DIY roll on paint job - ever done it?

BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
Just exploring all of my options when it comes to painting my jeep. I consider it a beater (if you have seen the paint job it currently has you would understand). The current paint is chipping and flaking, and I don't really care about appearance, I just don't want to deal with rust. Anyway, on to my question, has anyone used a small roller and rolled on paint on the exterior of their vehicle? Looking for some tricks and pointers.
 
My wife and I rolled my CJ. We used rustoleom Hammered paint. Before it got beat up again, it looked pretty good. A very good durable $40 paint job. We liked it, don't much care what anyone^ thinks.
Used a paint brush to get into crevices that the roller wouldn't. Used a 4" roller other than that. Not much paint on the roller and a light touch keeps the lines out.
 
Never said it looked professional, just saying it don't look like shit. My Jeep is neither a DD or for that matter, even on the road much at all. I don't see spending a fortune on paint when it's most likely gonna get messed up trail riding.
 
upnover said:
I don't see spending a fortune on paint when it's most likely gonna get messed up trail riding.
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That is my thinking also.

I just ordered some John Deere Blitz Black tractor paint. It is supposed to hold up real well. We will see how rolling it on will do. If it turns out just plain awful, I am going to just roll the whole thing in bedliner.
 
easy there guy. 98% of all roll-on paint jobs are with standard flat paint. not a paint with a textured look. sure, a textured paint will look better. it doesn't have to lay on the body smooth.

if you can point me in the direction of a paint job done with a roller that looks half decent I'll change my answer. "hammered" finishes haven't been around forever. most paints used are either rustoleum or farm implement paint from Tractor Supply or some other enamel.

btw, that chip on your shoulder is mighty large.
 
I tried it.. and the issue i had was that there was a lot of wet sanding after coats to make it look smooth..

but from 10 feet it looked great.. but with all the wet sanding it was taking to long
 
BRUISER said:
I tried it.. and the issue i had was that there was a lot of wet sanding after coats to make it look smooth..
but from 10 feet it looked great.. but with all the wet sanding it was taking to long
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This going to be a super noob question (and probably one that shows I should NOT do it myself), but how do you do wet sanding? Is it simply using sand paper and water? :confused:
 
I rolled my an old chevy I have several years ago using tractor enamel and roller from wal mart. Only problem was Alot of trash was in it from the roller. But was decent looking for such a cheap paint job and very durable. And you can get matching colors in spray paint for touch up.
 
I spray bombed my junk. I like it. Its duplicolor from the parts store, something like ultra silver. If i had to do it again though i would just buy a cheapo sprayer and spray it. Either way you gonna have to prep it right and thats what takes the longest anyways.
 
I'm still not totally convinced but it looks better than some. Spraying is hands down the best way to go. I've seen amazing results with cheap rattlecans from Wal-mart. It dries faster and you can touch it up better too.
 
If I were to spray it, would a cheap electric sprayer be good enough?
 
orangecherokee said:
I'm still not totally convinced but it looks better than some. Spraying is hands down the best way to go. I've seen amazing results with cheap rattlecans from Wal-mart. It dries faster and you can touch it up better too.
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The one thing I will say about the roll-on stuff is that it seems to be more durable, or that durable stuff is easier to obtain.

I'm sure you can spray industrial enamels with a compressor setup, but I can't recall seeing any rattlecan stuff in bright colors that last as well as the roll on stuff.

I use the $1.00 matte black cans on all kinds of stuff though, that stuff is great the matte white does alright too. Makes headlight bezels and trim pieces look good.
 
One of my motorcycle roadracing buddies is a professional house painter ....he painted his race bike once with a really expensive (horse hair I think) brush...he used some sort of premium sherwin williams paint and it looked very good at 10 feet

we used to bust on him about it, but it did look pretty damn good. :)
 
There have been tons of articles on roll on paint jobs in hot rod magazines. They have had really good results. They also say to make it look good takes a ton of work and a lot of wet sanding.

I will agree that paint is all in the prep. I have seen really nice paint jobs come out of Earl Sheib. They do a 200 dollar paint job. The trick is to prep it yourself before you drop it off.

As far as painting yourself..... I would just buy a cheap harbor freight spray gun and shoot it. They sell duplicolor premixed paint at Auto Zone. The reducer and everything is already in it. You run it through a filter into the gun and spray it. Its only 20 a can. You can do a good single coat with one can. If you want it to look real good, shoot two coats and then some clear. All in all 60 bucks for paint and about 25 for a gun.
 
I dunno, I used a roller and rolled on black Hammered to a 4Runner top once. IMO it came out looking pretty damn good, I'll see if I can find some pics. The texture really hides imperfections in the surface well.
The key w/ that stuff is learning teh rolling technique so the texture works out. once you roll over a spot, you can't go back over it again until the next coat. It get's kind of tacky quickly while it's drying.

I've heard that if you take the can and mix w/ some thinner, it can be awesome sprayed though.

If you DO go the rattle can route, spend $4 on a plastic gun-style handle, they have them at Home Depot. Makes it sooooo much easier to shoot straight, and your fingers won't get all cramped up after 5 mins straight of holding the nossel down.
 
I rolled the white paint on the sleeper camper. Rustolum cut ~20%. I put on 5 coats and I think it needs one more to be really good. A good job will take 5-8 coats (or more). Each coat gets a little wet sanding followed with another thin coat. The thin coats allow the paint to flow out into the tiny low spots while the sanding knocks down the high spots. The paint takes some time to harden up unless you had in hardener into it. The suns UV sets it up.

IMHO it 100% depends on what your expectations are for the paint job.


wet sanding - ~800-1200 grit sand paper is typically a wet or dry sandpaper. The water helps keep the paper from clogging up with the fine particles that are sanded off.
 
I rolled black bedliner from walmart on my 78 F150 cab with a 4" roller and used a 1" brush to get into the cracks and around the trim that I didnt remove. $40 for a gallon and I have a quart left that i use for touch ups. I dont care what mine looks like either but it looks better now with a black cab and homemade bed than it did before since the cab was 4 shades of 70's ford truck brown and the bed was rusting away. There are still rust holes in the bottom of the doors, and not one body panel left on the cab is straight or rust free, but the neighbors dont complain about the junkyard over here anymore :)
 
RatLabGuy said:
If you DO go the rattle can route, spend $4 on a plastic gun-style handle, they have them at Home Depot. Makes it sooooo much easier to shoot straight, and your fingers won't get all cramped up after 5 mins straight of holding the nossel down.
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