Pro-Spray Problems

Mustang408

Mustang408

Member
I've had some very bad adhesion problems with Pro-Spray sprayed on cured, sanded (p600), white SPI epoxy.

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I was pulling tape after I cut and buffed the whole car. This was on the hatch. This is after more than 6 weeks from the time I sprayed the car.
I did the engine compartment last summer and I noticed when I dropped the engine back in the paint was easy to chip?

Engine compartment:
-One coat gray SPI epoxy two coats Pro-Spray color. Color sprayed about 12 hours after epoxy, no sanding between epoxy and color.
Body of Car
-One coat white SPI epoxy, cured for weeks sanded with p600. 4 coats Pro-Spray color, four coats euro clear.

I'm so pissed at the ease this color will peal off the car it makes me sick.

I'm no pro, but not an idiot. I've always used DBC in the past, but because of cost I switched bases - now I'm regretting it.

Has anyone else seen this problem?
 
Scuffing cured epoxy and spraying basecoat over it is insufficient for adhesion. You should've sprayed a sealer coat of epoxy before your base. Mechanical adhesion just isn't enough over a cured epoxy. It sounds like you followed protocol on the engine compartment, so I don't know what that issue could be. Did you activate the basecoat?
 
The cured epoxy, would be the same as getting a new fender in e-coat and scuffing and painting, not a perfect choice but done everyday in production body shops and paint don't just shave off, could be a little more prone to chipping then a wet epoxy sealer but not like the pictures you are showing after that amount of set time.

Was this what they call their HS base mix? They have three choices.
 
The base was activated when I sprayed the engine compartment, but not the body.

I'm not sure what mix Chad used.

I did do a little testing when I sprayed the bumper covers a few days after the body. I did a test on an old hood because I was concerned about adhesion.

--I masked of a square of cured epoxy (sprayed over 3 month ago and sanded with 600) then masked half and sprayed a 1:1:1 sealer coat. Waited about an hour, pulled tape between sanded and new sealer, and sprayed two coats base and two coats euro over whole square. After cured for 2~3 hours I pulled the tape and the color pealed on me. Maybe the clear had bridged the tape too much or my technique was bad, but I at least got to see that the base was bonded to the epoxy. Obviously the epoxy was very fresh and had little strength yet.
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This is my scratch test I just did today. The base that was sprayed over a sealer coat was more difficult to scratch off
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My spray out panel.
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shine;26400 said:
what temps did you spray and how much flash time between coats of base ?
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I sprayed the engine compartment in direct sun outside during the summer, so I know it was hot. Not the conditions I would normally spray because it was a last minute thing.

The body and bumper covers were sprayed in my shop booth. The wall temp indicated *68, so the metal was a little cooler. I was in no hurry, so if I remember right it was at least an hour between coats.
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i used Pro-spray for 1.5 years and never ever seen anything like this?

Best of luck figuring out what the cause is.

Travis
 
I have used Pro-Spray base coat on a number of different projects so far and not had anything like that happen. One major difference is that I always shoot a sealer coat of epoxy prior to applying base coat now.
Have even waited for 24 hours and wet sanded the epoxy before painting with no issues.
On one project I did not apply epoxy sealer coat and went directly over SPI regular 2k primer. This car did seem to chip easy and I think it may have been from wet sanding with 800 grit (I was out of 600). The 800 may have been too fine to produce enough scratch for the base to properly adhere but I can't be certain of this.
I am not a pro and do not have near the experience of these other guys so hopefully one of them will respond and help you resolve this issue. It certainly is a bummer when you do all that work and then find a major problem like this.
 
I am working on this as we speak.
I have found the mix sheets.
My first thought was as Barry said a mix in the wrong solids, but the mix sheets I have here are normal solids. Which is what I would want that color to be mixed in.

I have also emailed Pro-Spray tech to review this formula and give me a call back a.s.a.p.

I thought maybe I screwed up the mix somehow and that could be a issue but this color was mixed multiple times so that is throwing me off. We are very consistent with mixing and messing up three times on the same formula would not be possible. Unfortunately I am unsure where else to look at the moment.
 
when i used Pro-spray all my solid colors i sprayed in High solids.
all my others were 75% Medium other 25% Normal solids.

i never had adhesion problems with any of the mixes.

i guess if they start coming back after a few years i can blame it on what solids it was mixed in?makes no sense to me!

i always use a wet on wet sealer regardless if it is Epoxy or 2k.

Travis.
 
When we first started with the line we had a lot of issues with the HS, they may have toned it down some by now but I have no reason to use it in HS.
I will mix in medium if it's a known hard to cover color or if the customer requests but for the most part stick to normal.

Another thing I've noticed is that we are usually getting better color matches with the normal solids, I've mixed a few samples of a few colors in both normal and medium and compared them and have had a few colors that are quite a bit different.

I do have to say that peeling wasn't a issue of HS. it was color match and sensitivity, in a matter of 2 weeks I had three different shops with sensitivity issues. Since then I haven't mixed in HS, and those problems went away. That was many years ago now though, maybe since then they toned it down some. At the time it was nearly almost all pigment with barely any binder in the formula.
 
Getting back to this particular color, I had them double check the formula and make sure the binders were correct and everything is good, I contacted nate directly which has been very helpful over the last few years.

After reviewing this color a little closer it is not a high covering color. when comparing to toners it is almost 50% pearl, and the other colors are, transparent black, pale white, and tone controller which is clear, none of those listed cover very well. the other toners are magenta, maroon and some brown.
With only two coats on the firewall I wouldn't expect to see coverage, so I think with some heavy coats we may be trapping solvents.

With that said, as stated above a hour between coats should be efficient.
I would like either me or Barry to talk to kevin on this to see if we can figure out what is going on.

I am curious if the firewall has good adhesion, but I hate to see him try to purposely make it peel.
 
I bought Pro spray local a while back in hs and had issue with it peeling off like stated. I sprayed epoxy primer on two parts and could not get back to it for two weeks, so I scuffed and sprayed my color on then cleared it. When I tried to wet sand the sags out the paint peeled off. So I stripedback down to metal, cleaned good sprayed epoxy waited two hours then spray paint and cleared, next day wet sand and buffed great. I'm no pro but this to me looks the same way.
 
This is a very interesting thread.. I just bought some HS Pro Spray this weekend. My jobber told me he always mixes in HS.. I have personally used Pro Spray base over SPI epoxy for 6-7 years and never had any issue whatsoever.. Id be very interested to find out what happened here also.

Happy Spraying
 
Bondoking i only got Metallic/pearl mixed one time in HS.didnt like the way it sprayed and the match we way off!

i rarely had color problems with MS or NS.

on certain colors i would fight trying to get things to lay out in MS and found towards the end of me using Pro-spray i was better of using only NS like Chad does.

it wasn't b/c i was having problems with Peeling,blowups ect.i pounded this paint over and over and never had any issues.

any updates?
 
Sealer coat adds a lot of adhesion. Your scratch tests really should have waited for a month+ cure before testing but they still illustrate a difference-save that panel and do some more scratching after full cure. I've even used a shotgun for testing adhesion and film flexibility differences. What reducer was used in the basecoat? How long was the flash time between basecoat and clear? How much activator did you put in the base? How strong is the solvent smell when you peel back the paint?
 
Kevin and I had a long talk last night and I think Kevin did everything perfect and the best we can come up with is it may have been the reducer.
in the summer outside in the sun the engine compartment was sprayed and we had a slight problem with the drying a little fast as metal temp may have been in the 100's but he has adhesion but it can chip.
Base was applied with 885 in the 60 degree range, so metal temp would have been 5-10 degrees cooler and my best guess on the top surfaces the slow reducer did not get out of the first coat of base and broke adhesion, looks like the sides are OK.
Here again this is nothing more then Kevin's and my best guess.
 
Thanks to Barry and Chad for helping me look into this. I don't feel any of the products I used were at fault because overall the finished look of the car is outstanding. In my limited spraying experience, nothing really stands out as blatantly wrong other than my choice of reducer and the temps being low.

I wish I would of kept better notes or was totally certain of every step I did and all the little details.
I did find a picture on my phone of the first coat of base. Meta data from picture: 10/12/2012 4:51pm. Looking up the temp for the day in the almanac - 57*. So, this was the incoming temp through my 700sq/ft shop( with my 22000 BTU electric heater running all the time), then through the filters into the paint booth. If I remember right, my wall temp gauge read over 70* and slowly creeped down to 66* by the time I finished four coats of base (non activated).
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I just plan to sand and blend the peeled area on the hatch and probably do another test on my scrap hood at the same time. This time keeping better track of temps and coat times. Maybe it will provide more info.
I'll be sure to update when I have new information.
 
This is thing I hate about doing body work and painting on cars, we can all do everything we can possibly do to try to do everything just right, and still anything can happen.

I don't care if you only do one car or if you paint every day, it just seems like something always happens.
 
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