prep/paint

[cosmo1957]

K boys, the major grunt work is done, the CD cab corners and steps are all welded in, my truck is in several pieces right now and the only thing left to do is prep and paint.
I was told it will cost 10 -15k to complete!!!! after I did all the work ! Well I guess I need advice on prep and paint, cause I'll be damned if I am gonna pay someone to do when I've gone this far.
So if anyone can offer some advice on what I need to do, what products to use and how I can go about prepping and priming my truck to paint ready status please let me know, or tell me if there are any web links or support where i can get some quality info ?
Thanks
cosmo1957

 

[phantom]

I had mine down to bare metal when I finished mine. I used a metal prep solution, (that is a must) then I primed with a lacquer based primer, wet sanded with 400 grit, to smooth it out then I used enamel reducer to clean the primer, then put color and clearcoat. It is a lot of work. The basemaker and color cost me over $116 a gallon about 10 years ago and the clear another $100 plus per gallon. It is probably doubled by now. I just had a pint of lacquer mixed for touch up and that was $43. 10K to 15K is absolutly outlandish. No way it should cost that much just to prep and paint. But like I said it is a lot of hard work. It takes mucho sanding and repriming to get a smooth finish. I thought I would never make it. If you still have any paint on it you should clean it with Prep-sol to remove all traces of wax etc. then it has to be feathered in to get a smoothe finish. I used all DuPont paint but PPG is good also. If I had it to do over I would use a really good enamel instead of the clearcoat. The only problem is that enamel dries slower and dust and grit is a problem.
phantom