Im sure this question has been asked before but a search didnt turn up the answer. How much paint is required to paint a C3? At several hundred a gallon I only want to buy enough that I need. Also I know SPI clear is the best clearcoat but some suggestions for brands would be appreciated. I was told by my nephew who paints he uses OMNI.

 

I just painted my '80. The paint guru at the automotive paint store we dealt with had us use a gallon of Clausen Rust Defender (which is a polyester primer) as the first layer over the bare glass. That was followed by another gallon of PPG primer, then I believe it was a quart of sealer, a gallon of PPG base and I believe a gallon of clear. Enough for three wet coats of clear which gave us enough thickness to safely color sand, polish and buff.

I believe I spent somewhere between $1000 and $1500 for all the paints, paint guns, reducers, hardeners, polishing pads and compounds, sand paper, masking paper, tape, and other necessary supplies which seem to go on endlessly. I really never added it up. In any event, it was the enormous amount of time and effort to pull off a good job that was the real expense.

The store's tech rep. was a self-described "Vettehead" who has painted numerous Vettes including his own and two of his dad's. He took a real interest in our project and came out to my shop where we did the work on a number of occasions to offer advice. He actually did some of the painting himself and supervised us on much of the painting that we did. I really got lucky connecting with him!

He told my helper and me that in his 20 years in the business he had NEVER seen first-time amateurs prepare a car as well as we did. He said it was much better than many professional shops. He went even further. He said he had never seen first-time amateurs get the final results as good as we did. We did our homework, learned how to avoid pitfalls, sweated all the details and worked our tails off for almost month on the disassembly, stripping, painting and reassembly.

I now have at least as good a paint job as I believe I could have gotten from anyone around here. I'm sure it didn't look this good brand new. After this I can certainly understand why one reputable shop said it would require a month and at least $10,000.00 for the job. I'm now looking forward to using it as my daily driver for hopefully many more years to come.

I hope this will be a help to you.

 

1 gallon epoxy primer, 1 gallon base, 1 gallon clear.
will be more than enough, some brands come premixed,
and some have to be mixed which will increase the overall quantity.
I choose SPI epoxy and clear, and am preparing to prime the car very soon.
69VETT

 

I just started stripping......yuck. Testing razor blades vs stripper......I was able to get the top coat of paint of with the blade but the primer is a drag. It is much tougher than the color.

 

What stripper?

 

I grabber some citrus based stuff at Ace. Im going to see if the stuff from Lowes is better.

 

I would recommend Citristip which I used. You can get at either Lowes or Home Depot. It worked great on my paint and unlike Kleenstrip for Fiberglass it did cut the primer on my car. You do have to give it a little help to dissolve the primer by working it in with some #1 steel wool. Then scrape off as much of the goo as you can with a Bondo scraper and clean up the remainder with paper towels and Lacquer thinner.

Citristrip doesn't have unsafe fumes and from my experience and from the experience of others on this forum does not seem to be dangerous to the fiberglass.

I would NOT recommend it on the rubber bumpers though. For them I used an aerosol spray stripper made to strip urethane. It will not go through the primer either but it gets the paint off quickly. Urethane soaks up solvents so its good not to use any more than you have to. The primer on the urethane can then be sanded off. If you do use any stripper or solvents on the bumpers strip them on the car to keep them from warping AND tape the seams where they join fiberglass to keep stripper out of the crack where it could leak in and cause damage if it stayed too long. The seams can later be sanded down to remove the bit of paint and primer left under the tape. After stripping thoroughly wash the bumper with whatever the manufacturer recommends to remove any that remains and allow any solvents that may have soaked in to dry out for a number of days before applying any primer.

Frankly, as much trouble as the bumpers on my '80 were to strip, if you can swing it, consider just buying new bumper covers. If yours are not in the best shape (as many aren't on C3's after all these years) they may fall apart in a few years anyway. At that point you will have to spend the $$ for the bumpers AND have to repaint. Unfortunately if you have a rubber bumper car it's a bit of a "pay me now or pay me later" situation.

 

I have the front bumper off. I am removing the rear also. I wont fit them till completed and ready for paint. I have purchased the front and I found a local shop that has the rear. Wish I knew they carried this stuff before I ordered. I bought from Willcox which I like, but I could have avoided shipping costs by going to J and D Corvettes in the first place. I am going to get some steel wool today and laquer thinner on the way from work. I'll report the results. Thanks for your time and input. It has been helpful

 

It was the extremely slow process of removing the primer (that the Kleenstrip didn't touch) using steel wool and lacquer thinner that drove me to search for and find the Citristrip alternative which worked much better with the steel wool than did the lacquer thinner.

That being said, I was using ACE brand lacquer thinner at the time and had I thought to try a better grade from a paint store it might have worked much better. The guy down the road who has a Vette shop and paints them uses lacquer thinner and steel wool to get the primer off. I forgot to ask him what brand he uses. I know from experience in my own business that the ACE brand doesn't work as well as others in certain situations. It used to be good but they changed the formulation a few years ago and we had to shop around to get a replacement that met our needs.

So, if you get the right lacquer thinner it might work great. Let me know if you do and what brand if you would. I'm always curious.

 

Well I loaded up with razor blades and went at it full bore. I got the driver side quarter done. I put citristrip on it for overnight and will wash with lacquer thinner and steel wool tomorrow. I'll post a pic. I'm hurting now from all that work..... You have been helpful. I didn't think I had the ***** to do it but I'm knee deep now

 

At the risk of sounding like a notorious politician I'll say it... I feel your pain. While I don't have any reason to believe that Citristrip will hurt your fiberglass allowing anything to soak into the fiberglass may present adhesion problems with your primer in the future.

So, I realize that I am perhaps being overly cautious but just to be safe don't leave anything to soak in overnight or for any longer than you have to. Get it on and get it off. Work in smaller sections, say 2X2. In my case Citristrip loosened both paint and primer in about 10-15 minutes if the temp was over 65. Waiting longer gave no advantage, so get it on and get it off.

If you are using it to remove paint I found I had to put on a thick enough coat to hydrate all the paint down to the primer. So I was generous with it on the paint. If I skimped in the thickness it made the job harder. If I put it on thick enough, all the paint down to the primer just turned to a liquid goo that was easy to remove with a Bondo scraper. Please note that Citristrip will NOT bubble your paint like other strippers. So don't think it isn't working if you don't see it blistering up. Just put it on nice and thick and give it just enough time to soak down to the primer.

You won't be able to tell it has softened the primer until you give it a trial scrub with the steel wool. Again you could give it 10 minutes but because the primer is so thin you might not have to even wait that long. Because you are using the mechanical action of the steel wool along with the chemical action of the stripper you don't need more than a light coat of Citristrip to keep things lubricated when removing the primer. After the primer was all smeared around we used paper towels to just wipe it off of the the surface. We went through lots of them. Then we washed the surface with lacquer thinner. I found that by not using more stripper than necessary on the primer I reduced the mess and still got it off just as well. I kept a bucket with some lacquer thinner beside me to rinse out the steel wool when the goo built up too thick.

After stripping wash the surface off with lacquer thinner per the directions on the bottle. I washed and scrubbed the whole car quite thoroughly with Ivory dish detergent and water a couple of times prior to the first coat of primer. I did this to make sure I removed all the solvents I could that might still be present in the fiberglass.

 

I used the razor blades down to primer, then blocked the primer down,
prepareing to spray Epoxy now.
I was just too afraid of contaminating the surface,
to use stripper, ..... so I feel your pain too ! 69VETT

 

The way Im doing the scraping its best for me to get all the way to the panel. Also previous paint was done poorly so I want it to look as nice as possible before I get to sealing and prime. It was done by Corvettes Only in Colorado. Im suprised that a Corvette specialty shop would have such poor quality. I'll post some pics tonight of my progress. Thanks for the help guys

 

BADBIRDCAGE recommended we use Scotchbrite pads and Soft Scrub to remove the red oxide primer on the '64. It works great and won't harm the glass in any way. Whole lot safer than solvents

 

I found that the best method of stripping it down to the bare glass is using a razor blade and heat gun. I have the same problem you are having and the heat gun did the trick. It will even soften the body filler used so be prepared. It just takes time but it works better than anything I tried. Another option is to use a DA sander if you have a big enough compressor to handle it.

 

Some local professional painters warned us to stay away from the DA sander approach as tempting as it might be. While that's what they use to strip a vette, even they admit that as experienced and careful as they are they wind up with surface irregularities and said they wind up having to "bondo" the whole car and block sand.

For that reason and because the guy who owns the local Vette shop chemically strips his jobs I chose to go the chemical route.

Because we did we probably saved a whole bunch of time on an already arduous task and wound up with a very nice job.

 

Well here's the update. I have been stripping with citrus strip and razors. Read a bunch of stories about those that have done it in 3 hours,,yada yada. For me..its days. It has worked pretty good. I have heard some bad things about its properties with SMC so I am ordering Captain Lee's. I think I will be doing some deep cleaning to the areas I have already stripped to avoid contamination. They say it will make the surface"sticky" due to contamination. Fortunately I dont see that. I got it down to the primer and scrubbed with scotchbrite and water thru everything else to get to the bottom. The panels feel like clay and look pretty good. EXCEPT...the bonding strip. It appears as if Bubba was here. I found a post in relation to bonding and may pull it apart if I dont feel comfortable with continuing on. Thats a whole new class I will have to explore on this forum. In the mean time...As the Beatles said,........IVE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS.
But Im not gonna give up till its done or Im dead

 

i can peel a car with blades and my heat gun in less time than it takes to clean up the mess stripper makes. heat will soften the paint just like the stripper does . if you ever have a failure due to stripper you will understand. 1200 in supplies and 120 hrs of work shot to hell is a risk i wont take. we were told in the early 70's to stop chem stripping cars .

if the paint is hard to get off take smaller bites. some places you just get 1/4 in strips but they will come off. never gouge straight at it. 45 degrees and never more than half the blade. take long thin strips off.

 

Man thats sweet. No mess no contamination. WOW. Bought a cheepie 25 dollar heat gun. Taking it back to get something better as it works good. Hopefully a hotter gun will even speed it more.... Thanks.

 

I used a cheap heat gun(Oreily's) that I paid about $25 for. It had 2 settings and I always used the lower one. I burned enough skin on that setting to do me for a while. It will do the trick but take your time and remember, it is going to soften up the body filler too. Be sure you are using a long handle blade holder too. Good luck.