Painting With Auto Paint vs Rust Type Paints

[Norm's Coupe]

.............

Edited September 5, 2009 by Norm's Coupe

[Young Ed]

Norm I think that guy was doing hand rubbed laquer

[greg g]

Norm when I was in jr high and early in high school, the guy down the street ran a dirt track race car. I think it was a 37 ford or something. After the weekend, he would repair any body damage and mechanical damage, and fixrd up the crash bars and other tubing onthe car. Then he would pay me and my neighbor 5 bucks each to paint the repaired portion. He worked for the town highway departmet and always seemed to have some enamal paint in red, yellow, gray and black. (that these were the colors of the towns trucks and other road equipment was purely coincidental) Any way, we used big sea sponges to apply the paint. Always looked good at night uder the lights from 20 feet away.

[greg g]

I added some flatener to the paint, as the body work did not lend itself to shiney paint.

I reduced the first pieces fenders bed etc. with mieral spirits. When I started on the cab I bought some enamal reducer from a body shop supply store. It left bubbles that did not flow out, so I went bck to the mineral spirits. I have seen some suggest acetone, but I didn't try it.

[PatrickG]

I know you added mineral spirits to your paint. Yours does look nice in the pictures. But.......you are using the the rust paint like the others have to roll on.

What I was wondering is how well regular automotive paint with a hardener added would work. ie: how well it would self level and if it would have an orange peel look or air bubbles using a roller? As for bubbling' date=' I would think if it was rolled real slow, it would keep any bubbling to a minimum.[/quote']

I found this on the moparts forum

here's how i painted my car for about $50, it's actually very easy and the results are amazing. First off, get a can of tremclad real orange (or what ever color u want) in the can, not spray, yes tremclad, it is a acrylic/enamel paint which is very durable. next prep your car as if was any other paint job, fix all the rust, ect....no need to prime the car since the tremclad allready contains elements which allow it to be painted over bare metal. next, after prepping the car get a small 4" professional FOAM rollers, it's tiny and has one end rounded off, and the other cut straight, and is a very high density foam. u also need a jug of mineral spirits to thin the paint. The thing i really like about this is that there's no mess, no tapeing the whole car, just key areas, and u can do it in your garage, since your not spraying there is virtually no dust in the air, just clean your garage first, also it does'nt really smell at all, dries overnight and it super tough paint. also it you decide to paint the car professionally later, just prep and paint, there's no need to strip the tremclad. i have done this to a few cars, and i can say it works amazing, u just have to be paitient. next u thin the paint with mineral spirits so it just about as thin as water, a little thicker. get out the roller and paint away, don't get the paint shaked when u buy it, enamel is stirred, otherwise you'll have bubbles in the paint for a week!!! after u do 2 coats, wet sand the whole car, then repeat, 2 coats, wetsand, 2 coats wetsand. i painted the charger using a can since your not spraying the car u use all the paint and not spray 50% in the air, use progressivly finer sand paper each time. it's not really that much work, cause u can stop and start any time, u can do just a door, or the hood, ect. do one panel at a time, and don't stop once you start. once your done the final coat, wetsand with about 1000 grit to a totally smooth finish, and then using a high speed polisher i use a buffing bonnet and turtle wax polishing compound. do the whole car with this, and i'm telling u, depending on the amount of time and paitence you have, the results are amazing. laugh if you want, but for $50 ($30 for paint, about $20 for rollers, sand paper, ect...) it really looks good. also you can do these steps overnight, paint one evening and by morning u can wet sand. i have personally done alot of painting, mostly single stage acrylic enamel, and i've sprayed several cars in my garage with really good professional results, just it stinks, it's a real pain to do, easy to make a mistake, messy, and expensive. The tremclad is awesome paint, the "real orange" is an amazing hemi orange, and almost looks like it has some perl in the sun, awesome color right out of the can. I used this technique on my 1974 beetle also, here are the results:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/Picture10.jpg

the car before:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/IM000475.jpg

another after pic:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/DSC00164.jpg

here is a car i sprayed (71 beetle, midnight blue metalic):

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/DSC00194.jpg

here is the car before (71 beetle):

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/Picture1.jpg

here's a few pics of the charger done:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/DSC02764.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d13/69martin/DSC02769.jpg

well that's my 2 cents worth, sorry for the long post. i was borred lol

i painted the orange beetle in 1999, and it still looks like the day i painted it, the 71 blue beetle i painted in 2000, and built the car for my dad, i used the same paint on my charger, maybe one day i'll spring for a good paint job, prepping is 90% of the work, stripping the car, sanding, ect.....painting is overrated!!!

So if you have TIME, then i'd say go for it, the worst that could happen is that it does'nt turn out and your out $50, but if your paitient, and expriement with lets say just the trunk pannel and if you like it do the whole car, if not just get it done by someone else for $4000. i don't know about you guys, but i would rather spend the $4000 on other parts like getting the mechanics sorted out and new chrome, cause when u have really nice paint and crappy bumpers, door handles it just sticks out

Tremclad is not labelled as automotive paint, but it looks great from this guys pictures. and is acrylic enamel. so Its probabley pretty close to "legit" auto paint

I would think the same steps or nearly the same steps would apply to using automotive acrylic enamel or laquer. I just think you'd have to lay it on thick and expect to do lots of color sanding

Edited August 4, 2009 by PatrickG

[55 Fargo]

Norm , the trouble with Automotive Acrylic enamel is this, it is based in Xylene, toluene and mek....Thus it will,

flash quickly, dries to the touch quickly, not exactly what you want when rolling. The Synthetic (alkyd) Enamels, with Rustoleum and XO rust paint being in this class, are often based with Mineral Spirits, Stoddard solvents, and possibly Naptha, and small amounts of Xylene. The end result, it flashes slowly, dries slowly, will self level, because it has much more time to do so.

The rust paints have a coarser pigment, compared to high gloss enamels, which often have finer pigments., thus rust paint does not have quite as high a gloss level as high gloss Acrylic or Synthetis enamels.

To roll, brush, sponge, I would suggest a medium to long resin based alkyd enamel in high gloss. This could be further thinned with naptha and/or mineral spirits.

I do not know how it would work with an enamel hardener added, it may work just fine, just never tried it for rolling only spraying.

I have to do some brush/roller soon with some high gloss enamel, I will add some hardener, and will report back on my results.

Patrick, the Moparts, "paint job on a budget", has been discussed here many times before, I personally know 69Charger, he ls a great guy, did nice roller paint worl on some of his cars........Fred

[billwillard]

GrayBeard on the truck form roller painted his truck. Looks great

[55 Fargo]

GrayBeard on the truck form roller painted his truck. Looks great

Yes Dave did roller the truck, it looks great.

But Dave used Interlux Brightside Marine 1 k urethane enhanced enamel.

It was a big job for Dave, very time consuming, but the end result is good.

This type of paint is meant to be brushed,rolled or even sprayed.

A lot of the Automotive Acrylic Enamles have to have a hardener added, they dry/flash very quickly, not some thing you really want when rolling/tipping...........

[48Dodger]

I agree with Rockwood. The flash time on single stage can be under 10 minutes....at that point you've got sticky paint. Granted I've never done a roller paint job with either types of paint, but experience with the single stage makes me believe it would be a mess. When painting with single stage in a gun, you have to be quick with your first two coats to get your "wet" right. The two stage paints are different in that your shine comes from the clear coat. Could you brush on a two stage? Maybe the base coat...but the clear is some sticky stuff, it would be almost like rolling on thin honey. I think your question was "Has anyone ever tried painting a car or truck using a roller with regular automotive paint?" The answer from me.......nope.

48D

[jimainnj]

Just an afterthought on all the above roller painting, How do you or how did you paint the door inner frame and the hinges ? Thanks Jim

[PatS....]

I worked in an automotive paint store briefly as a kid and they had some left over mistints that they decided to paint the walls with.

Being the flunky, I was elected to do the job with a roller and brush.

It was like painting with glue, very hard to roll and get smooth and cutting in with the brush was like trying to paint with a used, 3/4's dry brush.

The job took quite a while, but when it dried, it looked fantastic. There were some spots where you could see roller marks but not many.

The shine of course was like no house paint you've ever seen.

Mistint would be great for a garage door.

[PatS....]

I used the mistint right from the can it came in.

I'm not sure if foam rollers were around back then but I think it would have minimized the roller marks.

It did cover a very large area as well, one coat.

[dezeldoc]

For some reason most people think engine paint is something magical, but it is just good ol' enamel. I have never tried the roller thing but the idea is fine and as long as hardner was used i see no reason why it would not color sand and buff out fine, heck i have knocked off some mean orange peel and the thing came out fine.

[jimainnj]

Just an afterthought on all the above roller painting, How do you or how did you paint the door inner frame and the hinges ? Thanks Jim

I guess this ? is for the guy's who did paint with the roller, "how did you paint the hinges and door frame ? Jim

[55 Fargo]

You could use a sponge brush, or a high quality paint brush like a badger hair brush, this is what the Boat painters use.

I have painted in the areas you have mentioned with a sponge brush, turns out not bad.....Fred

[55 Fargo]

Maybe the answer for rolling automotive paint is in the hardener used. After reading Greg's and Pat's reply it reminded me of when I painted my engine after the rebuild. For that I bought Hirsch Automotive engine paint. That was a high heat enamel that could be brushed or sprayed. In the instructions for it' date=' it said to spray you had to mix a certain amount of hardener/thinner. For brushing on you could use it straight from the can. That's how I painted my engine and transmission, with a foam brush and the paint straight from the can, no hardener added. I also used the left over paint with a foam brush to paint my original 16" spare tire wheel. In both cases, the paint went on nice and easy, lots of time to brush it out, and as it cured any brush marks self leveled. I also had lots of working time. When the paint was cured you could see no brush marks on either my engine/transmission or the wheel. The shine was nice too when cured. Naturally, it did take about 24 hours for the paint to come to the initial cure.

So.........maybe, if you either used the automotive paint straight from the can, or mixed just a small amount of hardener, you could then roll it out, depending on the type of hardener/thinner used. Any comments on that procedure?[/quote']

Rolling can be done with a paint and added hardner, the trick is to be able to work with the paint long enough before it sets-up, and still allow whatever you have paint ed to level out a bit.

I did post some pics last winter, of a guy's roller work ona hot rod fender, he used Marine 2 k Urethane paint, it was fantastic, smooth shiny and flawless.

The trouble with automotive enamels is they are designed for spraying, they flash,set-up, dry very quickly compared to a brushable enamel......Fred