Rattle-canned fender

[[email protected]]

Some of you probably saw my other thread about hitting that deer in my 'new' s14. Well, long story short, I put another fender on. It started life with red paint, but my paint code is FN2, which is emerald blue. I'm trying to buy a house so I didn't have the money to pay a shop to fix the car. I did it my self with spray paint. I bought the paint from automotivetouchup.com. It was 20$ a can! Sheesh. They claim about a 90% match. I'd say it's about accurate considering the paint was about 10% darker than the rest of my car. Probably due to fading. Anyway, I sanded down the clear coat on the fender with 100 grit paper. Then I filled a couple dings with bondo. After sanding that down, I smoothed those spots with polyester glazing compound. I sanded that down and then sprayed 2 coats of gray primer. Once that dried, I hit it with 320 and then 600 paper. I used tack cloth to remove the dust. Then I sprayed 3 base coats of FN2. I wet sanded that with 600 and 1200 grit paper. Cleaned off the dust and then sprayed 3 coats of clear on it. Then wet sanded again with 1000-2000 paper. Then polishing compound, and clear coat polishing compound. I did this all outside because I don't have access to a booth or even a shed. LOL. It came out well considering. Of course it's not as good as a shop could do and the paint isn't a 100% match but for those on a budget it's amazing what you can do with very little money, a bit of time, and a lot of determination. Here are pics of the finished product...
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/thexenolith/fender006.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/thexenolith/fender004.jpg

[TiNMAN]

looks great man. that emerald green isnt easy to replicate! trust, i had one!

[steve_o1989]

Wow that turned out great man. Way to save yourself some money. Just goes to show what some effort and some time can do. Props.

[Skeeg]

total time? looks rly good!

[MikeisNissan]

Yup looks good, this should go on the rattle canned thread.

[fallen soul]

this looks really good, i paint my self and i have to admire the hard work you put in!

[bo2o]

that is very good almost shop like.

to make that match the rest of you car you have to blend it.

but who cares.
you put alot of time into but next youll be fast since sound like your first time.

[[email protected]]

Thanks for the compliments. The paint job is good enough for a daily driver. Now about that fender gap...

[alkemyst]

Good job. The final buff out especially...many factory cars don't even have that.

[jackjack]

very nice...........

[Skeeg]

i always thought of painting my car like this lol..... but i almost don't want to because my paints not all that awful yet.. just some dings and sap on the roof.

[Jimmy Up]

you just killed every excuse for having a 5-tone paint job, VERY nice work man.

[jspec240]

Good job bro.. I hit a tree in mine trying to miss a deer when I was stationed at mcguire AFB lol...

[ByeByeSti]

^^^ ouch, fender came out real good, heres the rattle can thread, post it on there sir

http://www.zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=181915&highlight=rattle

[i need tires]

wow maybe i should do that to me car... my whole front end needs to be painted but im broke also lol can you PM paint you used and clear you used?

thanks

[EJ253]

great job, let us know how the finish holds up, i need to re-rattle can my shizz

...or i need to get some real paint haha

[Anto]

Not too shabby.

I think I need to see at a paint shop what they have in terms of a harder clearcoat than rattle can enamel.. that stuff takes a looooooooooong time to fully cure

[an_orange_s2k]

that thing looks hella clean. awesome job

[Onitsukagirl]

reminds me of earlier this week driving to work on Hwy 840 early one morning and I saw a deer about 100 feet ahead running across the road.. scared the SS outa me cause I could have easily hit it... it just darted across the rd. Anyway, really good job on the fender.. I cant wait to learn how to paint.

[Tops*]

The money put into the fender compliments your user name well. :keke:

Turned out super clean.

Looks like there's zero orange peel.

[OurOnePassion]

+1 for rattlecan power!

[[email protected]]

There is no orange peel at all. It was just a matter of laying down coat after coat of clear and then buffing it till my arm fell off. LOL. To answer some questions that have been asked, I used all 'turtle wax' products to do the buffing. Both regular polishing compound and clear coat polish. The base coat I bought from automotivetouchup.com. The clear coat is Duplicolor. NO power tools were used. NONE. All the sanding and buffing was done with retard strength. I'd say the total time invested was about 8hrs. That includes all the prep done on the fender and removal/installation. Now I get to do it again because my wife was driving her Evo and a hunk of metal flew off the road and left a nice 3" scratch/dent in the roof. WTF FAIL :squint:

[OurOnePassion]

I want a wife with an Evo.

Ehh, that sounds bad... I want my [soon to be] wife to have an Evo.

What color is it? Pics and shit of that too.

[[email protected]]

Here's the evo. I think this was taken the day after we bought it. Brand spankin new. 2005 tarmac black. Srsly it was worth the money (I think). I convinced my wife that we need it by telling her we needed an all wheel drive car that got decent gas mileage. Now I think she likes it more than I do. LOL
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/thexenolith/Copyofevo001.jpg

[OurOnePassion]

Haha. That's great! Sucks about the dent/scratch.

I convinced my finacee that we need an STi once I land this super-tits job so when we have kids, we'll already have a 4-door with AWD.

[[email protected]]

It'll probably work. LOL. I couldn't decide between the evo and sti. Low % financing finally sold me on the evo. :bigok:

[Lordrandall]

nice job on the rattle can! Looks goood :)