More Adventures in Painting

[Joe Flanagan]

I haven't posted in a while because I've been painting my car and frequenting another form. I've finished painting the body with all the doors, fenders, hood, and trunk lid off. I'm now in the process of color sanding. The roof was in so-so shape but not all that bad for a 60 year old car. Just a few dings and dents, which I managed to straighten out and/or fill. It looks practically flawless right now. The whole thing has been a time consuming process. I wound up shooting clear in my cramped garage because it started raining. To my surprise, I was able to get around OK and do a much better job than I thought I would. I have some runs in the clear coat, which I'm dealing with now. I'm really afraid I'll sand through the clear and have to redo everything but so far I've removed the three worst runs and haven't gone through to the color, so if I'm careful, I can get past this. I made my mistakes on the first couple of passes with the gun. After that, I backed off and the clear laid down nicely. It won't take much color sanding to be smooth.

The one thing I am disappointed about is that I ran out of the original color I was painting with and the paint shop could not match it perfectly. It's darn close but in certain kinds of light you can see the difference. The ingredients to make the original color were never recorded (long story). Anyway, my car will be a very subtle two-tone, I think. Drives me bats but there isn't anything I can do about it. I'm in WAY over my head to begin with and don't need to try and pull off any heroics. I'll post pics later.

[randroid]

Joe,

Thanks for posting something about painting because today is the first day this year I'm going to be able to get back to prepping Pigiron and I need some inspiration. In a week and a half\two weeks I'm scheduled for another surgery that's going to sideline me for about a month and I need some inspiration to spur me on, so simply hearing about another job going well is great.

What method are you using to remove the runs? The best way I've found to get rid of runs is liberal use of Pepto-Bismol but I don't think that's applicable in this case. Sanding works well, of course, but razor blades, painting with thinner, and several other methods all have their adherents and in anticipation of dealing with many of the little buggers I'd like to know what works best in real life.

Thanks.

-Randy

[dezeldoc]

If you were to have blended the new paint over the old color instead of stopping at an edge or panel it would most likely not been noticeable. just another trick of the trade.

[Joe Flanagan]

If you were to have blended the new paint over the old color instead of stopping at an edge or panel it would most likely not been noticeable. just another trick of the trade.

And a trick I never would have thought of. The whole blending technique is interesting to me but I don't have the skill to do it. I would definitely practice on a test panel but I'm not willing to try it on my car. I'm sure I'd mess up a few times before I got the hang of it. But it does seem like blending gets you out of a lot of tight spots when painting.

Randy, it's funny but when I talk about the runs in my clear coat the REAL runs never come to mind. The Pepto Bismol comment threw me there for a minute. To remove the runs I have a couple of different nib files and once I finish with those, I use 600 grit wet wrapped around a small section of a wooden paint stirrer. I sand only on the run and go very slowly, checking frequently to see how I'm doing. I've heard of people messing up the paint using razor blades and this method has worked for me in the past. I go from 600 to 100 to 1500 as I get closer and closer to leveling it off. There are a couple on the roof right above the windshield that I can't make disappear no matter how I try. I think it's because I'm so scared of cutting through into the base coat that I'm going super cautiously, hence, slow to no progress. At this point, I think I'll just try to live with it the way it is. You have to look pretty hard to see them but I know they're there.

Good luck with your surgery, by the way. I will try and post pictures to keep you motivated.

Thanks, Doc, for the tip.

[BobT-47P15]

Joe.......I have a few runs in my paint......been there ever since the car

was painted by a friend 12 or 15 years ago. I know they're there, but

at shows no one has ever commented on them. So I quit worrying about

them. Even win the occasional trophy.

You've done a lot of work on your car and it's looking good.

I was told all the same things you were about how to lessen or

remove them......but just never got around to trying them.

[dezeldoc]

Not that hard to do, you just thin down the color and fog it into the adjoining panel.

[Joe Flanagan]

So when you fog it into the adjoining panel, how exactly is that done? Do you back the gun away from the surface as you move out from the repair area?

[dezeldoc]

Best to just thin the paint and go 6-8" or so each coat and thin each one more as you go till you are about 20-30" from the first color and farther if you feel it necessary.

[Joe Flanagan]

Wow. Now it makes sense. I wasn't aware you had to thin the paint multiple times. By the way, today I worked on the runs in my clear coat. I've managed to remove almost all of them. Just a couple more to go. I think the problem is I'm afraid to sand too aggressively. At one point, I just got tired of not being able to make a run go away and I started being a little bit more aggressive and I made it disappear completely. I have two coats of clear on the surface and it's probably thicker than I imagine. I just have the doors to do, the trunk lid, and one rear fender and then the whole car is painted. If I had to do it over again, I'd get a bigger compressor.

[P-12 Tommy]

Wondered where ya went. Glad to hear it's comin' right along. Can't wait to see the pics.

Tom

[Joe Flanagan]

Today I shot color and clear on the area around the trunk and rear fenders. Laid down like glass. It really pays to spend the time to tune your gun in. I learned how to do that in a tutorial on another web site. I just fogged the clear on to the surface and it just kind of formed a glossy sheet over the color. I'm very happy with it. Next job is the four doors. Below is a picture but not a very good one. I'll post some decent ones later:

Edited May 16, 2010 by Joe Flanagan

[randroid]

Joe,

That's one color I'm scraping off my car! Maybe it would have been more simple for us to have simply swapped rides, thereby saving us each a lot of work and expense.

-Randy

[Jim Yergin]

Looks outstanding Joe. I guess you couldn't have asked for better painting weather this weekend.

Jim Yergin

[Joe Flanagan]

Yeah, it's been really beautiful the last couple of days. I was under pressure to get the clear on over the color because once you shoot the color, you have 24 hours to cover it with clear or else you have to sand it all down and reshoot the color. I really didn't want to do that. I had some runs to repair in the color, so as soon as I did that and the paint dried, on the clear went. I tend to get too close with that gun, which causes runs. Today, I shot a coat of color and two coats of clear and didn't get a single run. I'm learning.

[Flatie46]

Looks good, what kind of gun are you using?

[Frank Elder]

Really shaping up Joe, there was a guy on the hamb today that was shooting his final clearcoat and his shirttail popped out and drug over a foot across his fresh paint:eek::eek:

[Joe Flanagan]

HA HA HA!! I can imagine that happening to me. I've learned to make sure I know where the hose is at all times, believe me.

My gun is a relatively inexpensive Astro model, an HVLP. I bought it well ahead of the job and then when I tried to get different tips for it, discovered that they discontinued it and you can't get parts for it anymore. I've shot everything with a 1.5 tip, which I've heard is a good universal size, but it might have contributed to some of the problems I've had. I don't know. I just tape a bunch of sheets of newspaper to the inside of the garage door and shoot test patterns before I spray, making adjustments until the atomization is right.

I got lucky today, shooting clear outside, and not a single bug landed in it.

[builtfercomfort]

When I was in high school (30+ years back) and painting cars with NO money, the trick was to find a vaguely color-matching wax or polish - that would add a little pigment to the whole car and smooth out the differences in paint. Can you perhaps find such a thing?

[Joe Flanagan]

I'll definitely look into it. I notice that when the car is in full sunlight, you can't see any difference between the two colors. It seems more pronounced in shadow. I'm going by comparing the firewall to the upper part of the cowl. The firewall is the original green and the cowl is the second batch of paint. The firewall happens to have a fair amount of grime on it at the moment, so maybe that plays into it. I don't have the hood and front fenders on, and that will really tell the tale. Those were painted with the original paint and will be right up against the doors, which were painted with the second batch. I should really be able to tell what I'm dealing with then.

[Flatie46]

About two months ago I took an HVLP class at the vocational school. It was a free class sponsered by a company called "Sata". They sell paint guns and supplies. The reason I took the class I had stopped by a friends house that paints motorcycles. He was telling me that the guys at the local paint store said that in the future you would have to have a "certification" to buy paint because of the EPA cracking down on people painting cars at home with no booth and filtration system. They were urging all customers to take the class. Well I took the class because like you I plan on painting my own car and at some point I will need to buy paint,thinner and such. The class was 95% sales pitch on Sata products, which do seem to be high quality. I filled out paperwork and took a test which I passed. They said I would recieve a certification in the mail. Well that's been two months and haven't heard from them and neither has my friend. I beginning to think it was all sales pitch.

[Joe Flanagan]

I've never heard of having to be certified in order to buy materials. Sata supposedly makes good equipment but I think they may have been pulling a sneaky one here.

[Flatie46]

I agree but with the way the EPA is getting I took it hook line and sinker! They said that in a few years most all paint products will be waterbased. It's hard for me to imagine cleaning a gun with water. I got to shoot with some really nice [pricey] guns. They said their guns would stretch your materails through better atomazation. They might be right, they were much better than the flea mrkt special worn out Binks I own.

[Joe Flanagan]

I have heard that Sata makes nice guns. My cheapo Astro does a good job as long as I have it properly adjusted. Some of the professional painters on another forum that I visit have tried the water based paints. I haven't paid it much attention but it might be interesting to take a look.

I would think that any gun, properly adjusted, would stretch your materials with proper atomization, not just the Sata.

[Young Ed]

I read in car craft BMW and I think mercedes have been using water based paint for years.

[mackster]

I read in car craft BMW and I think mercedes have been using water based paint for years.

really?

they have a great product! my friends is a bmw mechanic and every car new or old. looks like it was brand new with a great paint (all original)