How To Paint Your Car For $50
By Chuck Cage
TM reader BlindTreeFrog directed our attention to a site where the owner of the above-pictured Corvair — who knew he’d never have the cash to give his ride a real paint job — describes (in detail with photos) his $50 paint job applied via a technique borrowed from a net-renowned Moparts.com forum thread.
The trick? Thinning Rust-Oleium 50% with mineral spirits, applying it with a roller, and sanding a lot. Incredibly, his results don’t look that bad.
Would I do this to a car that had a decent paint job already or that I could afford to paint professionally? Hell no. But this looks like a pretty decent technique to spruce up a beater — assuming you have a lot of spare time on your hands.
A $50 Corvair Paint Job [RickWrench.com]
July 10th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Hey that’s me
Yeah, I wouldn’t do this for a show car or anything, but for a beater or a work vehicle it seems like a good enough idea. Hell, for a show car it might be just unique enough of a finish for it to stand out.
It’s hard to say without seeing a vehicle in person that was done this way. The charger in the Moparts thread looks pretty good, so maybe it is worth a serious look.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
But it’s still a Corvair…
July 10th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
July 10th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
This method was detailed in last month’s Hot Rod too.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
The above referenced thread is ridiculously long, as are a few follow up threads started after that one was closed. For anyone interested, you can find some more info at http://rollyourcar.com which offers a quick summary of those threads including an alternate marine grade paint. There are also plenty of pics of finished and in-progress paint jobs.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Any info on doing this on plastic?
July 11th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Anyone have the link to the corvair guys site?
July 11th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Oops! Found it, nevermind
July 12th, 2007 at 11:41 am
I saw this on Digg.com. It looks sweet the price is event sweeter. (I’m a cheapskate, I know.) I wish I had an old beater of a car now to try it.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Yeah, but Duplicolor now has their new lacquer series that is very cheap. It won’t be $50 but much easier than rolling and much less work…
November 27th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Hey all! I have created my own method of do it yourself auto paint based on this original write up. I have termed it The Poor Mans Paint Job. The write up can be found here:
http://www.stylusscustoms.com/poorMansPaintJob.html
My method uses a foam brush instead of the traditional roller used with this type of at home auto paint. This helps to eliminate a lot of the sanding involved with doing this. I laid down 6 coats of paint and only sanded the car 2wice!