Painting accessories with epoxy

[Mertz]

I have been doing some research and testing several types of paint for my accessories. I’m not happy with the VHT epoxy chassis paint. It does not have much of a shine and does not go on very well. I do like the harbor freight chassis and grill paint. It has better shine and goes on a bit better. I used some rustoleum almond appliance paint on my remote oil filter and was very impressed with the shine and application. It is an epoxy paint that has a long drying time so it has time to flow out. I picked up a can of appliance gloss black and sprayed my backing plates. One I had already painted with VHT and one on raw prepped metal. I used filler primer over the VHT painted and sanded it to try to get a smooth finish. I then painted both with 3 coats of appliance paint. The one without all the smoothing effort was just as smooth as the one with. 

 

The best part is that it does not want primer, it drys slow so it has time to flow out, easy to apply without drips or sags and cost $4.48 a can. 

 

There is is a guy online who painted his model T fenders with it and they looked great without cutting and buffing. He then did an exposure test and found that it did loose some of its shine after 7 months of exposure even with wax on it. Samples kept in an unheated garage did not loose any shine. The oxidized sample came back to their original shine with a light buffing. 

 

I plan on painting all my accessory parts with it. They apparently do have a stainless steel color that might work for the silver non-engine parts but it is not available at Home Depot. This paint is good to 200 degrees.