most forgiving paint color for a first time sprayer

[baxtej44]

i want to spray my truck. family friend has a HVLP sprayer that from what i hear is pretty great quality.

he says he is not ready to paint a whole vehicle, he mostly uses for home use.

i want an honest rating of how hard it is to achieve a nice paint quality on your first time (i'm willing to do all the necessary prep and then some)



also, what's the most forgiving color? meaning that it won't show mistakes as easily.

 

[tempforce]

white or a light tan

 

[flyingbrick]

I'd say red or blue, white is hard without a paint booth (stuff getting in the paint = lots of wet sanding) gloss black is defiantly not your friend.

 

[nitrofan1]

Light colors hide imperfections. White. Dark colors show EVERYTHING.

 

[shane96ranger]

+1 on white or tan

 

[COPPERHEAD85]

White!

 

[crawlin91]

pepto pink, adds horsepower too

 

[Andres629]

Tan. Flat. Awesome.

 

[crawlin91]

yeah flat tan or army green black out the bumpers and grill

 

[sparkdic]

Believe it or not, if you are going to spray the vehicle with a gun and paint going with a flat finish isn't they easiest to spray and have the finish just right. The big thing is if you mess up its not as easy to touch up. Your best bet is to go with a single stage white, yellow, tan, or gray in a gloss finish. You can wet sand out runs, rough spots and what-nots and buff it out. And the those colors are very good for hiding less then wonderful body work. Good luck.

 

[baxtej44]

dang, wish it was the complete opposite so i could paint it satin black lol.


it won't be happening anytime soon, and may not even happen, but i was just wondering. thanks guys

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

i would go for the same silver color it has
i painted my bumpers and grille, they eneded up really great considering it was my first time painting with a paint gun. my cousin helped me out, he painted his first truck lately and it looks awesome, he used mono-coat tipe paint.

mono-coat paints are better for newbies, i followed that advice and it ended really good. the paint already comes with the clear coat, so its just spray and dry.

 

[baxtej44]

i would ultimately prefer black... but i actually wouldn't mind the silver it has now.. but i'd want to do it right... the only thing i'm really, and i can't emphasize the word really anymore right now, afraid of is that i know i can't grind all the way down to the bare metal because i will probably lose about 1/4-1/2 or more of my truck because of the rust that i'm SURE is there... i know they make all sorts of rust transformers that you can roll/spray on or whatever, but do they work that well? could i just put it over my current paint, and then primer and paint over it and be confident in knowing that my rust will not come back for at least 5 years?

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

no, the rust will make bubbles faster than 5 years
sand it, trust me its not that bad

 

[flamingx]

Metallics aren't good for first time sprayers especailly with an HVLP gun.
Silver is the worst, the main problems you could run into are 'tiger stripes' (light and dark stipes) or 'metallic slide' and wet sanding a metallic single stage colour is out of the question, 'cause by doing so you will be exposing the flake which will cause bright spots with no shine.

White, tan or light greys are really hard to see while spraying but hide imperfections, so if the paint job or bodywork isn't perfect nobody will notice.

Surprisingly, Gloss Black is the easiest colour to spray (to Spray). Most single stage black paints lay down really nice because it's a straight colour with no extra pigment in it for tinting, minimizing 'orange peel' and runs. And being so dark, you can see how it's going on. What makes it a bad choice for the first timer, is other factors, Gun setup, spray technique, dirt, quality of body work (these will affect any other colour as well, just on black it's more visable) As long as you use a Polyurethane paint you can always wet sand and polish.

As for the rust thing if you don't have access to a small sandblaster use a wire wheel to dig out as much rust as you can, than use short stand fibreglass or 'metalized' filler to fill the pits, that will give you 5 years or so. If you just paint over it, it will be back before the paint dries.