DarylJ

So I've been sanding for the last several weekends. The body is done, and I'm on parts. I'm almost done fabbing up some patches for around the marker lights on the front bumper (to cover the ugly holes and welds you can see with the bumper pads off).

I didn't take any pictures with the sides down, but my paint booth is almost done. I have the paper/plastic combo tarps that will cover the ground before I actually paint in it. And that silver thing in the middle is a 14" HVAC duct from a gas pack heater in my garage. I'm going to make a diffuser for it so I have more of a down draft. I've got good positive pressure inside with it down, and it's so close to the sides of the garage that I really don't need to brace it from ballooning out. I just need to make a door-ish thing as well as my output (which I'm using several different filters to arrest airborne paint on the way out of the garage. Last step will be to run some bonding strips along the bottom of the plastic (when it's down) and ground them to cut down on static electricity.

75ohm

Good luck!

Catfood

So is it gonna stay brown, or are you gonna try and change the color?

DarylJ

It looks brown, but it's Garnet Red Metallic. It looks really nice when new - mine looked like total crap. I was going to change the color until I saw a freshly painted 85 911 in Garnet Red - it's NICE. Confirmed when I started pulling things apart that hadn't seen the light of day in 22 years like the quarter windows and exposed some paint that wasn't all beat up.

So yeah..."same" color - just bringing it back to stock.

F18Rep

OK but a couple ideas... shutdown the heater when actually painting. And boost your lighting if possible. Your mask is more important than the paint, car & garage all put together - don't ask me how I know this. bruce

DarylJ

I was planning on using the heater as a fan only for positive pressure ventilation while painting. And advice on that? Seemed to be the best way to go.

Lighting will be supplemented as much as possible. I know you can't ever have enough for paint.

I know the mask is important, and I'm going to do as accurate a job as I can, but this is another area where any tips are more than welcome.

medevack

nice please post some pics of the process and the final product.... good luck

DarylJ

I plan on documenting all of my ghetotastic adventures. Get ready to learn from my epic failures.

Yes, I'll still drive it, because no matter what I do, the paint will be better than when I started.

Calmchaos

Preach it!

F18Rep

Well, on the mask - you can get really good stuff (supplied air sort of stuff) but its very expensive ($250). That would be best but I think most DIYers are still using the old charcoal cannister set-up. I had trouble with these when I was younger because I didn't take the little bit of time to realize and deal with a leaky cheek seal. Now that I'm older, and slightly wiser, knowing my mask is first order of business. New canisters are cheap too (like $10). Take every opportunity to get out of the paint cloud.

On the ventilation thing, what worked best for me was a method of getting the air out away from the car. I don't think you particularly want air blowing onto the car at least not with any force. So I had one door at one end of my garage open and then a big fan blowing out the other door. A few days before paint time I got this fan going and used compressed air to blow off the dust from everything. A lot of it went out, but controlling the dust was still a big challenge. I don't know how the big boys do this in winter. Patience is your friend, 'git er done' is not.... Bruce

DarylJ

OHHH...breathing mask. I thought you were talking about masking the car (tape, etc.). I'm all set on the mask - I'm using my SCBA (fire department issue - shhhhhhh...don't tell) and an old tyvek hazmat suit made for wearing an SCBA under it.

porschefig

From my experience (painted my first 924) I don't think you want that heater blowing on the car. I can see dust in your paint already.

Maybe your HVAC filtration is fine enough, and I hope it is!
Best of Luck, seeing your work pay off is a joy!

krystar

heeh hazmat suit. neighbors will see you walking out to the garage in it. call FBI on you for making biochemical stuff in yer garage.

DarylJ

I'm going to diffuse it around the car....but even at that, there will be a multi-hour test of leaving it running after the car is clean to see if it sucks anything in and leaves it on the car. If it does, I'll have to get finer filters. I need to ventilate the booth somehow, or I won't be able to see by the time I get half way around the car.

DarylJ

They're all used to general wierdness happening at my house - there's usually some police car/fire truck/ambulance parked there either being wrenched on or for a mid-shift slack off.