How to Paint your Car in a DIY booth (Beginner's 25 Step guide)

Thinking about spray painting your car or vehicle at home in your garage or driveway? This is the video I would have wanted to watch when I was setting out to DIY respray our VW. As a beginner I show my mistakes and how I corrected them, giving you a beginner's guide to achieve a professional respray paint job. I used a waterbased base coat and a 2k clear lacquer.

To see how I made a super cheap DIY compressed air system for this spray job check out my previous video here: goo.gl/HB9bHk

Be a making, upcycling and modding rock star and subscribe to my channel goo.gl/7tFFPu ;)


Tools and Materials used for this paint job

The Italian ANi F160 HPS Spray Gun £87 ebay.to/2JKUxKt
ANI In line air regulator £17 goo.gl/G5HhGG
In line filter and moisture trap £10 goo.gl/yhbihX
Bosch 6" random orbit sander - a fine tool I already had goo.gl/D5j1LX

Octoral Waterbase eco Car Paint Mixed From Colour Code 4L - £119.80 - expensive, but goes a long way and is good quality stuff.
Smart Product Lacquer 5L + Fast Activator 2.5L £65 goo.gl/Lyv75T
Panel Wipe De-greaser 5L- £13
TACK Cloths Water Based Box of 10 £ 4.50

Safety: 3M 6800 full face equivalent which means it's a cheaper import (only about $30 here: goo.gl/kVGmyk), but I use it with the genuine 3m 6001 vapour filters. (ebay link: goo.gl/PNXNEq). Remember to use pre-filters too goo.gl/WJgk5Q. Cover up all skin and ears with a hood and stay safe friends!


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The 26 steps in this video

00:25 Step 1 - Cleaning the whole car and any tar spots.
00:55 Step 2 - Using the random orbit sander to remove the outer layers of paint and roughen the surface ready to painting.
01:25 Step 3 - Cleaning off the sanding dust and what the types of paint dust mean.
02:02 Step 4 - Making the workshop into a paint "spray booth".
02:40 Step 5 - Epic cleaning and the importance of cleanliness while painting.
03:04 Step 6 - Preparing new replacement body panels (I use them as test pieces).
04:07 Step 7 - Preparing the spray gun holder
05:00 Step 8 -- Lessons learned from the first mistakes made spray painting the test panels. Tack clothing too early can be a problem, especially with water based paints! Why to use water based paint and what to expect.
07:20 Step 9 - More mistakes with the bonnet, and how to correct and prevent them. The correct use of panel wipe solvent and how to do a "half" first coat.
09:29 Step 10 - Dialling in the settings and getting the first few water based colour coats on.
11:04 Step 11 - Mixing and spraying the first 2k clear coats and safety concerns with 2k lacquer.
12:21 Step 12 - How to test the clear coat so you know when to spray on the next coat.
12:55 Step 13 - Cleaning the spray gun.
13:37 Step 14 - Bringing the van into the workshop "spray booth".
14:13 Step 15 - Mask up the areas you don't want paint on.
14:35 Step 16 - Primer spraying the areas of the van that are back to bare metal or filler.
14:52 Step 17 - More filler applied to the cracks - sanded and primed ready for base coat painting.
15:11 Step 18 - Panel wipe and tack cloth.
15:37 Step 19 - First 0.5 colour coat.
15:56 Step 20 - Tack when dry.
16:06 Step 21 - First Full coat of waterbased colour.
16:36 Step 22 - Refilling the paint and continuing.
16:45 Step 23 - Have a snack, tack and second coat.
17:18 Step 24 - Three coats of 2k clear.
17:37 Step 24.5 - Talk about how the paint cured, taking the masking tape away and the results.
18:58 Step 25 - Using a DIY Razor to remove little paint problems on the window.
19:13 Step 26 - Road Trip in the freshly painted van! Talk about how the job went :)

Music: "King Jebediah The Falcon Messiah" by Cullah CC BY-SA 4.0

DISCLAIMER: This video description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the e-bay links, and then buy it I’ll receive a small commission. This helps support the channel and allows me to continue to make videos like this. Thank you for the support!