With our own paint booth and two skilled painters we are equipped to handle the repainting of your classic. Repainting a car is a labour intensive procedure. The final colour coat is the easy part, but of course the key to a good and long lasting paint job is the work and preparation that goes on before hand. The pictures below show some of the work involved, to get this kind of finish takes many hours labour. Of course not every car requires this standard of finish but the basic steps are the same.
The first stage is to thoroughly clean the steel. Even after mechanical sanding the steel needs to be cleaned by hand with a special 'metal cleaner'. After masking off the rest of the car to avoid any overspray and to stop any dust or dirt on the inside getting blown out into the paint, the car is moved into the booth where it is given a final clean.
Before the bare steel is given a coat of epoxy primer or wash etch and primer depending on the car. This is then sanded over the whole car to provide a good 'key' for the next step.
The car is then given a skim of filler all over and 'blocked' back. Many places claim they use no filler but it is impossible to achieve the finish and 'flatness' expected on a top paint job these days without it. This filler is only a very fine skim, as can be seen from this photo many areas of steel are still showing. Don't forget the finish expected on these cars today far exceeds what they would have been like when new.
The next step is a coat of 'spritz' which is like a high build primer. Used to fill any minor imperfections left.
By the time this is sanded back it is only a few thousandths of an inch thick and then the car is ready for....
...a coat of primer. Since the car will be a dark colour the primer has been tinted to suit. This is once again sanded before finally...
....the colour coats are ready to go on. This is a 2 stage system where the base colour coat goes on first then is covered with a number of coats to clear. The paint is then sanded back to a very fine grade of sandpaper and then machine buffed to produce that flat mirror shine.
