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Guide Coat

PostPosted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:39 pm
by vegastre
Block that with 150, reshoot another gallon and block with 240, than 400. Reshoot 2 light coats, sand with 400 than 500 wet for single stage topcoats, 600 for base/clear topcoats.


Borrowed this quote from nutt on another thread:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=42045

He gives very good advice I should have followed on my paint job. It's very satisfying painting your car yourself if your up to the task. My paint job came out fine except I wound up with waves and depressions on almost every fender. Some worse than others to the point I'm going to reshoot the entire car. I blame most of this on not knowing how to utilize the guide coat and not using enough high build primer. I painted the car four years ago.

My question is how to apply a guide coat? The light coat spray can did not work worth a damn and the dusting material was almost worthless. I'm sure it was pilot error because constantly spaying on the guide coat and then sanding it off puts you into a trance after awhile.

The reason I ask is I might just have access to an empty abandoned body shop this winter for a couple of weeks and plan on blocking this car within a inch of its life.

Re: Guide Coat

PostPosted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 4:27 pm
by nutt
Back up a bit, if you've got a few dings and metal work over the entire panel, you'll first need to straighten the metal as good as you can fixing any high areas. If you've already done that successfully, then you need to swipe the entire panel with a thin spread of filler. Longboard that down to with 80grit, then finish it off with 150grit. Once the panel's straight, you're ready to shoot high build primer and start the blocking. After you've shot h/b primer, use "guide coat" to mist the panel with a light spray, let that sit for a few days, then start blocking. Be sure and use the real "guide coat" not just an aerosol paint. The actual guide coat will not clot your paper.

If you've got small depressions you can see in your finish paint, you likely have fixed each individual ding/dent and have a "wave" effect. This is why you need to swipe head to toe, front to back, and work the entire panel instead of each dent, 1 by 1.

First lesson in bodywork, don't move on to the next step to cover up the previous step.

Re: Guide Coat

PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:32 pm
by vegastre
Nutt, Very good info.

Steps I missed:

you need to swipe the entire panel with a thin spread of filler.


I was doing just small sections :oops:

Once the panel's straight, you're ready to shoot high build primer and start the blocking.


Not sure I was using a good high build primer :oops:

Be sure and use the real "guide coat" not just an aerosol paint. The actual guide coat will not clot your paper.


Right, I found this out the hard way :oops:

Overall the paint looks good except each panel has at least one flaw. I thought It wouldn't take much to repair these spots but it looks like I have a job on my hands. Let me ask this. The current paint is pretty good and I don't want to strip the car, so what would be the procedure from here? I plan on repainting the whole car minus the jams.