Once the bumps and dents have been pounded out of your recent collision job, the most essential part of getting the car looking brand new again is a quality paint job. Obviously you can’t just tackle it with a can of spray paint, but how do you give your car an excellent paint job? Is it better to leave it to the professionals? This guide lets you draw your own conclusions.
A paint job involves a lot of precision and knowledge of how a car’s body and materials work. You may think that a tiny dent won’t show after you put on a new coat of paint, but a professional will know it needs to be mended first. Even the smallest imperfections are very obvious with a brand-new coat of paint because the light will reflect off of them. If you don’t have a good understanding of how your repair job will show up once you’ve added on a coat of paint, it’s probably best to go through a professional.
To prepare your car for a new paint job, a professional will get the paint all the way down to the metal to start over. It’s a long and tedious job, and if you don’t know what you’re doing it’s very easy to cause even more damage. A professional will also get rid of the rust or corrosion on your vehicle first so that the paint will adhere properly – another job that’s very easy to mess up, because removing the rust can make the surface uneven if you’re not careful.
Then of course there’s applying the conditioner, primer, and paint itself, all of which need to be done evenly and smoothly. To give you an idea of what you should look for in quality materials, check out this brief list.
1. Use a base conditioner. A metal conditioner etches the metal of your car to get rid of any rust or corrosion spots, which can damage the quality of your paint job. The conditioner will also prevent corrosion in the future, protecting your paint.
2. Use a high-quality epoxy primer to fill in scratches and imperfections. The cheaper alternatives are lacquer, but these shrink after they’re applied, which means the imperfections still show up in a slightly different way. Epoxy primers fill scratches without shrinking, and they also last much longer.
3. Use a high-quality paint for the job itself. Lacquer and enamel based paints don’t last as long as newer part-polyurethane paints, but there may be a good reason to use others instead – for example, it may be that your previous paint job cannot be matched except by a certain kind of paint. There will be at least two coats of paint, sometimes as much as three or four, depending on the job.
After the paint job has fully dried (which can take up to 10 days), you’ll need to polish the surface to make sure the paint looks smooth and even. This is another place where it’s easy to go wrong – overenthusiastic polishing goes right through the paint, which would mean you’d have to start all over. A good wax and polish completes the job.
Sound like work for a professional? We always thought so. Get the best paint jobs at Vinart Body Shop in Lehigh Valley, PA.
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