Paint Update

[widebody911]

I was actually able to shot some surfacing primer last night before I went to bed. This reveals all kinds of surprises! Oye! Ya gotta be careful letting your helpers use a DA, particularly on edges; there's going to be a lot of hand-sanding tonight!

I also detailed the areas around the cab top mounts, welded in all of the trim screw holes from the Targa trim, and fabbed the trim retaining strip for the top.

Tonight I'll block out the surfacing primer, fix the little "discoveries" from last night, and then shoot another coat of surfacer. Friday night I'll block that coat of primer...

http://vintagebus.com/howto/paint/

Thom,
What are you going to use to control dust when you shoot the paint? I'm about to shoot my ducktail in the garage and haven't got the dust thing figured out yet.
Thanks,
Mark

[widebody911]

For the primer, I'm not being very AR about dust,but here's what I do when I paint:

• blow off all surfaces of the car and garage the night before, with fans running to expel the dust
• hang plastic sheeting all the way around the garage
• wet down the floor and the area around the outside of the garage. Keep the hose in the garage to refresh the water
• use furnace filters to 'clean' incoming air

Thanks man.

[rvanderpyl]

What are you using for fans to exhaust the fumes when you are painting? Or is the paint you are using not solvent based so you don't need to worry about explosive vapors?

[Jim T]

Originally posted by widebody911
For the primer, I'm not being very AR about dust,but here's what I do when I paint:

• blow off all surfaces of the car and garage the night before, with fans running to expel the dust
• hang plastic sheeting all the way around the garage
• wet down the floor and the area around the outside of the garage. Keep the hose in the garage to refresh the water
• use furnace filters to 'clean' incoming air

Good luck with that. That was my plan when I painted my car in the garage several year ago. I found that hanging the plastic sheeting was a pain, and didn't really accomplish much. I just covered up the garage items closest to the car.

Wetting the floor, in concept, sounded like a good idea, but in practice was not and I stopped doing it. When you wet the floor, everything gets wet, the airhose for the spraygun, etc. Its easy to splash water on the car while you are painting, obviously a bad thing, when you have the floor wet and water everywhere.

I'd recommend just washing down the floor before you start, and letting it dry.

I found that even in the garage, dust is not really a problem. The biggest problem I found was keeping the supply air dry and clean - compressing air creates a lot of moisture, and that can be disasterous to the paint.

You are going to get a little dust and imperfections in the paint when you paint in your garage. They KEY, though, is to put enough paint on the car so that you can do a pretty aggressive color sand. That will take care of any dust, imperfections, etc.

There is a danger of putting too much paint on, but for a garage job, its better to have a little too much than a little too little. You can and will be color sanding and doing a lot of polishing - you need to have enough material on the car to handle that.

[Jdub]

Thom:

Could you explain the pics and what you said about revealing problems? That is, do these pics show a post-sand that has revealed the low and high spots? I think I see what looks to be a car that has been block (or at least flat-backed) sanded and thus we are looking at the low and high spots. Can you confirm?

Nice work BTW. I would love to do what you are doing.

John

[pbs911]

Why is the windshield still in?

Thom,
Why not set up a web-paint-cam in your garage so we can peek in on you progress (and count beers in case you forget)?

Mark

[PeteT]

Thom,
Are you using PPG's DPLF Expoxy Primer? I noticed you are using the single stage CLV was just wondering what you are putting underneath. I don't know how you do it. I am just trying to repaint my rear valance and I only have the primer/surfacer laid down. The way you are going, your whole car will be done before my one panel!
Keep up the updates

Pete

[Rot 911]

Originally posted by PeteT
I noticed you are using the single stage CLV

Thom, my question is are you using a positive ventilation respirator? I've been using acrylic enamel to paint because I thought the urethane paints put off cyanide fumes and I don't have a positive ventilation respirator.

[widebody911]

• The windshield is still in because it's easier to mask that way. I trim the outer rubber off, so I can run the tape down in the resulting 'channel' and the glass supports my masking paper. You could also use this trick to drive to a paint shop if you were having someone else paint it.
• I don't flood the floor, I just get it good and damp. You have to be ultra-super-careful with the air line when you do this, but I've found the dust control is worth it.
• I'm not using a PP mask - I do want to get one some day. I have a full-face 2-stage one now that's the best I can get without going PP. It does work *MUCH* better than the plain organic cannisters.
• These pix don't show the surprises; I'd need closeups for that. The surprises consisted of pinholes in the filler, missed rock chips, places that needed better feathering, etc, etc, etc.
• I'm using Evercoat "Fill Sand" which is a surfacing primer. It's intended to fill tiny imperfections and scratches; I think it can fill up to #80 sandpaper cuts - spray-on bondo!
• The 1st post-sand happens tonight. There's some small spots which will need sanding and atiny bit of filler, and we missed some rock chips on the front. The bumpers need the edges sanded because the neighbor kid that's helping took #80 to them at all kinds of odd angles Can't b*tch about free labor - he's showed up at my house @ 5:00 on the dot every day this week, unsolicited, for free. The other kids are playing basketball and riding bikes, and he wants to sand on my car.
• I have a couple of box fans I use to move the air, as well as some super-heavy-duty mainframe cooling fans (think 'e-ram')
• I have a drop ceiling, and I'm not sure yet how I'll hang plastic. I may just staple it to the shelving. It *does* help control the overspray a bit.
• I'm using the $50 Harbor Fright [sic] HVLP gun to shoot the surfacing primer
• I [i]will[i] be color sanding when all is said and done, no doubt about it. I think paint just looks better after color sanding.
• I'm planning on shooting color Saturday.
• I have a Sharpe air dryer/filter, and before the air gets to that, it goes thru a 15' and 25' 3/8" air hoses, each coiled into it's own bucket of cold water to cool the intake charge. My compressor is large enough that it hardly runs at all while I'm actually painting. I also use a small disposable inline filter at the gun.

[Kurt B]

Free labor is great. What is color sanding?

[Brunosan]

would you like to paint my 1970 911T also?

im looking 4 someone to paint my car too

[Jim T]

Looks like its going to come out great!

I've found painting a lot of work, but also a lot of fun and probably the most rewarding auto project around.

Can't wait to see your results!

[widebody911]

Color sanding is using very high grit paper (ie 2500) with water to block out orange peel, dust, fisheyes or other imperfections - basically sanding the final paint to make it perfectly flat. Then that's followed up with a buffer and polishing compound, and then a machine glaze.

Originally posted by Kurt B
Free labor is great. What is color sanding?