I have been teaching my self o No: to spray paint, in the process I have bought 5 paint guns, and various and sundry other stuff and I have actually painted my truck a couple of years ago.... I am spraying the old dupont acrylic enamel.... I am using a hvlp sharps gun with a 1.8 mm tip .... I tried going to a slower reducer and all I did was make the bumps smaller...:laugh: :laugh: I sprayed the top of the car the other day and it orange peeled but as the paint dried over several days it actually reduced the amount of orange peel... I am bound and determined that I am going to learn to paint if it hair lips the governor....:rant: :laugh: :laugh: I went on line and contacted Dupont and got a list as long as my arm of causes of o/p. I just cant figure out which one of the 32 reasons is the problem...I know :idea2: that if worse comes to worse, I can always color sand and put on a finish coat.... I have been putting on a light ''tack'' coat first and then a color coat and then another and finally a coat that is about 75 percent thinner... but the orange peel is already there by that time and the last coat takes some of it out.... then when it dries it naturally doesnt have much shine at all.... :Brow: Any suggestions,,,Comments,, Donations,,,sympathy cards,,, flowers???? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
From my experience, I have found that doing two medium coats, allowing it to tack for 15 minutes or so and the applying a third and heavy coat all with a 1.8 tip works very well. One thing to consider is the temperature, and using the proper reducer. Youre in TN so obviously its always warm, I would use a slow reducer so that it flows nicely. The last car I painted, it was around 70 degrees but in the shade, I used a slow reducer to allow it to melt in and it came out like glass, I only had to wetsand the dust nibs. Good luck man.
OP is just a fact of life, it will happen, runs and drips will happen too, the pro's don't care as they will just be color sanding and buffing it out anyways. Don't let the fancy angle shots you see on TV fool ya. Same go for powder coating. Them fancy angle shots they use do not tell the whole story. [ I powder for a living, took MC collsion repair in school.] Like how they avoid the chrome pipes blueing on them chopper shows. OCC new season starts tonight at 9, TLC
I woke up during the night and was thinking about this... I think Jason is on to something,,, I decided to just go with full coats instead of the way I have been doing it.... I did the left door a while back and it came out like glass, same paint, same thinner, same gun,,,, still dont know what I did [or didnt do]to get such a good result... if the rest of the car was like the left door, i would be as happy as a pig in slop....and of course there is the dust problem in the shop, oh my poor shop ,,,,, at least i have a friend that owns a body shop ,,, he just looks at my shop and shakes his head.... but hey, at least I can walk thru .....:Brow:
Well, I did paint some small pieces by the new method that I was talking about and they turned out like glass.....:laugh:
Doc, Sounds tempting!!!!! It would probably turn out better than the paint job that I dropped 5K on at the local body shop. You should see it....it's awesome... 5 different colors. It was held hostage for just under 2 years. The main body was painted 6/07, hood 3/08, Doors 11/08, Fenders 1/09, Deck Lid 3/09! Deal was 1/2 up front, balance due upon completion. In 7/07 the body shop got broke into and they stole all his tools..no insurance! (should have been my first clue) He told me he didn't have enough money to buy the tools to finish my car. Being good hearted and stupid I paid him up. That's when the work on my car slowed down. I visited once a week every week since. Finally got my car back. Now since it's multi colored he wants more money to do it over.(not getting another dime from me) It's one of those perfect storms...no paper work, all cash payments...all on a handshake up front...My fault. My show car is now a good daily driver! I should have noticed another clue when I was there in 1/08. 3 of the biggest biker guys I've ever seen where there theating to kill him, litterly. They said they would kill him if he didn't get it done.(very loudly) He had a gas tank, two fenders, and a couple of other pieces off a Harley for more than a year. They were very unimpressed. Another guy with a 69 Z28 took him to court. He had the Camaro for 3 years. Judge set a deadline at midnight. Car was delivered at 11:30pm. That guy was ticked because he had to pay without seeing the car in good light. 3rd clue I was screwed. Lot of sleepless nights. Shops that operate like this really hurt the honest ones. Human nature will stereo type all of them together. Keep practicing, control your own project, or don't pay until it's done. I too will be practicing soon. Might try it my self. Keep the tips coming as I will be learning also. The guy (Brian) who paints Tom Miller's cars gave me a good price to repaint. I will probably go with him on the GS and practice myself on my boy's IROC Camaro. I don't think I can hurt an IROC!!!! Thanks for the shoulder, Mike
Yes, I have seen those deals in the past,,,, Dont do business with any shop that has a bunch of booze bottles sitting around either.... or you come in and find the owner with whisky on his breath...:Smarty: Which.... reminds me of a story, I was working at a Ford dealership and a preacher came into there and was raising cane about someone leaving a half full bottle of whiskey in his car after he dropped it off for service.... Well, the owner of the dealership told the service manager that he wanted the mechanic found and fired.... The service manager said''I can tell you right now, it wasnt a mechanic that did it'''..... ''How do you know that?''.... ''If it was a mechanic, the bottle would be empty''..... Sure enough when they found out who did it ,it was a salesman... Back to the paint,,, If a man has the skill, he can always do the body work, sand a car down and mask it off and then take it to a painter to get it sprayed...:Brow: painters love those jobs because all they have to do is mix the paint and squirt it...What a guy has to do is learn not to mix incompatable stuff together...if a shop dont know what has been put on a car they will want to spray a coat of sealer on before they paint...but 95 % of a paint job is the prep... by doing your own you can save a ton of money...what i did was make friends with a shop owner and then talk him into letting me help around his shop for a while in exchange for learning to use a paint gun....Then I started spraying my own stuff , doing the small pieces and finally the main body of the car/truck... here is a secret,,,, if you mess up ,,, all you have to do is let it dry and sand it down and try again.... with the acrylic enamel , I can color sand with some ultra fine paper and then buff and it will be OK... orrrrr it will just be a 50 foot paint job,,,, [looks good as long as you are at least 50 ft. away]:laugh: :laugh: It is allright about the shoulder,,, that is what friends are for....:grin: :grin:
Thanks Doc, Fun Story at the Dealership, needed the laugh. Cool thing is I have samples of the materials that were used on my GS. I've always wanted to do the bodywork/paint myself, but I sis out when the time comes for the body work. All my projects end up "to good" to practice on. I can talk myself right out of it. I've been told "you really can't screw it up, because you can sand it off and start over". My biggest flaw is that I'm a die maker and machinist by trade. We die makers hate rework. It doesn't matter if it's our fault, someone else's or even if were getting paid double what it's worth to do it over again. It's something in the craftsman mindset that rework stinks. I got the opportunity to manage a group of tool and die makers and holy cow, if it was rework, they would grumble even if they were making double time, myself included. That was 8 years ago, I'll bet times have changed. I beg for anywork now. Like you said, back to the paint. I'm excited to hear that you are taking the time to add another feather in your cap. You've inspired me to give it a go. I think I will try to get a sweeper job at a body shop and learn. Sounds better than a night course at the college. I checked out Tom Miller's aqua mist skylark before it went to Texas. I asked Tom how long it took Brian to sand and buff to get it to the glass look.....He said "there was no sanding" My jaw dropped. There was no orange peel! Completely amazing. It can be done, so keep at it, keep us posted. Cheers, Mike
Doc, you'll like these 'Basics of Basics' articles by Brian Martin. There is one on setting up a spray gun for proper atomization. He covers it WELL! It's on several sites, such as autobodystore.com , hotrodders.com, and this Camaro site: http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=74560 gun setup here: http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=12414 and autobodystore.com. There's a great forum on that site too. http://www.autobodystore.com/martinsr.shtml Brian is a real Buick guy....he has a 65 GS. And his brother Russ Martin is one of the top Nailhead gurus in the world! Enjoy the reading!
Hey, thanks for the info.... Well I am doing better.... I took Jasons suggestion and the next painting that I did,,, turned out real good , very little orange peel,,,, starting with full color coats works much better.... ou: now if I can get it thru my thick skull not to use too coarse of a sandpaper and to make sure that I have the primer sanded good and slick BEFORE i squirt the color...ou: paint dont hide any thing.....:Smarty:
Around here the painters al say the same thing either I do it al or nothing. They will not put paint over someone elses bodywork period! I just spent 12k on the Suncoupe and that was at a shop that charges 50 per hour. materials now eat up over 3K and then shop materials and so on and so on
Well, I work cheap, will do any thing that I want to, and am willing to do it over untill I get it right....my Grandad used to tell me that if I had a chance to learn any thing to go ahead and learn it... knowledge is power and freedom .... the power to acomplish and freedom from depending on others....It has been good advice down thru the years....:Brow: :Brow:
So how are you making out with your project as of now? Did the paint work come out like it was supposed to?
Actually, Yes, I took Jasons suggestion and started with full wet coats instead of a fog coat and it smoothed out a lot....
