DIY Custom Paint Tips - How To Lay Out and Airbrush Flames or Graphics on Car

have you ever wondered how to layout graphics when you're not painting the car you have to sand the surface do you have to re clear you have to completely repaint the the car you're working on this is Donnie Smith and in this video we're going to show you how yes Donna Smith in this video I'm going to show you how to lay graphics on something that has already been painted for example you're not in the process of painting it you just want to lay down some stripes some flames or you know whatever graphic it is and you want to know the steps because there are a lot of questions about this you know do I have to sand the surface to have to repaint the surface what are the steps to take so this video is going to going to cover the basic steps so this is a video I made a while back however the audio was horrible I am talking in this video but I had to do a voiceover because there was buffers and da's and Sanders in the background it's very hard to to understand what I say and I had a lot of comments on that so I'm redoing this video with this voiceover so that you can kind of understand I'll kind of narrate the process but anyway the first step that I'm doing here and I'm demonstrating is that you always want to wash the surface with soap and water want to make sure that you're working on a clean surface to get rid of all the silicones and other contaminants because that can lead to a lot of the paint problems that we have so we wash it with soap and water and I have a pressure washer here that I'm using and you know realize you may not have one of these at your house so you know you don't have to use a pressure washer you can just use a hose to rinse it off real good but you want to wash it good and you want to rinse it good just to make sure all that's off then once we have it washed and rinsed off I'm going to use a some compressed air to dry it off really good and make sure all the water is off before I continue some using air here just blowing it off kind of speed up the process you could let it air dry if you know it's going to take longer and this also helps remove any dust that may be hiding in crevices once I got it blew off real good with air I'm going to use some wax and grease remover and this is just to assure that all traces of silicones and waxes and any other type of kinetic contaminants is off of the panel that I'm going to be working on and these steps can be followed for you know one panel that you're working on two three the front end you know or the entire car you know before you put your graphics on so I'm getting it clean that's the key that's the first step is to make sure you're working with a clean surface now what I'm talking about in the video I'm just pointing out a few you know imperfections you know we're assuming this is a brand-new panel or you know painted some very good condition because that's what the questions are about we're not going to be repainting this panel the complete panel there are a few chips that I've pointed out here but we're not going to be so concerned with this it's just a test panel that we're doing demonstrating how to do this now the way we normally do this is to use a DA sander and we'll sand the surface with 800 grit we are going to sand the entire surface but we're not going to paint the entire surface once it's sanded we'll lay down our graphics and then we will apply clear coat over the entire panel now when using a DA you want this interface pad and I'm using 800 grit paper to sand the surface you want to be real careful around your edges not to sand or burn through your edges because if you do there may only be clear clear coat there if you do that you may have to repaint again I realize everybody might not have a DA and in all that at home so I'm demonstrating this video how to do it with just a regular wet or dry sandpaper I'm folding the sandpaper up into thirds and I'm going to sand the entire surface now I'm using thousand grit sandpaper to sand the surface want to get the wash bucket that I was using get the sponge just to allow some water you want to keep it a lot of water so it lubricates real good if there's any dirt you know wash it off they showed their I had my fingers pushing down the sandpaper you do not want to do that or that might leave little prints where you did that you want to use the flat of your hand and go over the entire surface and again with sandpaper just like with the da be careful around your edges because that's where the paint and clear is going to say in the fastest we don't want to bust through the clear coat anywhere we're just wanting to rough it up a little bit so that the graphics and the clear coat will adhere properly now I've got the entire surface sanded with the sandpaper and I always go over it with a scotch brite make sure it's a gray one not a red one because that would as2 course and you'll see the scratches through the clear but I'll get a gray one and go around the edges really good and go ahead and go around the entire panel just to sure that you know everything is scuffed up properly and you know that the everything is going to stick well someone go around the entire panel with this grey scuff pad now I've got the panel completely sanded and scuffed now I'm just going to get the pressure washer or water hose whatever you have and rinse it off real good make sure all that residues off and in to make sure it's super clean okay now we've got it in the booth we've got it cleaned we have a wipe down with wax and grease remover again to share everything is cleaning now we're going to start taping and now I've got some mrs. fineline tape there's different companies that make it I usually use 3m and also here I'm showing some different type some different method used this is a paper that has a adhesion on one side it'll stick to the panel and you can draw your artwork on there and cut it out this comes in different widths that's one way but I'm just going to be using tape for this demonstration I'm going to lay the want to do some flames and keep in mind I'm just demonstrating this to show the steps didn't spend a lot of time really laying out flames and just kind of going through the steps one thing when laying out this tape it's kind of like an electrical tape if you stretch it it's going to shrink back so you do need to pull it tight a little bit be careful pulling the tape too tight when you're making your curves and corners because if you do it's going to shrink back and your corners are going to lift so don't pull the tape too tight or else you'll have areas around your corners where paint will end up seeping through where it lifts it out another thing when I'm asking if you don't like the way it looks you can always pull it off and start over and another thing I'm talking about here is you got to remember what's being painted by this outline that you kind of look at you kind of start thinking about the outside because that's what you see but you've everything on the inside of that edge will actually be the flame so you know you need to keep that in mind or that can get a little confusing but just keep in mind that it's going to be everything inside of that line you and again I'm just laying out these stripes just as a quick demonstration someone that lays stripes out every day that is really good at this you know they can do this really fast but you know if not you know if you're not someone that does it every day you can still do it just going to take some time you may have to peel the tape up and redo it a couple of times and believe me I'm not that artistic you know this is a you know I'm not real good at doing a lot of graphics like this you know especially when it comes to airbrushed and freehand and things like that so but you know you know if I can do it anybody can because I'm really not that artistic when it comes to this type of work and it may not be till you get it laid out see how it looks that's when you might need to do a little bit of tweaking you know pull some of your tape and readjust it so that you know you get it the way you like it again I don't do this every day and if you do you probably don't have to do this but you know you can you know just let you know that you can do this if you get it laid out and think man I really don't like the way that looks well go ahead and just a little bit I mean this is a you know this paint that flame or whatever graphic you're doing it's going to be permanent so go ahead and make sure that it's exactly the way you want it you can I've got it outlined and got it the way I want it and now I'm going to continue masking this off now I'm going to use some masking tape this is inch-and-a-half masking tape now I'm just going to basically outline the fine line that I've laid down I'm going to go around it make sure everything is covered this is where you want to make sure that there's no tiny little gaps in between the the blue masking tape and the masking tape you're putting on because if there is you know some paint might get on it so anyway I went and outlined all that with masking tape and now I'm going to put some masking paper to further mask that off so I'm basically just a you know mask around that with some paper again go around all your edges as you're masking make sure there's no gaps shouldn't have paint on it exposed this is where all the time you know it's time-consuming this is what makes a you know either a good or bad paint job look good there's a little specks paint in there and I'll show you how we can take care of it if there is here in a little bit but spend some extra time masking now we've got it masked off and one tack it off and every time you tag be sure and fold your tack cloth all the way out make a puffy little ball out of it and that'll be a lot better that'll help eliminate all the residues from you know getting on the paint surface now I'm going to lightly wipe down you know where I'm going to spray this flame area there's a lot of different ways to spray flames in this video I'm just using an airbrush and I'm just going to kind of go around the edges and kind of go from there I'm using a waterborne paint and again I didn't spend a lot of time you know with the colors and things like that it's just a kind of the steps of how to do it I had some yellow and some orange and I'm going to use that on this but again if this was an actual job you know I'd probably spend a little more time with the actual layout of the flame and you know with the colors and you can see right there in that corner right there I kind of messed up a little bit the flame kind of comes up above the outline a little bit and that is a good thing about airbrushing just about anything can be fixed and like I mentioned a minute ago you know if I can do this anybody can do this and then a good thing and what this video is for is people that really are artistic there's a lot of people out there that are awesome with airbrush they're awesome with a you know art and they could really do some cool freehand things but they don't have the knowledge of how to get it on a car you know how will be a good quality job not peel or flake off and this video is just kind of to to help those type of people out that have the artistic ability but they don't have the knowledge of how to sand it and prep it and clearcoat it and things like that so I'll put a coat on I'll let it dry then we'll come back and put another coat on now I'm gonna start back with a second coat I'm just going to kind of build up on what I had hitting the edges real heavy and kind of outline what I have there okay now grab some orange I'm going to kind of go around some edges it's important just kind of blend that in and again if you're real artistic you know you can do a lot better job with this part of it you know I'm just kind of demonstrating that the parts I didn't put a lot of thought into you know the colors and design itself anyway I kind of went around some of the edges with orange now I don't want to get too in-depth this I mean you can put shadows and highlights there's a lot of things you can do to Guinness videos not for that part of it so I'm going to just call that good I'm going to unmask this and then go to the clearcoat stages now we have a panel the entire panels been sanded with 1000 grit wet or dry the graphics has been applied on top of that sanded surface and now we're ready to go ahead and clear coat now we're going to clear coat the entire surface so if you're doing this to one door or two doors or front in our whole car these same steps be followed now normally when I cleared a lot of my videos you know it says too full wet coats anytime I'm laying stripes or graphics the first coat always put a light coat on this is a tack coat this is just kind of a bridge over the lines or you know where the graphic may be so that doesn't run or have a sag lip there so I'll put a tack coat on and then once the tack coat is on is on then I will apply my two to full wet coats and if you're going to be doing a lot of sanding and buffing you may apply more clear to give you more clear to sand and buff but this is my first coat I'm applying I'm applying it and notice that you know I'm going all the way across the panel not just a graphic Here I am clear covering the entire panel you now I'm applying my second full wet coat this is my final coat I'm going to apply it then the panel will be completed and that will be hey do it and then you could sand and buff it out if you would like and again if you're going to be doing a lot of sanding and buffing you know you may want to put a third coat on just for that extra film thickness that print will wraps up this video and again this is basically just the steps of how to do it and hope this video is helpful and if you like this video be sure and share it with your friends and so here's a quick recap of the steps to follow first make sure you're working with a clean panel to do that wash it with soap and water then you can air dry it to speed it up and also that to get risks on the dirt that may be hiding in the crevices then you're going to wipe it wax and grease remover to make sure all the wax and greases contaminants silicones is off the panel then you're going to use some thousand grit wet or dry to sand the entire panel because we're going to clear coat the entire panel so sand it all with 1000 grit and then use a breakup pad to go around the edges to make sure everything is stuff properly then rinse it back off make sure it's good and clean then you can start your masking process first use your fine line it comes in quarter inch and an eighth inch you know to lay out your graphics and also got the different types of methods to use but this one outlining with tape so once you have your outline masked the way you like it then you come back and apply 3/4 to inch and a half to finish masking off the surface that you don't want to get paint on once that's done use some masking paper to can you know continue masking it off to make sure that paint don't get on the surfaces that you don't want paint on once masked off you can do your airbrush work or spray you know with a spray gun or whatever method you're using once correct the graphic work is done and mask everything and then apply one tack coat to help bridge over any lines that you may have from the different layers of paint and then apply to full wet coats you're going to be a lot doing a lot of sanding and buffing you know you might apply another coat so that pretty well wraps up the steps except for buffing you know you may want to buff when you're done after it's right but that pretty well wraps it up and again thanks for watching and we'll talk to you next time

Channel: Car Addict Garage

Views: 634,711

Rating: 4.5195441 out of 5

Keywords: diy custom paint tips, diy custom paint, flames, collisionblast.com, DIY, do it yourself, graphics, how to, cars, repair, paint, refinish, body work, body repair auto body, Automobile (Industry), Painting, Drawing, Artist, stripes, donnie smith, butlercollision, learnautobody.com, Fire, Design, muscle car, airbrush, art work, reality tv, tv show, video, youtube, tutorial, training, basic, John Kosmoski, house of kolor, hot rod, restoration, hobby

Id: 9tVfhl46Jog

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 18 2012