Just an unsolicited thought from another member... If you've been on the fence about the Premium membership, I'd encourage you to give it a try. I've been attending the weekly live calls for the past few weeks, and because there were so few members, I've often had Aaron all to myself for an hour. Those sessions have probably accelerated my learning more than anything else. Now that the membership is only $7/month, I honestly think it's one of the best values out there if you're serious about improving your skills. I'd love to see more people join the calls — not because anyone asked me to say this, but because I think hearing other people's questions, challenges, and experiences would make the discussions even more valuable for everyone. Hope to see some of you on a future call!

I am getting started on building my paint booth. It will be modular, 12 x 24 ft, with 6 x 8 ft panels that will be fastened together. I've got a 5000 cfm exhaust fan, and was planning to use it to blow air into a plywood plenum, through a dozen intake filters, and then exhaust out the other end through exhaust filters. This will be inside my 40x50 shop that has heat and AC. It will pull conditioned shop air in, but I am uncertain if it can be just be exhausted through the exhaust filters into the shop, or if I need to make it a negative pressure booth, pulling air out and exhausting it outside. I was thinking of using zipwalls to allow me to enter/exit, and also for the truck parts to enter and exit. I would sure appreciate any info/recommendations anyone to help me figure this all out.

A friend of mine on the other side of Finland is doing a nut-and-bolt restoration of an early ‘70s Opel Diplomat. He chose to paint the car with Tikkurila Temadur 90, an industrial 2K polyurethane that’s a single-stage silver metallic. He’s not happy with the result, mainly because of tiger striping. From what I’ve been able to find, he used a generic, inexpensive thinner that appears to have been a fast thinner. He also sprayed the car with a sub-$100 bottom-feed spray gun (probably not ideal! 🤣). He knows I’ve been trying to learn automotive painting and has invited me to respray the car. I plan to use an Iwata WS-400 Series 2.1 Clear gun with either a 1.3 HD or 1.4 HD setup. I’ll spray a number of test panels in my shop before driving over to paint the car. I’ve already picked up some slow thinner for the test panels, as I think it may help reduce tiger striping, especially since it’s a relatively large car. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I’ve only sprayed one complete car before, and that was more than 30 years ago. The doors will be installed, but the hood, trunk lid, and sunroof will be sprayed separately on stands.

While I have been working to learn autobody for several year’s now, this work is something I do at home and take great pleasure in doing. Finding a starting point was not easy to do as the pros in my corner of the world act as if this should be a secret with no newcomers allowed, so in-person conversations don’t happen. I am grateful to find forums and site like this to interact with and learn my mistakes from. This ford truck has been my first commitment to a full frame off restoration. This has been a 2-1/2yr endeavor to this point as all the work has been by my hand. If I could not purchase what I needed I fabricated it. I am very proud of this truck but I do realize that because I was so lacking in knowledge this paint job will eventually fail. After some time practicing the Chevy truck was the first time blending the hood into the fender for a color match. The bed was my first bed-liner spray. Thank you for opportunity to learn and a place to communicate with others learning. I am currently working a obs Chevy. I am taking this one to bare steel replacing the rusted areas or sanding out the rust then covering in epoxy for I start any filler work. I’m driven to step up my game on this one and do it properly.

Hi to all. I am beginner in the automotive painting world which I challenge my self to complete my project car and paint myself. I bought the Volkswagen Caddy with a light front collision damage which I replaced the front bumper, sidewings, hood and it’s a different colour which I need to paint it silver colour which I learned that is most difficult, but I don’t give up from this challenge and start to learning on Internet and on YouTube and recently joined this community to learn more about painting from the professionals like you and I hope I will get very good tips how to do my first painting job and I hope will be great. I bought the one cheap spray gun from Temu I believe is copy from DeVilbiss GTI pro lite with TE20 cap. I bought the silver colour and clearcoat. I try first paint on the damage hood. The paint come very rough, is feel like a sandpaper. I belive my paint mix was not so good as well the pressure setting was the problem. My second attempt was much better but still the base colour was more rough than the original. Is good I have test panels where I can learn and compare the colours.