Any painters out there ?

[Shayne]

Thankfully the paint survived the truck freezing over night and the streak marks left when the frost dried washed off , my question is what to do now . Obviously its patchy and the heavier layers of paint look best but my truck definitely has a lacquered finish so do i wipe it down with turps and give it another coat of base black to remove the patches before adding lacquer or clearcoat whatever you prefer to call it . Or will the lacquer do that anyway ?

Advice appreciated this is the scariest thing i've ever done to my truck .

 

[joinerman]

Can't really see what you have done in the pics, bit to close !, have you been using rattle cans ?

 

[Gary820]

Does it definitely have clear coat? Mine is solid black with no clear. Ideally I'd have primed it first, flat that with wet and dry then paint the colour. Blending it to a panel line is often a good idea too as can be easier to blend it.
I wouldn't use turps as that could damage the paint, panel wipe is cheap enough to buy.
If it needs clear coat the colour wants to be a nice even finish before applying the clear, try avoid doing it too cold as the paint prob won't like it.

 

[Gary820]

Obviously this was a slightly different repair, if it needed clear coat I wouldn't of had such a defined line masked off, being a solid colour blending in with wet and dry was easier. Can be done with clear coat but just takes bit more polishing up to blend. If can go to a panel line it hides the blend line a bit more, makes the repair bigger but depends on the finish you want.

The filler all sanded within a small ish area

Primed and flatted with a bigger area masked up but the tape not used as a line to paint upto, just to stop too much over spray

Painted and you can see where put plenty paint on but not upto the masked line

Blended using wet and dry then rubbing compound.

that was done with rattle cans as couldn't be bothered getting the gun out, plus in a cold workshop late at night lol, just used a heat gun to warm the panel up a bit then warm the paint when it was on.

If you have to clear it getting the colour even will give a nice finish, I was always told the more time spent on prep gives a better finish.

 

[Towpack]

I've used rattle cans, mixed to the paint code by a local Co., to give great results on the bumpers/endcaps. Mine is also clear coated. Any bare metal should be primed and existing paint keyed with a fine scotch pad. The base or colour coat dries to a dull finish but the colour must be even and consistent without being too thick. Use just enough paint to get full coverage. The clear coat then provides the 'deep' gloss finish but any blemishes in the paint will just show through. As said, painting in very cold temps is best avoided. JMO

 

[Shayne]

Cheers Gary yeah it's a rattle can special , i removed the outer arch to replace clips as it was coming loose and found the paint shop who did all my plastics a while ago obviously used a stanley knife anger to remove the rubber trim between and had cut clean to the metal . So i decided to bite the bullet figuring if i can get a decent finish on this then repairing scratches just become every day maintenance .

I filled the seem with ready mixed body filler and sanded it smooth with grade 400 wet and dry , which took bloody ages i should used something more coarse first but caution prevented me . Then i went over it again with 1500 grit .

I didn't mask it off because i didn't want a line separating old from new . I know my truck has a clearcoat or lacquer because i had a key scratch polished out once and they made the lacquer so thin i blew a hole in it with a pressure washer .

That's another reason i didn't mask it off , having seen for myself what polishers can do i thought if i get a heavy layer of paint where it's needed and let it fade out to a light coat where its not i could use a polisher to blend it .

Plans changed now though , i'm gonna mask it on the crease about 5 inches below the window and spray everything underneath to a solid black , then use clearcoat and polish the lot when it's dry .

Thanks for the heatgun tip but i already figured that one out .

 

[Gary820]

If masking to the body line try to not paint right upto the tape, you'll end up with a lovely line. As said you won't need a lot of colour, just a nice even coverage then I'd take the tape off to apply the clear. It should flat and polish to blend in nicely.
nothing wrong with rattle cans, can get a good finish if take your time. I like to use a spray gun but don't have to spend ages cleaning a rattle can lol

 

[Mark N]

Nothing wrong with painting up to the line (especially if you go for the larger area upto a panel edge or crease) but you want to use proper fineline tape. This should be your top layer of tape, so you 'rough' mask to within say 1/4" and then your fineline tape go's on last. Then when you have applied your paint you take that layer of fineline tape of straight away. That way the paint will flow out and as long as you haven't gone too heavy on your coats you won't have a line.

 

[Shayne]

Decided the weather today offered my best hope and ....................

 

[Shayne]

Might be a good thing as plenty say the base coat should be allowed to dry completely and rubbed down to accept clear coat . I have more or less accepted this to be a trial run now and i will have to do it all again when the garage is built .

 

[Shayne]

Heart in mouth i just went out to check the damage , i could already hear violins , but happy days it looks fine , and if i can get that when it's blowing a gale and started raining there should be a happy ending if it ever stops raining

 

[Shayne]

Sun came out today and rain forecast for the week ahead so i chucked out the instructions and went for it . Rubbed it all down with 1500 grit and wiped it down with alcohol and it looked awful while wet . So started again with the black with minimum masking . Every 15 mins applying a fresh layer and going over the whole thing with a heatgun on max heat maybe 2 inches from the paint . Then when i was happy it all looked reasonably even i gave it 15 mins and started the same process with clearcoat .

Conclusion is heatguns are a godsend and halfrauds paint is crap , or more specifically the delivery is crap . Halfords base coat needs to be sprayed from about 6 inches away and leaves a line maybe 2 inches wide which makes it almost impossible not to go to thick , move can further away and you get mist rather than spread . I liked the clearcoat though because it is undergassed which suited using the heatgun to even it out perfectly . Not sure how the pic will look on a com but with half a litre of clearcoat on the truck to polish flat i expect to be happy with the end result .

 

[Gary820]

Looks alright that mate, bit of a flat and polish it'll be like new.

 

[Shayne]

Buggered this up and it will have to be done again but only myself to blame , i got a polishing wheel and stuck on my grinder which worked great despite rotating at more than double the recommended speed but eventually it dug in and left a mess . A rush job to get the truck back together because my 22 year old cousin died in an RTA yesterday morning so a bit of paint is really an insignificant inconvenience in the grand scheme of things .

 

[Edward Moyse]

Very sorry to hear that. Must be an awful time for your family. :-(


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[Shayne]

Thanks Ed , i only posted it because it does everyone some good to take stock on what really matters now and again .

 

[Gary820]

Sorry to hear that shayne, thoughts with your family

 

[Scott]

Very sorry to hear that Shayne.

 

[Chas]

A rush job to get the truck back together because my 22 year old cousin died in an RTA yesterday morning so a bit of paint is really an insignificant inconvenience in the grand scheme of things .

I'm really sorry to hear that Shayne, a bit of buggered up paintwork pales into insignificance with news like that.

 

[silvercruiser]

Sorry to hear about your Cousin.