Slick Sand Poly Primer???

  • Thread starter moparmusclecars
  • Start date
M

moparmusclecars

I have heard of slick sand poly primer before, but have never used it. Is it similar to the old feather fill? I remember with the old feather fill it had fiberglass in it and sanded hard. It seemed you could never really block feather fill straight. I would like to hear about the pro's and con's of this product, and whether it saves the step of using a poly putty over body filler. If this actually works, this would have just saved me a big step in blocking poly puddy (icing) on all the mud work I just did on a overall. I ended up basically skimming every panel with mud on this car, blocking it straight, then skimming it again with icing and having to block it all again. Any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas would be appreciated. What were the steps you took when using it?
 
Neither Slick Sand nor the new Featherfill G2 are like the old Featherfill, they are much better, though still harder sanding than a urethane. If you are doing the kind of extensive putty work that you describe, one of the newer poly prime products might be worth a go. Just treat it like a thin coat of putty, breaking the top skin and texture off with something pretty coarse, like 80 or 100 before switching to 150. The stuff is usually thick enough to step through about 3 grits before repriming, typically we'll go 100 to 150 to 220 before repriming, guide coating in between, and still have very few breakthroughs.
 
You would have saved yourself some work for sure, if your skim coating complete panels with polyester putty you might as well use polyester primer IMO. Just make sure to use epoxy primer over any bare metal before any polyester primers or fillers are used. Here's a procedure to consider: Strip your parts and get your metalwork done, shoot two coats of epoxy and let it set overnight, the next day shoot 2-3 coats of poly primer----Now you've just captured the perfect recoat window on the epoxy and put enough build on to block out manyl of the smaller defects, next you can use filler over the poly primer (poly on poly) in any low areas left and prep it for another round of primer, block it to 180 or 220 or 320 and final prime with epoxy or urethane sufacer for you final round of sanding before sealer and paint. The benefits are: you captured the perfect 2-coat epoxy recoat window and eliminated a lot of scuffing, spot filling, and bare metal showing during the blocking stages. And if you do a cost comparison glaze/putty vs. poly prime it is cost effective. There's a lot of poly primers to pick from these days. When applying filler to poly primer sand first if the primer has set for more than a day. If you metalwork is really good you won't need the build poly primer provides.
 
I use Feather fill G2 (2nd generation) on everything that has mud on it. Basicaly it is a extra fine, spray on body filler, and makes all those different batches of body filler all the same hardness so you can sand the panel straight. Because it is a polyester product, it does not shrink and will fill 80 grit sand scratches without haunting you later. I epoxy (one coat) the completed body panel at the end of the day, and in the cool of the morning ( it sprays so nice below 70 deg.) spray 2-3 wet coats with 10 min.flash time in between each coat. Needs a 2.2 -2.5 tip to spray well. I cook it with a infrared heat lamp for 30 min. ( about 175 deg.) , let cool and it sands great with 120 norton gold/tan sandpaper. I will sometimes cut it with a few strokes of 80 grit if I have 3 coats. I like to cook all the panels on the car a couple times ( more heat cool cycles on dark color cars) to cure the bondo and featherfill thoughly before I start sufacing with epoxy.

Scott
 
One thing to remember is that poly primer is chemically hardened just like filler so it will "kick" even if still in your spray gun. :nightmare:
 
Ok, I do remember spraying a gallon of this slick sand on a 63 chevy truck resto getting done in the shop downtown where I was working. It had a high build much like the old feather fill and sanded kinda like a rock. Yeah, had i thought about it, I wish I would have used it on this GTO. My bodywork is pretty straight even on long big panels, but it still would have helped me out. When I am smearing icing over my mud on big panels I mix it a but soft so I can smear it all in one shot, leaving it at one level. I smear it smooth as possible and as thin as possible. I don't want to be sanding more than I have to. Yeah, i guess i just forgot about this slick sand stuff. Too bad I'm already past this stage now on this one. I'm blocking first round of SPI 2k primer, and will re-prime when ready. So when using the slick sand, you don't need to use the putty over the bondo work if it's pretty smooth? 80 grit or does it need to be like 180?
 
I've been using the featherfill g2 lately. Previously the slicksand. The g2 doesn't build as much per coat as the slicksand, but does spray a bit better and sands a little easier. So I think there is a good trade-off. Plus it is a little cheaper than slicksand...so using a little more for maybe another coat doesn't hurt. I get more than enough build with the featherfill at 3 coats out of a 2.5 tip.

I always finish my bodywork out in 180. There are lots of guys who leave in 80 grit and poly or urethane. IDK...just something that alwasy bit me when I did that.
 
So with either the slick sand or the featherfill g2, can you actually block anything half way straight with it? I know a guy will put down epoxy and 2k after but, can you get anything straight guide coating it and sanding it? I would think either product would be pretty hard to sand.
 
I like the idea of using all SPI products up to base (unless I use SPI base, which I have not yet) and the SPI clear. Would SPI Turbo be the closest thing to a slick sand type product?
NYT
 
SPI doesn't offer any polyester primers. The SPI urethane primer with the most build is 2K High Build #8000.
 
Using all SPI products start to finish is good, but polyester primer offers more build if you need it.
 
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