Paintjob is pretty much complete! picts within

[Pablo]

I tried to take picts with different camera settings to convey what it looks like. I am really happy with how it turned out. Best of all, I did it myself.

It took about 5 months in total. Probably a month or two of that was spent redoing things that I screwed up. Everything was color changed, the jambs, the trunk, etc. If you were to inspect the car you would have a hard time figuring out what the original color was (grey).

I still have to buff out the paint, polish my front wheels (i did the rears already) and thats about it. I need to cover the holes in the rear bumper where I removed the bumperettes. I was planning on just putting those smooth truss head bolts in place there painted white. The only problem is the holes are round and those things need to go into square holes. I'll figure it out.

Other than that, I feel like a kid on christmas.

What do you guys think?

By the way... take a guess how much this all cost me :biggrin:

 

[Instro84]

looks nice, i'll drop mine off:smile:

 

[turbojd]

Kudos to you for doing all the work yourself!! All the months you spent working on it are now showing, the car looks looks great!, can't wait to see it when you get it all buffed out. As for the cost, I didn't want to throw a number out there! I'll wait for you to tell us, it's gonna make me wanna start painting mine. My car has the usual spider cracks on the top surfaces. Better yet, I'll drop mine off also to you!

 

[HMBTurboT]

Pablo that looks GREAT! What kind of paint did you use? I hope to feel like that in a few months...I started mine a few weeks back, hopefully it turns out as nice as yours!! Doing it myself also, but havent done this since doing my 57 Chevy about 15 years ago. 5 months isn't bad at all...well worth it!

 

[mybuick]

go to a zebart place and get the 3/8 plugs and paint them white. thats what i did with my black 84

 

[Rodney87GN]

That turned out really good. Props to you for having the patience to do that because I know I don't. The white with the blackout trim looks sharp. Wanna paint my car?:biggrin:

 

[BlackMetal]

Looks very good! Can't beat doing it yourself.

 

[shasta]

Looks really good, congrats on a job well done!

 

[O SO LO]

Looks good!! Nice job!

 

[Pablo]

Thanks for all the compliments guys


Now would you believe that I painted this car using a roller and about 100 bucks of paint?

In total, including the primer, rollers, thinners, and sandpaper, I probably spent around 300 dollars on this paint job. I used Interlux Brightside yacht paint. One part polyurethane, no clearcoat.

Does it look as good in person as it does in pictures? Depends on the lighting. In my garage under flourescent lighting you can see every imperfection and even so it does not look bad. Probably on par with about a 2000 dollar paint job around here. So that means that it's no show car, it has some errors here and there. I also got some dust in the paint.

In the sunlight though the car looks almost perfect.

The grille was from a regular regal so it was originally chrome. I painted it semi flat black with a rattle can.

The most expensive part of the paint job was getting all of my trim powder coated. It cost as much as all the paint + primer on the car.

The whole "50 Dollar paint job" was in my case reasonably successful. It's a ton of work though. It's hard for me to say whether or not it's a better option than spraying. I've never sprayed with proper equipment so I couldn't give you an informed opinion.
I do know that doing the roller job cost me a lot of time in learning the process. I believe I would have gone through the same thing spraying the car.

I did spray the header panel, and both bumpers.

I used a preval kit for the header panel and rear bumper. That's a setup with a spray can that attaches to a glass bottle where you put your mixed paint. It works pretty well once I figured out that using regular thinner almost guaranteed runs. I ended up going with xylene instead.

The front bumper was rattle canned and thats why if you look in the pictures you can see it is a slightly different color

I'll eventually take it off and paint it like I painted everything else. But for now it's good enough.

anyway, I know there were at least a couple of haters awhile back when I first posted that I was going to do this. Where are they now?

 

[Mark E.]

I believe it. Looks great!

Rustoleum GN $50 ($200) paint job - TurboBuicks.com

It has been almost 2 years. My paint took some abuse before it fully cured. My neighbors tree dropped crap and sap on it and I was too busy playing with my Bronco on the Rubicon to do anything about it.

Mine still looks great IMHO. At least good for most :biggrin: Its no show winning car, but I take it to the GoodGuys shows as much as my schedule allows. People always trip out on how I did it.

I may recoat it with the Brightsides someday. I was already too far into the Rustoleum when Brightsides was found.

I am very satisfied. Especially because I did it myself.

 

[Project TNX]

Did you actually use a roller? Haha, that's great. Just another case of "It's all in the prep." The roller method would never work with metallic though, and I'm gearing up to paint my T Dark Garnet Red Metallic, base/clear. Painting is a blast right until that first mistake, I hope this time with the car completely apart I can avoid any mistakes. The clear doesn't intimidate me, the metallic streaking is my biggest concern.

 

[Pablo]

Did you actually use a roller? Haha, that's great. Just another case of "It's all in the prep." The roller method would never work with metallic though, and I'm gearing up to paint my T Dark Garnet Red Metallic, base/clear. Painting is a blast right until that first mistake, I hope this time with the car completely apart I can avoid any mistakes. The clear doesn't intimidate me, the metallic streaking is my biggest concern.

Yes I did actually use a roller, a bunch of 4" high density foam rollers to be exact.

The prep was by far the most brutal work of the whole thing. Painting was relatively easy once I figured out the roller technique. That took some learning though.

No, you couldn't do the roller technique with metallics. If you have all the equipment to spray, a place to spray, and the car all torn apart, it makes more sense to spray I think. I like how with spray you are done painting in a day whereas with the roller you have to paint and then wetsand and then paint x 5-10 times in as many days. The benefit is that you can easily correct mistakes in a coat. Can't do that so easily when you spray.

Haters, where are you at? Grumpy was one... quiet now

btw Mark the GN looks great (I've seen it before)

 

[Project TNX]

Yes I did actually use a roller, a bunch of 4" high density foam rollers to be exact.

The prep was by far the most brutal work of the whole thing. Painting was relatively easy once I figured out the roller technique. That took some learning though.

No, you couldn't do the roller technique with metallics. If you have all the equipment to spray, a place to spray, and the car all torn apart, it makes more sense to spray I think. I like how with spray you are done painting in a day whereas with the roller you have to paint and then wetsand and then paint x 5-10 times in as many days. The benefit is that you can easily correct mistakes in a coat. Can't do that so easily when you spray.

Haters, where are you at? Grumpy was one... quiet now

btw Mark the GN looks great (I've seen it before)

I love creativity, and I love people doing stuff their own. The only drawback is the flaws always stick out more when you do it yourself. I had to paint my last T-type twice, friggen cold weather got me because I got impatient, never again.

I'm going to document my paint job well, I'm creating a dustfree side draft booth and my new HVLP is very low pressured and I'm going to cut the gun back and take my time.

 

[BlackMetal]

Honestly the car looks great. Anyone who has anything to say about it is just jealous that they don't have the motivation to try something new themselves. Like Brent mentioned above, the flaws always stick out more when it's a result of your own work, but don't let it bother you! I'm picky with my own work too and let stupid little mistakes bother me for way too long. The car looks GREAT and anyone who wants to go over it with a magnifying glass just needs something better to do with their time.

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

looks great dude.

 

[no-nos]

very well done pablo, i could never tell.

 

[pm87tb]

Give your self a pat on the back for doing it yourself.. It looks good..

 

[AMMO]

Smooth One Piece Bumpers

Where did you get those Smooth One Piece bumpers.. Did you make them or did you buy them? Trying to add to my 87 T Top

 

[Pablo]

the front bumper is a fiberglass unit from one of the vendors. I forgot who exactly. I might have bought it from kirban's awhile back. The rear bumper is stock I just removed the bumperettes.