting is standing in
one spot and just swinging their arm across the panel. This results in a
curved arc of paint, not a straight line. Standing with your feet slightly
apart, hold your arm straight, and move side to side at the hips, so the
gun follows a straight line across the panel
Open up the fluid control valve on the gun all the way and spray an
example. If the spray pattern is not roughly football shaped, adjust the
fan pattern control until it is.
New spray guns are not ready to paint. Typically they are coated inside
and out with an anti-corrosion chemical that needs to be cleaned off in
order to get the best results. Since you dont know exactly what they
use, its best to just clean the gun like you would after using it. If you
dont clean it you can have problems ranging from dirt in the paint, to
chemical incompatibility.
You may not realize this, but it is important to start painting the car in
the proper place, and work around it in the right order for best results.
The order Kevin likes to use, which he calls Leap frogging or the
push-pull method, is this: start at the edge of the roof and work toward
the middle, from the other side start at the middle and work toward the
edge, down the sailpanel, other sail panel, across the rear decklid and
trunk, quarter panel, back to the other side quarter panel, door, other
side door, fender, other side fender, hood, front of the car and done.
This method means the edge of the paint is as wet as possible when
you overlap it.
With gun a hand span away from painting surface the size of the
spray pattern should also be a hand span.
Use a larger 1.4 fluid tip, especially with metallic colors. This gives your
atomized droplets a larger size, and allows the micas and metallics to
self-orient and lay in a natural and consistent pattern. Use a
distribution coat on the last coat. Drop your pressure in half, and
double the gun distance to the surface. Spray the distribution coat
immediately after your last coat while the base is still wet. This allows
the base color to settle into the underlying coat and the larger droplets
will, again, help the metallic particles, and distribution. Solid colors
dont need a distribution coat.
I found that using a 1.3 fluid tip works well with this clear. HOWEVER, I
found that it tended to dry quickly and die back, losing some of the

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

gloss. I fixed this with Eastwood Urethane Reducer Slow and adding an
extra half-part, making it a 2-1-1/2 mix. 2 parts clear, one part catalyst,
and one half part reducer. This allowed great flowout, and solved the
problem of dulling.
My sanding recipe is as follows:
o 1000 grit to start. level the surface, completely dulling it
o 1500 to eliminate the 1000 grit scratches
o 2000 to eliminate the 1500 grit
o 3000 to provide a very nice surface to buff to full gloss, which
happens very quickly
Remember if you are spraying up and down on a surface you can
change the nozzle at the front of the gun 90 deg. so the fan is
horizontal.
Look at what your painting and the way the paint is going on the surf
ace right behind the gun and adjust from there
Remember you need a high air pressure (Set as the spec sheet calls
for) so that you get proper atomization and so you can turn the volume
up. The higher pressure will actually mean fewer runs since the
atomization is better. This is not so critical with the primers, but you
really need it with the sealer, base, and clear coats so you get good
coverage without runs and with little orange peel
Spray Gun controls
o The Fan control knob (smaller blue knob at the top rear of gun)
is opened by turning in a counter-clockwise direction. This
controls the size of the spray pattern or fan and the droplet
size. Out with the knob = larger pattern/larger droplet size, in =
smaller pattern/smaller droplet size.
o The Fluid Needle control knob (larger blue knob, below the fan
control) is opened by turning in a counter-clockwise direction.
This controls the amount of paint flow to the nozzle. Out with the
knob = more paint, less atomization, in = less paint.
o The Air Valve control knob (small blue knob at the bottom of
the gun near the air inlet) is opened by turning in a counterclockwise direction. This is a fine tuning for air flow in the gun.
You generally want to start out fully open and decrease air as
needed.
Basically you want the smallest fluid tip that will still allow you to paint
the particular part you are painting, keeping the entire thing wet and in
a fair amount of time. In other words, a 1.0 tip would be beautiful for

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

clearing one fender, but would be lousy to paint a complete. The

application would be way too slow, and the first panel would be way
too flashed by the time you got back around to it. So you need to
compromise -- a 1.3 is a great all-around tip, while a 1.5, though
getting a little big, can get you by. If you read the tech sheet on the
particular product you are shooting, it will have a recommendation for
fluid tip size.
You need to "tune" your gun EVERY TIME you use it, just as you would
tune a guitar before you perform. This is done with a very basic
sprayout pattern test. This very basic test tells you how your gun is
atomizing and you adjust it to achieve the best atomization you can.
o Set the fan width as needed (you don't want to change it after you have "tuned"
the gun).
o Turn out the material knob about 2 1/2 turns. This is the "mixture" adjustment,
kind of like the idle screw on a carburetor. The farther in it is screwed the lower
the fluid to air ratio is and the smaller the droplets will be. The farther out it is, the
higher the fluid to air ratio is and the larger the droplets.
o Set the air pressure at the inlet to the gun to the manufacturer's specs. On an
HVLP gun, this spec is usually found on the gun, and is the maximum PSI it can
have while still maintaining the maximum 10 lb at the cap for legal HVLP
transfer efficiency (68 %).
o You are now ready to do a test sprayout. Tape a piece of masking paper on the
wall for the test. Hold the gun at a right angle to the wall, just as if you were
going to paint the wall. Hold the gun at a spread out hands distance (about 8
inches, or 22 centimeters). Pull the trigger to completely open for a split second
and then close it. You want an ON-OFF wide open-completely closed in ONE
movement. You should have a cigar shaped pattern with complete coverage in the
center with fading coverage going away from the full coverage cigar shape in the
center. The center should be fully covered without any runs. If you have runs,
either you are holding the trigger too long, you are too close, or the gun is simply
applying too much material; in which case you need to screw in the material knob
or turn the air pressure down. But most likely if you have turned the material knob
out the 2 1/2 turns and the air is set at the factory specs, you are just too close or
holding the trigger open too long.
o The droplets you see trailing off the center are what you will use to "tune" your
gun. Turn in the material knob to make the droplets smaller (and or raise the air
pressure). The balance you need to attain is the smallest droplet size possible
before you lose the coverage desired. In other words, if you turn in the material
knob too far, not enough material will be coming out to cover the panel!

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

Tetz video basically says to run the Concourse gun wide open on fluid and fan controls
Always go with 2 gallons of color and remember when you do get the 2 gallons just mix
them both together so you have one consistent all the way through the paint job. Plus it
gives you some extra to practice with, get your equipment dialed in and your technique
just right.
Remember with that clear (Black Diamond LowVOC Urethane Clearcoat) a lot of guys
will go with a 4:1:1 ratio with urethane reducer. So you're going to get more coverage
(per say) with that ratio. Same thing with the basecoat guys like to shot it a 4:1: up to 1
ratio with the urethane reducer. Guys like to shot the bascoat then wait overnight then
come back in the early morning and shot the clear. Just remember you have an 18 hour
window to topcoat that basecoat
Might want to use a slightly smaller fan width for clear coat as compared to base coat
since you want the clear to go on a little thicker. For fluid flow I open the fluid
adjustment all the way, then while holding the trigger full open, I turn it in until I feel
resistance then turn it in around 3 turns as my initial setting for clear, then fine tune. For
base coat I give it a couple of more turns from the initial 3 turn setting, then fine tune.
Paint like a robot. Be consistent in distance and speed. Keep gun perpendicular to
surface (follow the curves of the car).
Kevins corner and painting tips videos shows both fluid and air adjustments wide open.
If possible use 50 ft of hose before you water filter.
Alcohol/water mix (25/75) as antistatic final wipe down before spraying
Back tape door jams and other openings such as hood and trunk.
Use garden tank sprayer with a little soap added to water to spray
down floor to control dust.
If your spray pattern is like an 8 (heavy on ends and thin in middle) chances are your air
pressure is too high.
All bare metal that is to be primed should have some tooth to it and the scotch pad type
discs and/or the 80 grit will achieve this.
If you are going to use auto paints that are metallic then it is recommended that you use
drop coating. It is also very important that you do both vertical and horizontals spray
paint directions to create a cross coat application. When you are ready to do the drop
coat, you will want to put your spray gun in a position where it is about 18-24 inches
from the panels surface and you will also want to adjust the pressure of the spray gun by
20 percent to 30 percent. In a horizontal motion proceed with spraying the auto body
shop paint, do this slowly to allow the metallic color to fall or drop onto the surface of the
panel. It is important that you maintain a coverage that is uniform until the spray paint
process is finished. Immediately after you finish that process, you will want to put
another coat on the panel from the same distance, but this time around you will want to
use a vertical movement instead of a horizontal direction, this will ensure that the

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

different coats will cross each other, which will result in an even coverage of paint. To get
uniform metal distribution, you will need to make sure the drop coats crosses, which will
create the ideal surface that will be perfect to receive the lacquer appropriately.
When spraying a metallic color most professional painters shake their paint gun after they
finish each pass. This helps make sure the particles are evenly dispersed so the finish will
be uniform.
To prevent paint from dripping on the panel being painted, it would be wise to apply tape
around the top of the cup to hold the lid firmly in place.
If the paint cup attached itself to your gun by screwing it on from the base tape around
where the two meet once the cup is screwed in tightly.
When you spray a metallic color you'll find some paint products will tend to mottle (have
light and dark areas) where the paint is applied unevenly. A "drop coat" is a light mist
coat, on top of paint that has flashed, in order to even out the color. This light, dry mist
coat is usually NOT a good idea because it can negatively effect the bond between the
color and the clear however, if the paint manufacturer is recommending it, you may be ok
doing it.
Brian's experience has shown that the proper distance, what he calls
the "sweet spot," is usually similar to the length of the fan when using
a properly set and operating paint gun. In other words, a 6-inch fan
shot at a distance of 6 inches from fluid tip to surface provides a proper
spray pattern. But, as with every other factor, there is no specific rule.
I have found also that when spraying metallics, to overlap your pattern
closer to 75% vs. the standard 50% to help eliminate tiger
striping....Direction isn't critical as long as you are consistent in your
pattern.
Should use 3/8 ID air hose fittings.
When mixing epoxy primer mix it for 5 minutes to ensure it is
completely mixed.
Wall of air test, when the sound of the air changes that is the sweet
point of the gun in terms of distance from paint surfact.
A drop coat, (OneA drop coat, (One last light coat applied from a foot or
so away from the panel immediately after the last coat is sprayed) is a
good way to set the flake into the proper pattern. The last coat should
be from about a foot away that evens the metallic out. Good advice.
That fog coat is the key.
A common mistake is painters trying to correct for an overly dry spray
by turning up the air pressure. That might seem sensible, until you
compare it to the fuel/air mixture in a carburetor. If the mixture is lean
to begin with, increasing the air will only make it leaner. The same is

Painting tips and your favorite tricks

true in a paint gun; turning down the air will translate into more paint
in proportion to air. The solution in that case would be to lower the air
pressure to establish the right balance.
Use different grips on the gun depending is you are painting sides, tops, or bottoms

Use bondo spreader to tuck masking tape into gaps

Mist the floor with garden spray, mixture of water with a little soap in it
Set a timer to keep track of flash time
You can wipe down between coats
A good way to get water out of your lines, especially if you live in a humid climate, is to
make sure the compressor tank is de-pressurized, open to air and dried out before you use
it. A couple days before you paint your car, open the tank drain valve on your
compressor and leave it open. If possible, open the pump outlet too (you can insert a
blow gun and rubber band the trigger). Don't pressurize the tank until an hour or so
before you expect to spray.
And another neat trick, if you have an extra long spray hose, coil it up in a big washtub,
and fill the tube with ice and water. This will act as an "intercooler" for the lines and will
wring moisture out of the air before it reaches the gun.