A Few Beginner Questions

Thanks guys

Upon Shines advice I'll just be using only epoxy on my vette. Which is slower but that's fine with me. Also simpler and more reassuing so that counts for a lot.


The plan right now is to buy a quart of PPG metallic to paint the old hood. This will see if I have even a slight chance painting a metallic as a first time painter before I spend a TON of money on 2gallons and end up not being able to get it right on my own.

Old hood is in primer and will be ready for base soon.

Challenges:
I still got dust in the primer(was pretending it was base and tried to make it perfect) even after blowing out my DIY booth well. I can definitely do better but what happens if I get a little dust when painting the metallics?

Temperature. Winter has come here in PA I'm afraid. I can heat the booth to 70-80 easy but not when spraying. I'll pull warmer air from the house but if painting for any length of time the air will get colder and colder. Will that hurt things much? When done with a coat I can shut fans off and it'll heat back up in a little.

Engine bay. I want to paint this metallic as well but have zero idea how to get the dozens of differently facing walls and pockets to look right. Blanket light costs? Tiny fan pattern and do my best to be as close to 90degrees for each part?

Will my metallic painting skills be judgeable without clearing and cut/buffing? I hear some metallic mistakes aren't visable till after everything is done. True?
 
I see alot of guys on here go with 100% epoxy. Whatever works for everyone I guess. My only comment is when the process is laborious what is "ready to paint" sometimes slips, especially for a beginner. I have a friend who block/wet sands everything. He refuses to do it dry or do it with a DA. On the surface sounds like the perfect paint job, even though he does use 2K after the epoxy. Only problem is every job he's done this way has serious flaws in it. I guess after hours of sanding and sanding by hand he figured it would be good enough. Thats the issue I see with a beginner using epoxy only. What you might think wont show up because you have already applied epoxy 4 times with 2 coats, may. For the most part, figure that any imperfection you can see, even at an obscure angle with a super bright light is going to show up easy when you paint and clear it.

Regarding the old hood, I think thats a great idea. However unless you give up easily I would just commit.. Go for the 2 gallons. Thats how you learn. Give it a shot, see what happens. Be honest with yourself, and ask for pointers. I will be willing to bet a sizeable amount of money that NOONE has ever had a flawless first job. You will have flaws. Getting on the forums will help you have the smallest amount of them, but you will have some. The difference is do you have to reshoot a panel or reshoot everything. So go ahead and shoot the hood, but dont get too discouraged if it doesnt come out perfect.

Dust is something all of us in homebrew makeshift setups fight. Running a filter on the inlet of the gun helps. making sure all the dust is blown out of every crevice of the panel helps. Wetting the floor helps. After a disaster last year I gave up on the home brew booth and went back to just shooting in the shop. More challenging for me is my "shop" is mostly open air, being a converted pole barn that has a 16x10 opening that doesnt even have a door, and one entire "wall" is basically heavy field wire mesh. I have to pick a time when the bugs arent too bad, and then just do my best to clean up the shop area as best as I can.. Moisten the floor, and get at it.. Shooting base after a coat I go over the vehicle and see what happened. If I get dust, dirt, or bugs, you can spot repair those before the next coat. Once all the color is on, then switch to clear. If you get some dust in the first coat of clear theres ways of working it out while the clear is still wet. Same for the second. On the final coat of clear just let the dust or dirt alone. That will wetsand/buff out.
 
I think you're probably right about the 2 gallons. I'm pretty bullheaded usually and even though 99% of people say pay someone else or you can't do a metallic... I still won't be happy with anything but one.


I think I can do better on the dust. BUT in the case I get some on a metallic base what are my options? Just so i'm prepared.

1. leave it and clear over. It's a darker metallic so maybe won't show too much?
2. Pick it out with a razor blade once the base has flashed?
3. file it with 600? and shoot another coat or two over the entire car? I'm worried if I just spray a coat to cover the filing it won't blend into the other areas well.


I'm pretty sure the dust is floating and I just didn't give the booth long enough to settle after blowing. Plus there's some that probably comes from my clothes...so I'm going to either try new clothes or for the real base probably get a tyvek suit.
 
A premium brand of base coat will solve a lot of your metallic problems before they can happen. A tack rag should take care of some of the stuff that lands in the base, and buffing will take care of the rest. Try not to get all worked up about it. I read daily on here about people sanding crud out of basecoat and then wanting to clear it and that is not how it is done. It's one thing to seal it and put a coat of base on and then denib it before continuing with base, another to clear over sanding marks in the pigments.
 
crashtech;41079 said:
A premium brand of base coat will solve a lot of your metallic problems before they can happen. A tack rag should take care of some of the stuff that lands in the base, and buffing will take care of the rest. Try not to get all worked up about it. I read daily on here about people sanding crud out of basecoat and then wanting to clear it and that is not how it is done. It's one thing to seal it and put a coat of base on and then denib it before continuing with base, another to clear over sanding marks in the pigments.
Click to expand...

I hope that's true about a good brand. Just got back from getting my DBC. $900 for 2 gallons spray-able...no turning back now. The guy was showing me other less expensive ones and honestly they were all probably close enough... But... I wanted cyber gray...not something close enough. There's a reason it's the #3 most purchased C6/C7 color(I assume only next to red and black?). Why chance getting something that's different to save a few hundred at this stage?

I'm about to paint the old hood again today and have done a much better job blowing out my booth(used a leaf blower this time vs. compressed air). and am letting it settle for at least a few hours before I start spraying. I'll see how much better that does with dust. I'm crossing my fingers!
 
there is nothing wrong with using epoxy only. the only difference is cure time and not much at that .

and your right. if your worrying about a hundred dollars or so on paint your in the wrong hobby . get a fishing pole, minnows are cheap .
 
Well if you have a pole and minnows then you need a boat..... Ha!
 
Well... I "thought" I did a much better job getting dust out. It was definitely better but there seemed to be WAY more fine particles. Still not sure if they're just dust I missed, stuff in the primer(which I filtered), water in my air line?(I have a filter but it's only to 5microns. Haven't gotten my dessicant canister yet as I was thinking I didn't need one as I haven't seen water on my air tools since I upgraded to the new reg/filter),

They are so fine there's no way to pick them out if it happens on the base.
Not sure if it's just normal and when it cures will look a little better?....that's my hope at least.

I tacked before each coat(did 2 coats with 5-10% reducer in it). Fresh plastic under it....






 
Holy hell! 900 for 2 gals sprayable? Are you having them mixing it for you so its "ready to spray" out of the can?? If thats the case, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you might need more. DBC straight is mixed 1:1 with reducer. So 1 gal of non-reduced DBC would be 2 sprayable gallons. Unless theres something real special about that code, I would expect a gallon of DBC to be in the 450 to 600$ range. From there, a gallon of shopline reducer at 30 bucks gives you two gallons of sprayable material.. Yes, I will cut cost on the reducer.
Since you are doing the exterior, engine compartment, all jambs, if you knew what you were doing and in a spray booth(absolutley no rework) you could probably do it with 3 quarts(1.5 gallons sprayable).. Since you are fighting dirt and the usual newcomer issues, I wouldnt be surprised if you run out though.. Especially with you experimenting on that other hood.

Regarding the flaws in the test hood... Heres the deal. If you can see ANY flaws in the primer, its definitely going to show. Thats why I dont really support a total epoxy job for a beginner. Epoxy base and 2K over it, the 2K sands so easy that you are more likely to luck into a good finish vs looking over the epoxy with a microscope. But anyhow, if you see any imperfections at the priming stage, take care of them..
After that, if you can see ANYTHING in the base coat, its going to show after the clear. After basing everything should be smooth, just dull. If after your first coat of clear dirt lands in it, if you dont take care of it it will be trapped under the 2nd coat or 3rd if you go that far.
The real experienced guys may know tricks to get crap in the base to not show even after the final clear, but at this point after each coat(basing or clearing) I look closely and take care of any issues on the spot..
 
Yeah. He warned me before looking it up it was going to be a salty price. And I had read similar threads on the code of other people finding that out then deciding to get a different gray. He said it called for 2 bottles of a blue pearl that were $200 each just for those. He showed me other grays that all looked similar to me on a little chip sheet but I wanted the corvette color and it was worth it to pay a little extra for me to say it's Cyber Gray and not something "close".

I'm going to spray the hood today. I sanded to 600, blew out the garage, mopped the floor, let sit overnight, using my painting air hose(last time I was lazy and used my old one). My desiccant filter never showed up in time from stupid Amazon so i'm going without it. If I get particles in the primer again I'll just stop and learn from it...again but won't continue on to color. I have a feeling with what I learned last week and going a little more careful this week we'll see what happens.

Only bad thing is it's cold outside today so my heaters are going as hard as they can to get the garage to 70.(obviously not when painting)
I can only learn by doing so for better or worse... we'll see what happens!
 
learn to let each coat flash long enough so you can tack well. 90% of trash will come off unless you go over it twice and bury it with paint.
 
Well I'm on coat 3 of color and like last time had some very tiny stuff pop up. I'm hoping it'll get fixed with the desiccant filter going less than 10microns which is all I have right now. IF it doesn't get fixed by a filter then there isn't much else I'm going to be able to do to keep the dust down. I'm wearing a suit, wet the floors, .... I did forget to tack between coats 1 and 2. But the stuff never came out of the epoxy sealer coat with the tack rag. :(


How much force should be used with the tack cloth? I forgot to tack between coats 1 and 2. (sorry...I'm learning and trying to juggle a few different things is proving to be a challenge I guess. Maybe I'll make a list next time.)
 
Well I sprayed it... Turned out very blotchy and I don't wanna apply clear knowing it'll probably just show through the clear too?
I feel like my speed and overlap were very good... so not exactly sure how to fix or prevent this from happening if I have to sand and try again.




I wasn't applying wet coats... if anything maybe too light?
Maybe too much material?
I was only at 28psi on the iwata400.
 
shine;41218 said:
pressure for base will be 16-20 lbs. it can look a little blotchy until flashed off good .
Click to expand...

O. I thought i read somewhere 28 was good.

Either way it sprayed on glass smooth...ie no orange peel which I was happy about.

But it's been sitting for an hour and still looks blotchy :(
Still a chance it might fix itself? Or is there anything I can do to fix it?
Lower my PSI and spray another even coat?

I did 3 coats then a "drop" coat. didn't change my pressure or anything but just sprayed from higher up to mist it a little.
saw it was blotchy so added another even coat and mist coat. made it worse.
 
shine;41222 said:
the drop coat is what is blotchy. i never do a drop coat .
Click to expand...

You must be right as I painted another 2 coats just to see what would happen and 95% of the blotchyness disappeared. I think with another coat with no mist coat I would have had complete hiding of my earlier blotchyness. I would have thought a broad casted mist coat would help even things out but I guess not.

I went ahead and sprayed 2 coats of clear just for practice and to see what would happen. I got some orange peel at first using 16PSI, quickly switched to 20. Then on the 2nd coat went to 28psi. Not sure what's the right PSI for clear is....just experimenting.

Like I expected the tiny little dust nibs got amplified 100x. My only chance is if the .01 micron filter I have coming helps keep the dust down as I have no clue what else I can do to keep it down. I'm going to wetsand with 600 or 800? and spray another coat and see if anything is different...mostly for my curiosity and learning.

Pictures don't show much... it's not very pretty up close :(




 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top