just sprayed universal for the first time!

5

58mark

actually, first time I've ever sprayed ANY clear coat. All my experience is in lacquer

man this stuff went on great! I was only spraying the underside of the hood, the cowl, and the gully under the rear hatch (things I'm not going to be buffing and won't be visible when I spray the rest of the car) I started with one medium coat, and followed it up 20 minutes later with one heavier coat. at one point I got worried because I saw those urethane waves, so I sped up the gun. turns out the parts that had the waved laid out to be the nicest part of the parts I sprayed today

2011-07-25_10-47-28_69.jpg


yeah, there's a touch of trash in there. I'll admit to getting sick of prepping the underside of the hood. so many nooks and crannys, and it looks like something got dislodged and landed on the surface I was painting

2011-07-25_10-47-38_196.jpg


I was using a Grizzly LVLP gun with a 1.5 tip. It's a budget gun, but it doesn't FEEL like a budget gun. The knobs have a quality feel to them, and the pattern is perfect.

I'm not going to say it's the world's best gun, but I'll say with a lot of certainty that it's the best budget gun out there.
 
WOW! check out this reflection. this is 90 minutes after the second coat. No sanding, or polishing, just a nice flat, beautiful clear. there's less orange peel in this than brand new cars from the dealership

I can't wait to paint and clear the part of the car that actually will prep properly. It should look even better. All I did to this part was sand with 120 grit paper, spray epoxy on it, scuff it with 400 this morning, and then clean i with wax and grease remover



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SPI is quality stuff! Your results will get better and better as you learn the products.
 
yeah, I was a little concerned about laying it on so thick, but when I did the results were amazing
 
Yes, if your gun is setup to atomize well you should be able to put a vertical coat on that's wet and smooth without running, if the gun isn't atomizing well and you have to apply it overly thick to get a wet coat then you're going to have runs. Proper atomization and hardener temp selection is important-if your hardener speed is to fast you'll end up putting the clear on to heavy to get a slick finish-it's really bad when you see dry clear fuzz in front of your gun as you're making a pass.
 
I got all happy when I had all my success yesterday morning, and now that I realize that everything I sprayed was horizontal, it's brought me back to earth a little. I'll have to find something I can experiment on to get my gun speed down. I'm using the slowest hardener here, but the temps when I'm spraying are in the upper 90's, so that's appropriate

thanks for your help Bob!
 
If you hang your parts, you will get less trash. I just sprayed a batch of hanging stuff, and I doubt it would have been much better in a real booth. Then I sprayed the body (obviously not hanging vertically) and I got a good bit of dirt. You can spray it really slick vertically though. I got a couple runs, that took me a total of 5 minutes or less to sand out. Every run was from me overdoing an edge or something.
 
I thought about hanging the hood, but I didn't think it was practical.
 
I had heard that when you spray metallics, all items should be sprayed in the orientation that they will fit on the car. true? not true?
 
1.5mm tip vs 1.4mm tip for SPI clear

So, I sprayed my epoxy primer with a 1.5mm HF purple gun (the $15 one), and the results were awesome.

I then bought a 1.4mm Grizzly HVLP H7669 (the 1.5mm is the HVLP H7667) for the clear coat. The results weren't as smooth as the primer. The primer for the most part laid down pretty flat with a really nice reflection.

Barry recommended the 1.4mm tip, so I'm guessing it was just my gun adjustment that I goofed up.

I'm in Texas and it's around 100 deg every day. Should I stick with the 1.4mm tip on my second attempt, or switch to 1.5mm? FYI, this is all in the engine compartment. Yes, that might be a little OCD.

Here was the "best" area of clear coat, and as you can see, it is wavy.

DSC04386.JPG
 
I don't have any experience with the grizzly hvlp, olny the lvlp. Mine laid down clear smooth as glass with the 1.5 tip

Actually, yesterday I sprayed universal with a cheap HF detail gun, and it came out great too. I think its impossible to mess up with universal

2011-07-30_11-18-21_236.jpg
 
How many turns out do you make the fluid adjustment and what PSI do you shoot with the trigger fully depressed. I was using about 2-2.5 turns out, and 35 psi with the grizzly.
 
Ill have to check after I set up the gun again for base and clear. I opened it up when i shot primer

I was using 25-30psi for everything so far
 
I just shot my first "repair" coat of SPI with the $30 HF gun rather than my grizzly. The grizzly recommendation was 29-50psi inlet. The HF is 50-70psi.

I used the $15 HF for the primer and was pleased, so I figured why not try the $30 HF with the 1.4mm tip. I'm happier with the first coat. It went on more smoothly. The cap on the HF guns are very similar, but the Grizzly is different. It has 4 tiny holes forming nearly half a circle on each side. I can take a picture, but it doesn't really matter.


The only bad thing is, even after using PPG 330 W&G cleaner last night, it looks like there is a lot more trash on the surfaces than the first time. I'm sure that is a result of all the wet sanding I did and cleaning afterwards.

Oh well, I'm still probably happier with the results compared to before. I'll take some pictures after I shoot my 2nd and hopefully FINAL coat.
 
this is the grizzly I used. seems like a completly different gun than yours.
http://grizzly.com/products/H7667

One thing I've found with with universal, as detiled by bob earlier in this thread, is that it has to be shot HEAVY unless you are willing to sand and buff. I'm not sure how the outside of my car is going to turn out. I have a feeling I'm going to have to be conservative with the thickness on the sides, knowing that I will have to sand and buff it later, but I was planning on doing that anyway, so I'm not out anything
 
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