Modest compressor, HF paint gun, inline filter, quart can of Smurf Blue that came with the car and some acetone (so far). I'm better than avg with a rattle can so no probs with sags, runs etc and familiar with the whole light coat/wet coat thing. Any recipes for the paint to acetone ratio? Pressure from compressor?
No idea, I did mine with foam brushes, cut 50/50 with acetone. Came out great and has handled the abuse of nearly a decade of PNW wet winters and hot summer.
Hmmm, 50/50? Maybe I'm not thinning it enough. Thanks!
We did 50/50 on one of ours. Turned out decent. If you’ve got some spare panels lying around (or a trailer that needs painting,) I’d practice on those to get your pressure/sprayer dialed in. Also, wet-sanding/buffing can hide a lot of sins.
Some place, I've forgotten where, I saw 8 parts paint, 4 parts thinner, and 1 part hardener. I think that was for generic enamel and may have been the recommended ratios for Tractor Supply Magic Tractor enamel.
We did 50/50, then a splash of hardiner. If you spray too heavy you get solvent pop like was on the decklid of pinata. Ive never been accused of spraying too light, so i dont know what that would do.
We also used mineral spirits instead of acetone. There was a thread i found about different thinner properties and it seemed to be the way to go.
DeadSkunk said:Some place, I've forgotten where, I saw 8 parts paint, 4 parts thinner, and 1 part hardener. I think that was for generic enamel and may have been the recommended ratios for Tractor Supply Magic Tractor enamel.
Yup, follow this for mixing ratio. Use V&M Naptha as your thinner. Acetone dries way too fast, and won't give the paint time to settle. Mineral spirits dry too slow, the paint will run, and take forever to harden up. Naptha works just right.
Use a hardener, otherwise the paint will always stay soft. Tractor Supply has a good one.
I've painted a beater pickup and two dirt track race cars with Rustoleum, and it came out just as good as when I've used cheap automotive single stage paint.
I recall that when Hot Rod Magazine did the $98 Paint Job article on their Falcon, they thinned the E36 M3 out of it, then applied something like 12 coats with a roller and then wet-sanded it.
I used about $50 in walmart rustoleum cans...
Maybe half-way down that page? We can compare at the challenge this year, I do have a couple of flaws but I think I did ok!
You can also use Xylene to thin it. It's even recommended by Rustoleum in some of their paints for thinning.
I know a guy who has painted a number of Lemons race cars using Rustoleum and all have held up fine. Most people think it's a pro paint job when they see the car right after it's been painted.
Sounds like I have some spirementin' to do. All I did last night was the back bumper cover. It is definitely better, but not perfect
Just remember what you started with...
I used a quart of rustoleum marine paint on my Lemons car plus a few cans of their green metallic. I thinned the quart with 10-15% Xylene and it sprayed ok with an HVLP. More orange peal then other paints I've used but not too bad. Some down sides is it takes about 1-2 days to dry and even after that its a soft paint that will scratch easy.
Also trying to get an even pattern over a large surface with a metallic rattle can is a terrible idea but the color really pops in the sun.
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I also remembered that I painted the interior of my race car with Rustoleum "Hammer" paint. I thinned it out a bit and sprayed it. It didn't get the hammer effect as you have to put the paint on heavy and with the thinning to spray it would cause runs so I just sprayed to cover. It did that fine and the result is kind of like a mild metalic paint and it's a hard paint.
maybe 10 years ago was a post of some forum (forgot which one) that was up to 100 pages ......
I always wondered how these paint jobs held up , and what happened when you wanted to repaint the car with "real" paint"
the idea was roller a coat on before work , sand it down when dry and repeat 5-10 times,
Internet pictures looked great.....but... thats on a computer screen , I never saw one in real life !
californiamilleghia said:maybe 10 years ago was a post of some forum (forgot which one) that was up to 100 pages ......
That may have been the "Paint Job on a Budget" thread on Moparts. The Tremclad/Rustoleum part starts with a poster called 69chargeryeehaa. Now that's a name!
I'm doing the front bumper next, so I'll get MEK, mineral spirits and Naptha. Try one at a time and clean up with whichever doesn't work best. Except naptha, that's cheap zippo fluid for my hand warmer
californiamilleghia said:I always wondered how these paint jobs held up , and what happened when you wanted to repaint the car with "real" paint
My circle track cars always held up well and the one street vehicle I did in white looked like a professional paint job and I always used lacquer thinner.
I'm pretty sure that if you tried to repaint with real automotive paint the reducer would cause the rustoleum to wrinkle and it would be a mess.
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