Advice for newbie

[TT Girl]

Ok I have a very little experience painting and I go that from scratch this past summer painting the fender on my TT. I have a 30 ga. speeder compressor 2 lines out one to a pressure reg and oiler for my normal tools and another ogg the pressure switch to an air dryer/presure regulator. the air hose for the paint side never gets used for anything else. at the gun I have an air dryer and another pressure regulator hooked on. I am using a yt-160 LVLP spray gun brand is immaterial as I have found as all are made by same place. im using disposable cups so if needed I can spray upside down. as a said I painted thereunder and it turned out ok with sanding and buff I forgot to mention that I am learning to paint on silver metallic paint on my Audi TT. NO better way to learn I guess. I have and will make mistakes the worst that can happen is I re-sand and start again. I am looking for advice in a couple areas. I believe I have the best setup I can get for my single stall garage to paint, I an planning to do the whole car to a degree as I have to do hood, fenders, and front bumper for stone chips. that would require me to blend into the doors as the paint is ever so little bit off. I also have to do the back bumper for a scratch which would likely have me blending into the rear 1/4s at that point I may as well scuff the whole car, prime and seal what needs base the parts that need heavy covering for scratches/chips that I will have primed. Then just do 2 coats ofer the rest of the car. coverage is not paramount because I am going over in the same color. given that I am using a LVLP gun my paint guy who also is a painter on the side said I could use 1 quart with reducer and should be ale to do whole car. Next is my paint dilemma, so far I have used Omni base with ok results. he says if I move up to Omni Plus it would be better. the alternative is Deltron but im not sure I need to go that far. 305.00 a quart vs the omniplus at 125.00. Also I have been spraying the VIETEK low voc multi-panel urethane clear. I found out it's a Single Source house brand. it's working well for me so far. im mostly concerned with longevity of these products. my car is garage kept and I don't drive daily as I don't leave home that much. a lot of my driving is ti car shows and cruise-ins so I need the car to look nice when done. its not bad now I got a 45 out of 50 at the last show I went to but it bothers me so I want to fix it. can an anyone give me some advice moving forward. thank you for reading and responding

TT Girl

 

[chopolds_2]

Lots going on here. Now, remember, if you ask 10 body/paint people a question, you get 10 answers. I've been doing this for almost 50 years now, almost exclusively on custom cars, and restorations. Giving you my advice, but I'm sure others may disagree.
First, your compressor is too small, for an overall. It won't keep up with the air volume needed to keep going, pressure will drop. Also the compressor will be working non stop, and still not produce enough air, but it will run hot, and you WILL get water in the air. Yes, even with a water trap. The hot air containing the moisture, will go right through the water trap, unless it's far enough away for the air to cool, so the water can drop out. Shops often use an air cooler to do this, but some serious hobbyists build a copper pipe zigzag structure to cool the air before the water trap. And, NO, a small trap right at the spray gun isn't going to cut it.
Next issue. is that the small compressor's volume/pressure limits will have your pressure at the gun dropping or oscillating. This is really bad for spraying high metallics, esp. silver! Silver is a pretty tough color to paint and get even coverage. So painting the car one panel at a time won't work, either. Even with the same gun, same temps, same paint, the "color" won't match, if sprayed separately.
The last big issue I would cite, is the paint selection. My guys always want the best job possible, for the money. I still insist on using premium paints, and if anything I might go to a mid level clear, since I sand and buff everything I shoot. The clear is what sees the sun and weather, and cheap clears do not hold up well. That said, I don't use Omni. Omni cuts cost by using less of the expensive pigments and toners, probably metallics/pearls as well. A good basecoat can cover in 2-3 coats, unless a very translucent color, while Omni often takes almost twice that many. So the value is not a huge difference. And as for 1 quart for the whole car? Maybe, if you're spraying silver over silver, but I usually buy 3 qts or a gallon, for most of my shoots. Enough to do edges, jambs, underside of the trunk, etc. and still have a quart or less in the end, for future touch ups.

 

[TT Girl]

Ok I have a very little experience painting and I go that from scratch this past summer painting the fender on my TT. I have a 30 ga. speeder compressor 2 lines out one to a pressure reg and oiler for my normal tools and another ogg the pressure switch to an air dryer/presure regulator. the air hose for the paint side never gets used for anything else. at the gun I have an air dryer and another pressure regulator hooked on. I am using a yt-160 LVLP spray gun brand is immaterial as I have found as all are made by same place. im using disposable cups so if needed I can spray upside down. as a said I painted thereunder and it turned out ok with sanding and buff I forgot to mention that I am learning to paint on silver metallic paint on my Audi TT. NO better way to learn I guess. I have and will make mistakes the worst that can happen is I re-sand and start again. I am looking for advice in a couple areas. I believe I have the best setup I can get for my single stall garage to paint, I an planning to do the whole car to a degree as I have to do hood, fenders, and front bumper for stone chips. that would require me to blend into the doors as the paint is ever so little bit off. I also have to do the back bumper for a scratch which would likely have me blending into the rear 1/4s at that point I may as well scuff the whole car, prime and seal what needs base the parts that need heavy covering for scratches/chips that I will have primed. Then just do 2 coats ofer the rest of the car. coverage is not paramount because I am going over in the same color. given that I am using a LVLP gun my paint guy who also is a painter on the side said I could use 1 quart with reducer and should be ale to do whole car. Next is my paint dilemma, so far I have used Omni base with ok results. he says if I move up to Omni Plus it would be better. the alternative is Deltron but im not sure I need to go that far. 305.00 a quart vs the omniplus at 125.00. Also I have been spraying the VIETEK low voc multi-panel urethane clear. I found out it's a Single Source house brand. it's working well for me so far. im mostly concerned with longevity of these products. my car is garage kept and I don't drive daily as I don't leave home that much. a lot of my driving is ti car shows and cruise-ins so I need the car to look nice when done. its not bad now I got a 45 out of 50 at the last show I went to but it bothers me so I want to fix it. can an anyone give me some advice moving forward. thank you for reading and responding

TT Girl

Lots going on here. Now, remember, if you ask 10 body/paint people a question, you get 10 answers. I've been doing this for almost 50 years now, almost exclusively on custom cars, and restorations. Giving you my advice, but I'm sure others may disagree.
First, your compressor is too small, for an overall. It won't keep up with the air volume needed to keep going, pressure will drop. Also the compressor will be working non stop, and still not produce enough air, but it will run hot, and you WILL get water in the air. Yes, even with a water trap. The hot air containing the moisture, will go right through the water trap, unless it's far enough away for the air to cool, so the water can drop out. Shops often use an air cooler to do this, but some serious hobbyists build a copper pipe zigzag structure to cool the air before the water trap. And, NO, a small trap right at the spray gun isn't going to cut it.
Next issue. is that the small compressor's volume/pressure limits will have your pressure at the gun dropping or oscillating. This is really bad for spraying high metallics, esp. silver! Silver is a pretty tough color to paint and get even coverage. So painting the car one panel at a time won't work, either. Even with the same gun, same temps, same paint, the "color" won't match, if sprayed separately.
The last big issue I would cite, is the paint selection. My guys always want the best job possible, for the money. I still insist on using premium paints, and if anything I might go to a mid level clear, since I sand and buff everything I shoot. The clear is what sees the sun and weather, and cheap clears do not hold up well. That said, I don't use Omni. Omni cuts cost by using less of the expensive pigments and toners, probably metallics/pearls as well. A good basecoat can cover in 2-3 coats, unless a very translucent color, while Omni often takes almost twice that many. So the value is not a huge difference. And as for 1 quart for the whole car? Maybe, if you're spraying silver over silver, but I usually buy 3 qts or a gallon, for most of my shoots. Enough to do edges, jambs, underside of the trunk, etc. and still have a quart or less in the end, for future touch ups.

Thanks for input. I will see about bigger compressor. My gun uses 4 scfm @25 psi and my compressor puts out 6 scfm @ 90 psi I have thout About putting a cooling fin setup on my compressor between compressor and tank to cool the air a bit. I have 2 water separators on the line for paint plus a drop leg. I’ll think on the premium paint. Remember I’m not doing jambs or anything of the like most of the car will be scuffed and in color already. Only the front of the hood and front bumper will be primed everything else will be in finished color already so basically I’m just blending the whole car together.