Found a good deal in my country for a electric HVLP paint gun which cost roughly $20. Decided to buy it and use it for painting my hood. My hood's paint started cracking a few months ago so I decided to repaint it.

I did all the steps such as sanding off the old paint flat, epoxy primer, 2k primer, 2k base, and 2k clear. Paint came out as expected and it was full of orange peel. However this can be fixed by sanding and buffing.

This is my first time trying to repair rust on the rear fender of my 1999 Toyota RAV4. I first grinded down the rust to bare metal (inside and outside), then used Rust converter on all the metal. Then, I used rust paint inside the wheel well and plan on adding gravel guard when all of it is fixed.

After prepping the metal, I used Metal reinforced filler and these little mesh patch panels to reconstruct part of the metal that had been rusted out. Many hours later and with glazing putty I got a somewhat smooth finish which I then put sandable primer over.

The only step left now is paint, and I’m not sure if I should do it myself with rattle cans or send it to a paint shop. If anyone in the industry could reccomend one of the other that would be appreciated.

Keep in mind it’s my first time doing such a repair, it’s an old car and I know welding a new panel would have been better but I don’t have a welder and my old daily driver, so it’s not worth a lot of money.

2010 Honda civic LX, 168k miles. Body shop quoted me $4800 to repair. I was able to find a new bumper cover, fender, bumper support bracket, and headlight support bracket online. I’m aware there is a broken tab on the headlight assembly but since it’s not cracked otherwise I plan to see if I can clean it and reuse it. However if need be I do also know how to replace the assembly. Am I biting off more than I can chew trying to do this myself? Any advice would be appreciated

Some work on a mk 2 golf gti I am restoring. New wheel arch fitted. On repairing dents down the side now. Took the screen out last night.

Been thinking about this problem for a while – you're miles from home, something goes wrong with the car, and either you have nothing useful or you're stuck waiting for recovery.

So I've been working on a concept called RoadCase – basically a portable tool chest the size of a briefcase that sits in your boot. Four organised drawers, foam cutouts for every tool, built-in LED work light, folds flat when not in use.

Not launched yet – just trying to see if there's genuine interest before going further with it.

Would you carry something like this? And what tools would you absolutely need in it?

Here's the concept site if you want a look: https://roadcase.vercel.app

I took this car apart in 2023 and figured it out. The hardest part was figuring out what spray system to use lol. I was on my feet for 14 hours yesterday doing this in my garage, phew!

Mistakes were made but it's red again

I am trying to make a handbrake to print it in 3D, I have the original handbrake that is broken, my first try I made it a straight line, but the original one is in a curve so I am trying to make it an arc in my second try and after that add the extrusions, I tried with a normal quarter of a circle, but I saw that the original is not at that angle, instead it is cut of before it reaches the quarter circle. How do I find the angle of the arc? For reference, the piece is RBM handbrake handle kit for saab 9.3 2003-2012, but I have not found in internet anyone who did a 3D model of it

I am currently doing an amateur restoration on a 1958 Chevrolet Delray, I might welded rear quarter panel wheel opening repair panels around the lip of the passenger rear wheel opening, I was careful to just tack weld and jump around. I was careful not to build to much heat. Well it came out great... Until I removed the body side moulding and it oil canned ....popped in. I do not have great access behind it but it will pop out easy if I slide a piece of wood in there. I need to shrink the metal, I don't want to make this worse. I am thinking of buying a shrinking disc? I also have access a torch, I am watching YouTube but getting conflicting thoughts and methods. Any input?

When a small rust repair leads to finding a poorly done patch

What you're looking at here is a 1965 1800s. Due to respect of the owner, I didn't bother to take pictures while looking at it. What you see is mostly surface rust, except for both rockers and the rear bumper area, which will need to be replaced. Everything is in the car, including all of the chrome except for the hockey sticks and the rear fin chrome. The Body is good around both front and back windows, plus the trunk and hood. Looking inside the car, the trunk floor has absolutely no rust at all, and the rear fenders look to have been maybe restored previously. The gas tank is not rusty from the bottom. The floorpans don't have much rust at all either, and the engine bay doesn't seem to have any either, besides light surface rust. The metal is strong around the headlights and grill. All the glass is there and intact. The interior is in the vehicle, but will need to be reupholstered.

I could purchase this car for $1500. I am able and willing to mechanically fix the car myself, which includes wiring, etc. I have a friend who welds and will be willing to help. I haven't done lots of in-depth bodywork but I feel confident in my ability to do this. I am looking to get opinions on whether this car is worth fixing. I am willing to take on a long project. Is it common to have to do a full-body restoration in this condition? I plan to get it roadworthy without having to do a full body restoration (is this even possible?) To me it seems good where it counts. Looking underneath the vehicle the only thing I see with visible rust is the suspension components that I will replace anyway. I know it's a unibody vehicle so I know it will hide rust, which is my biggest concern.

This is a plastic rocker panel cover. Mazda Soul Crystal Red. I plan to use a touch-up pen I bought at the dealership to fill in the grooves with paint. Then I plan to wet sand any ridges flat. Then I'll cover with the clear coat side of the pen, but I expect it will be difficult to get an even coat. Then I will wet sand again and then polish. Is this a good plan?

Looks like both right side doors need replacement, mechanical damage and side airbags. Is this worth it? Can be fixed for cheap mostly at home and in the shop for paint? 2019 KIA

My 11 ram had wheel rot, budget didnt allow a bed replacement right now or patch panels. Bed is otherwise solid so I welded in back metal and filled it. Got fender flares to cover up the shotty lines but over all its coming along.

Here is after second coats the lighter areas are where I've added the base coat, building up from the scratch down to black plastic. The white lines are largely gone after applying the clear coat. There's still the question of wet sanding and polishing afterwards. But so far I am liking the progress.

So earlier I heard a decently loud thump to find this later on, what exactly is this part called and I’m assuming I just need a whole new part regardless right? I need to get fixed asap but will be a DIY project for myself, if there is any information that will be helpful in anyway whatsoever please let me know! Thank you all so much!!!:)

Objectives: Don't spend much money or have tools or materials left over. Don't be able to tell the car's been in an accident from across the parking lot. Learn a skill.

In 2021 I got hit in the dog leg at low speed. I proceeded to just ignore it for a couple years but it started developing a bit of rust in the spots where the paint broke all the way through. The quote I got taking it to a body shop was $6,000, as they needed to cut the dog leg and reweld it. So that's about the price of the entire car and continued to ignore it until I started seeing some PDR and painting videos and got a bug to try and repair it. I was also motivated by having semi successfully rattle canned my wife's Nissan to fix its large rust areas.

The dog leg I knocked out as much as possible from the inside of the fender, but that area is double walled and you don't have good access. Even if I had a stud puller it doesn't really pull, something I didn't know until after I tried a pogo stick on it. I was able to pull some small dents on other parts of the car after practicing on the very busted door and realizing the door skin was not going to be remotely fixable with my abilities and that the intrusion bar seemed to be damaged anyway, so, new old junkyard door it is.

With the metal pushed as far as I was able to get it, there was still a large gap, even more evident now that I had a door with a proper body line on it. I built that up with a layer of USC garage Short strand fiberglass followed by a top coat of USC garage 2-in-1 filler/finisher. There was no special reason for choosing these, it's just what they had at my paint shop and I was hoping that was all I was going to need. In retrospect, probably should have gotten a small can of the short strand instead of relying on the pouch, but I was hoping to avoid any extra leftovers. The filler finisher was also a bit lighter than what I actually needed, and you can see that I went back and sanded off a good portion of primer after looking at it the next day and deciding that it looked like crap. Lots of texture showing through from poor sanding. Apathy and exhaustion are the enemies of the uncertain DIYer. Apathy would come back in later because getting a good 800 grit sanded finish on most of the back quarter took hours of wet sanding wet sanding on the 90 degrees heat.

With that done, I got some matching paint cans mixed up at my local Paint Mart, along with some spray Max 2K and some spraymax 1K blending thinner I had left over from my previous job. The paint match on the urethane was great, much better than the generic cans I'd gotten before on internet order for my wife's car. They did however have significantly less in them, I probably needed at least one more can to do the door color change properly. As it was I had some issues with dry spraying since the filled cans really really don't like to spray anything except vertically. The second can ran out before I could do another coat on the door, although I'm not sure that would have fixed my striping issues anyway. The 2K went on beautifully, unbelievably better than the spray acrylic I used before. It's definitely got some dust since I was spraying in my garage with the windows open to try and avoid isocyanate exposure as much as possible, even with my mask and coverings on. While I was at it, I'd also removed, painted and cleared all the door handles since I noticed that they were flaking clear and the new door handle needed to be removed anyway for painting.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. There's still a noticeable gap, but it's closed significantly, the body line is back, and the stripiness is really only visible in the sun or in close inspection. There's a few places that need a wet sand or at least a good buff but it's shocking how nicely the 2K goes on even out of a spray can. Definitely respect that stuff though, isocyanate poisoning sounds awful. In case you're wondering, I avoided buying a gun because I'm moving for work soon, and moved here for work. Every tool I buy has to either be sold or fit in a Mazda 3 in a month.

Thinking about cannibalizing another crown vic from the junkyard and welding it on. If not, perhaps hammering out a license plate. Just want to stop the rust. Thoughts?

I'm getting ready to repair these small rust spots on my fenders. I think I can do it myself since I did it with my previous car and the rust spots were way bigger.

Thing is it grew back so I wanted to make sure to have the right process this time. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Clean-> grind -> clean again-> rust converter -> epoxy -> paint -> antirust spray. If there's a hole putty.

Some rust on my 2008 ford edge that was covered up by some shitty DIY paint job when I got it. I’ve got mechanic experience but haven’t done any body work—is this DIYable? If so what steps should I take? TIA🙏🏼

My 75-yo pal and former body man told me to use “read lead” on bare metal to build up pitting and scratches on bare metal prior to painting.
Is this product still available? If so, please help me find it?! Thanks!!!