Yesterday I put all the panels back on, polished the hell out of any other bits, changed the gearbox oil, new gearbox drain plug and filler plug cos mine seemed to be made of cheese. New bushes for the gear linkage, and declared it done. Yay.
Things I learned about painting as a total novice. With spray cans...
Filler might look nice but just wait until you put gloss on it. It will show even the tiniest imperfection! You would not believe how perfect it has to be to look even halfway ok once paint is on it. The sanding process is endless.
Cheap filler is shit! I used Chemical Metal as a filler to kind of sculpt new lips for the windscreen etc - it was ok and quite strong. But filler from the shops is shit. Body shop guy felt sorry for me and gave me some filler - i can't think of the name now. But it was more professional stuff and bloody hell, what a difference. It went on so smooth, and was so nice to sand! Bit of a game changer.
High build primer - omg this stuff is amazing. I used loads of coats of this, a 'UPOL' one, and it makes the surface silky smooth and ready for paint. (After more endless sanding.) Its like very fine filler as an undercoat, which you then sand to remove all the little imperfections you cant see until the gloss goes on. Totally transformed the surfaces.
Paint is so temperamental! the temperature of the room and panel makes a lot of difference. Summer is absolutely best. Mostly mine was ok with the use of a small electric heater, but i did get some mild blooming on my final coats due to humidity. Luckily it polished out easily, apparently it doesn't always.
Removal of contaminants. So important and hard. I used a lot of isopropyl alcohol. Also POR15 cleaner/degreaser. And still there were areas that seemed to have a small amount of wax on that will ruin all your work.
Practise is all you can do. Its so satisfying when you get just the right amount of paint on, from just the right distance, you can literally see it spreading into itself to form a lovely shine. But that only happens when you get it right. The rest of the time you could be too close, too far, not have shaken it enough, too much moisture in the air, blah blah etc.
I found with it being cold weather, warming the spray cans helped. But if you need to do this, I also found warming it too much gave an odd effect and I had to sand and do another coat.
Runs - nothing you can do but wait for it to dry and sand it down. Some people scrape with a razor blade apparently.
Masking - you have to get this right. i got a bit manic and didn't do some areas properly. I really regretted that.
For a start, if you don't get the edges exactly right, it looks like total crap. Secondly, if you get over spray its much more hassle to get off than masking it properly in the first place. And the paint can get everywhere!
I now have so much respect for people that can do this properly!
