Basic Step By Step Tutorial To Respray Your Vehicle In Acrylic  

This is a basic step by step tutorial to respray your vehicle in Acrylic.

So your body isn’t looking too flash hot eh, strapped for cash but willing to put in the hard yards.

Well firstly I would suggest do not undertake a respray unless you can complete it, that means, make sure u have the time the space the patience and the money to complete it.

Here is a run down on the materials u will need:

 Approx 10 sheets of 180g wet rub sand paper
 Approx 10 sheets of 400g wet rub sand paper
 Approx 10 sheets of 800g wet rub sand paper
 4l Acrylic automotive primer
 4l Acrylic automotive solid colour
 2 rolls of 25mm masking tape
 1 roll of 2inch masking tape
 3-4 newspapers
 Spray gun with 1.4-1.6mm tip
 20l general purpose or acrylic thinners
 ½ sand paper sheet sized rubbing block
 4l prepwash-prepsol-wax & grease remover
 Minimum 50lt 2.5hp air compressor
 can of flat black

Ok once you have these materials we can now start to get stuck into it

1. Start by parking your vehicle in a shed garage etc where u will be able to keep it for at least 2 weeks.
2. Now start by getting your tools and removing the bumper bars, headlights, mirrors, tail lights, door and guard mouldings, chrome mouldings, indicators, etc. Remember the more u remove from the car the more professional it will look when completed because there is no chance of getting and overspray over the parts that don’t need to be painted. As for the front and rear windows just lift the rubber and squeeze a piece of rope around the length of the window, this lift the rubber off the body so it can easily be masked up later. As for the door windows wind then down and then remover the rubber around the bailey channels. Now it should be all ready to start sanding.
3. Okay get a nice decent sized bucket and fill it with clean water and put 2 sheets of 180g into the water and let sit for a few mins, then rip sheets in half and use one half to fit to your rubbing block, the others can just sit in the water. Start sanding from the roof down and then sand panel by panel keep enough water on the panel so that the block glides across the surface, a sponge or squeegee is good for this. I normally sand in a criss-cross style which is sand for 30seconds or so diagonally from the top of the panel and then sand for 30seconds or so diagonally from the bottom of the panel, just work on sections of the panel at a time using this method, eg a roof u can divide into 4-6 stages. u only need to sand the panel until it goes dull, stop sanding the section if it starts to go through to the primer.
4. Next get 2 rags one will be a wipe on rag and the other will be a wipe off rag. Saturate the wipe on rag in the prep sol and wipe on panel, before it dries wipe off with the wipe off rag. Do this to all the panels u have just sanded, do not interchange rags, rags can be replaced if it’s getting too dirty.
5. Now mask up your front and rear windows with masking tape and newspaper, mask up the door windows and mask up your tyres. Remember to mask in side door and boot and bonnet apertures if u don’t want any paint to go there
6. Now mix up your primer in a separate tin, mix it 1:1.5, this means 1 part primer to 1.5 parts thinners. Spray primer on lightly, we don’t want any runs, do a coat around edges first each time before u coat the whole panel. Apply 3-4 coats over the panels with a ½ overlap of each stroke so u get nice build up and no tiger stripes. Allow primer to cure for 10mins between coats.
7. Give the primer at least 24hrs dry before going on to the next stage.
8. Now with your can of flat black spray a mist of black over the panels.
9. Now wet rub the panels with 400g wet rub until the black spray (guide coat) is all sanded off.
10. Now re-guide coat it again and wet rub it again with 800g wet rub
11. Now prep sol the panels using the method as in part 4.
12. Now mask up as in part 5, remember to mask in side door and boot and bonnet apertures if u don’t want any paint to go there.
13. Now mix your paint up in a tin, mix it 1:1.5 same as u did with the primer.
14. Now apply the paint in with a spray gun offcourse, same way u did it with the primer, do your edges first then do the whole panel. Apply 3-4 coats. It can go on fairly wet but wait at least 10mins before for apply the next coat.
15. Let your new paintjob dry for at least 24hours before putting all your lights bumper bars etc back on.

This is a very basic beginners way to paint your car, basically I suggest if you want it resprayed in 2pac get a professional to do it, there are varies different methods adopted by different people when respraying a car this is just one way to do it
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