Hello all,

I was looking to see if anyone had any opinions on painting my truck. It's a '95 XL and the paint is beginning to fade away pretty bad on the top of the cab and the hood. I'm stuck between getting a quote from a local paint shop or buying the set color of my truck myself in spray cans--as well as primer, clearcoat, what have you--and doing it myself when the weather warms.

Ironically, my junkyard has a hood the same color as my truck, and it is in much better condition.

What are everyone’s opinions on this? If I were to paint it myself, I would certainly wait until it got warmer. However, if the cost to just get the top of the cab on my truck painted professionally, I may just go that route. Let me know what you guys think.

 

I painted my van using rattle cans. The krylon dual paint and primer. As long as you sand before hand it works pretty good. The clear coat helps too. Good luck on whichever route you choose

 

My F-150 is rattle canned. Doesn't look bad at all except the hood and roof, for some reason when I put the rubbing compound to it (with a power buffer) it made the paint fade. I'll have to sand these down and re-paint.

The key is to prep the truck just like you would for a "real" paint job. Sand the gloss out of the factory paint, primer where you had to take it to bare metal, remove whatever you can from the body, mask off door jamb labels, etc. Take your time. Prep is the most important step and is what you'll spend most of your time doing.

After a few days of curing, I hit my new paint with compound, then waxed it.

Nobody has laughed at me yet (after they saw the truck), or asked if I spray bombed it (if I didn't tell them). I chose this method because this is a daily driver and play truck and I see no point in spending the money on a pro paint job when I'm the kinda guy that doesn't care about all them branches scraping down the sides when navigating a tight trail in the woods. Now if anything gets scratched up, I can repaint it with ease.
I need to get a good compressor, and maybe one day I'll get a good paint gun setup as well and do it again. Don't have either of those things at the moment, although I don't doubt that I could have just fired the truck up and used the air system to run a paint gun.

 

Thank you both for that answer. I think I know what I'm going to do. As you said, it seems a better route to do a decent job yourself. I'll get some custom paint made for myself and proceed with the job once it gets warmer.

Dixie460, your comment was especially reassuring, again thank you.

 

How many cans of paint did you use to paint the whole truck or van?

I wonder if there is a difference between the cost of cans + time spent with a sore index finger vs getting a local place to do a $200 - $300 paint job with a booth.

 

Another option is the Tremclad or Rustoleum roll on paint jobs. I've never done it myself, but there is plenty of info online if you do a quick Google search.

The basic jist is you thin out the paint (make sure it's oil based) with mineral spirits and the paint self levels. Do multiple thin layers with increasing grit count of wet sanding in between coats. In the end you should have a nice smooth paint job that's inexpensive on the material side, but takes a lot of manual labour to complete.

 

You're welcome

Hmm... I wanna say it was about 4 six pack cases of paint to do everything. At $3.92/can that's $94.08. Not including the inside of the bed, but that's cheap generic paint at $0.92/can. Plus sandpaper, 1 can of primer, and beer... just over $100 I'd say.

Sore finger not a problem, the Krylon cans have a nice fat button on top that really doesn't require much force to push. And if it was a problem for me, I'd have just gone and picked up one of them fancy spray pistol-grip spray can adapters.

I considered the roll-on method but decided not to. I'll likely try that on the next truck I buy. If it comes out real good, I might even do it to my current truck as well.

As for paying someone to do it... well if I hired a shop to do it then I'd also be out the cost of a tow bill to/from, because any shop that'll paint for $2-300 is obviously expecting you to do your own prep work. Also, then I'd have to buy touch-up paint from them. Why bother when I can just grab a can at the store?

 

You can also spray it with a gun, which is exactly what I did last October. I replaced the bed, cab corners, floor pans, rear bumper, and driverside front fender and shot it all with Rustoleum products (via a gun, not rattle cans). Rustoleum gloss white is a very close match to the stock white on the rest of the body.

Before:




After: Finish shown is as shot from the gun, before final wet-sanding and polishing (it was wet-sanded between each coat however).

 

Crap... duplicate post

 

White Max,

That looks awesome! Did you just set up drop sheets in your garage or some other setup to paint in? I'd love to do one of these paint jobs to my truck.

 

Thanks. I set up a temporary "booth" in one of the bays over at my shop. I sheeted the walls/ceiling, set up a filtered air inlet, and used a big HVAC "squirrel cage" blower as a means of exhaust. I set the bed on a stand with casters and had it completely finished before starting the work on the cab to minimize down time. The goal here was inexpensive, presentable, rust protection, done as quickly as possible. All in all, the truck was out of commission for three weekends.

I've since polished out the driverside front fender, but I've yet to get around to doing the cab corners and bed.

 

I used roughly 10 cans total. And at $5 a can it was around $50. And I did 3 good coats. My finger held up pretty well but I have young fingers. They make a trigger thing for rattle cans if you don't want a sore finger. I laid my van on its side and the paint held quite well.

 

LOL, I hope I'm reading this wrong.

 

Doesnt matter how good of a job you think you do with a rattle can, you can always tell...much better to buy some single stage acrylic enamel and shoot it that way. I mean its up to you in the end and your the one gonna have to live with the truck, if you don't mind seeing blotched paint down the side of the bed or on the hood, then rattlecan is fine. I guess it depends on what your gonna use the truck for.

 

I don't know, I have seen some really good rattle can painting. If it's done right you can't tell it was done with a rattle can.