How to Paint Your Car - Part 1 - Masking and Preparation

Firstly you will need to clean the metal on the car. After you clean the metal, make sure it's dry before you begin to mask the car, also do a last minute check to be sure it's free of all dirt grease and other contaminants.

Now it's time to mask the car, and be sure to mask all that you don't want painted leaving no masking hanging of the car, that would get in the way of a nice paint job. The main idea of the whole thing is to produce the best quality paint possible with the given surroundings, it is preferred that you have a paint booth, but if not, make sure that the area that you use to perform the work is ultra clean and dust free.

After the car has been masked it's time to get ready to spray the primer, once again make sure that you have cleaned your surroundings, it's best to have some water on the floor to keep the dust down, once you are confident that the area is clean then you can begin checking the spray guns to be sure that they are clean. This is a very important step especially if they're not your guns, dirty guns will make an ugly paint job there for wasting all of your time.

Now that you have determined that the paint guns are clean, make sure that your respirator is in good working order. Now be sure that you have all the products that you need to perform the primer job on the car. You will need primer and thinner, you will also need strainers, a stirrer and a measuring device.
It's best not to have to leave the paint booth during the time that your priming the car.

Now get your can of primer and read the instructions on the side, mix with the appropraite thinners usually 1:1. After you spray the first coat of primer, you will need to wait 15 to 20 minute before you can spray the next and so on. The whole reason you use primer is is to give the paint a smooth surface to stick to and give the metal some protection from the elements, it's usually a good idea to get 4 or 5 good coats on the car.
If you are really serious about the way that you want it to look the you might want to take the primer one step farther and use an etching primer which will give the top coat just a little more to stick to. Etching primer has no building qualities there for it's not used for smoothing out waves in your work, but it will make the primer stick a lot better.

Now that your car is primed, it's time to remove the masking, and its best to do this while it's still a little wet for the sake of ease, just be very careful about how you do it, you don't want to screw up all that nice work, so just take it slow and easy while pulling the masking off your car.