I'm thinking of rattle canning the lower part of my truck on my bed to prevent rust and spruce it up. Should I strip it to bare metal or just scuff really well? 2 coats of primer? 2-3 base and then clear? Behind the rear wheels the body is down to primer so I was thinking of just stripping it down, see photos. Duplicolor has color match paint, I was thinking of going that route. I've never done body work on a vehicle so any input would be great. I know it won't be tip top shape, but I still want it to look nice and any input would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

John

Sweet looking forward to seeing the progress.

Just some food for thought on the bed liner idea,  I am a cabinet maker/up-fitter for high end motor coaches and do deal with brand new chassis's from time to time and one thing I have noticed on the new Mercedes and Dodge sprinter cut aways is they use a Line-X or bed-liner type product on the lower panels and underside of the vehicle especially right behind the front tires.  That being said IMHO I feel it is better than paint for that part of the vehicle...   

wet paint, no clear, need to finish the back

 

Lookin good.

You plan on shooting a couple coats of color before you clear it?

All good advice, except I'm concerned about this new paint application not blending in well with the older paint...

Color is all on, no clear. Now I'm debating doing the entire side, couldn't look any worse than it is now.

 

 

Now you understand why body shops try to talk you into a complete paint job.

I would personally not do an entire panel with puff cans...too hard to get consistent even coats and it will be evident in the sun light.

Shoot! It might be time to invest in a gun. HVLP (high volume low pressure)? Just for color and clear? I can do touch up with primer rattle cans.

HVLP is the way to go...but if its your first go around I would be hesitant to encourage you to try it on a vehicle that you have high expectations of. Painting is an art, the prep is the most time consuming and difficult aspect of spraying a vehicle and every single imperfection WILL show up regardless of how many coats you apply and how good a job you do spraying. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, just beware the outcome most likely will not be as good as the factory paint.

I've sprayed a dozen or more cars over the years and am by no means an expert, but I learned enough to decide that spraying a bed liner around the bottom would produce better results for the reasons your finding out now...its dang hard to blend a panel in and have it look right. With the bed liner there is no blending, you run the mask line and go with it, and it still looks pretty good, but that's all a matter of personal preference.

Ya, I was thinking of bedliner but I like the factory red everywhere, and I'm getting black wheels and I didn't want black everywhere. It's in debate...

 

 

Back in high school doing auto body, we had a room dedicated to color matching. You would look up a paint code and, IIRC, could input the vehicle and it would estimate the paint fade,etc. Grabbed a paint can and put it on a scale then it would tell you what pigments to use and you would dispense it until the computer told you to stop. That was the hardest part. Wish it dispensed it for you.

I had a white car i had to paint one time, and believe it or not i had to use a green color like the color of mint. I had just a few drops too much in the mix and ruined the batch! Paint came out looking like Wintergreen gum..

Anyways,enough of my rambling. If your insistent on painting it yourself,practice on a panel of cardboard with your hvlp gun until you think you got it. Painting is something you need to practice alot before doing on a vehicle. Once that paint goes on, if it's not right, it can be a real pain to fix even the smallest flaws.

Trying to get some experience. I tried my tailgate with a rattle can as a test, and after 3 coats of color it's still patchy...Definitely time to invest in a gun and some quality paint with some thicker coats. My tailgate was in real rough shape and I didn't finish prep work, but I wanted to gauge painting larger areas with a spray can. Experienced advice was right again...

 

 

 

Primed, painted and cleared. Doesn't match that well but it's better than bare metal. Have to let it set up for a while then I'll buff it and try to blend it.

 

Not bad at all for what I see on my monitor.

From this...

 

to this!

 

The pictures make it look better than it is. There is some texture/orange peel going on, I didn't wet sand anything. But, better than it was. 

Still say you've done a good job restoring the body paint to a good level of appearance for a rattle can.