sprey paint

I've done alot of sprey painting, sanding, more sanding, more. Non sandable primer is nice. I've never had to use finer than 220 on anything plastic or steel or otherwise. 80 grit is the most used for chips and scratches. Then 100 then 150 then 220 to get the sand scratches out. You know when you've sanded enough by paying attention to the color changes -by watching them change. I use a mikita orbital and it makes the job a snap. Black and decker's are not as smooth or fast and wear out. Never use it for bondo, it won't work for that at all. Use a block. The trick is to go the right direction and the bondo will recontour perfectly. The orbital tends to makes squiggles. Don't worry. They come out by hand sanding with 150. Don't go wild with the eighty, it makes deeper squig's. You won't be sanding the whole tank with it anyway unless your high. Dawn dish soap washes and degreases very nice intially and between coats. Spray your primer or paint in many thin coats starting with a very light one. This is the most important step. Don't get excited. The good news is it doesn't take 41 days to dry between coats. It may take several coats to even cover the item. When it flashes or "looks dry it's ready for another coat. This may be just a few minutes. Spray lightly and the flash times are short. Don't make the mistake of spraying to thick when the item looks close to covered. If you do this and then you give it a final coat without waiting long enough, it will run. Build the thickness with an extra coat or two once the item is covered. When using black be very careful to spray as many coats as nessessary to cover so the item isn't soaking up paint on the final coat. Reason is that black will need a thick final to shine. If your spraying your but off trying to make sure it's shine is uniform and you did not have the item covered good enough, it will take too much paint to cover, and it will sag and run. Your gonna be pissed. And maybe a new dent will appear on the item, and a sadistic smile on your face. But this cost money so don't get excited. Set up good light for black especially, so you can see the paint flash over and shine on that final coat. Anywhere you don't spray enough it will look dull so make sure you can see all around the item before you spray. You can test for this while your priming. Rule of thumb. Don't make scratches, or there will be scratches. You'd be surprised how much shows through, and how no number of coats will hide the marks you make, yes you. A clear coat looks nice. Don't put too much on, it will look funny and phenominon's also occur. Use about four light coats. The last coat of evert thing you apply has to be a little heavier. The trick to no runs and nice uniform color is to apply as many light coats as it takes, and there is no magic number, to saturate the item allowing it to soak up the paint before you spray on the final. When the paint is dry do not touch it with wax, sandpaper, gas, fingers, ect. Never. It wil not stand up. To keep it nice, don't let it get dirty. Rinse it with warm water to wash the dirt away. The minute you wipe it with a rag it going to scratch it. Don't let it sit in the sun all day either. And filling with gas without spilling is an aquired skill, the paint doesn't need any gas the motor runs on gas. Some clear coats are shit. They turn yellow by morning. Look into this. This is your protective coat, not the butt of the joke. Ive done alot of spray painting and i don't claim to be the expert. What I'm probably the best at is not wasting time and effort. I don't reccomend using spray can paint on large items. I don't rec. spray paint at all. If you have patience where it's due, yes you can make some nice looking items, if the paint you spray on is crap, yes it will fade, fall off in an hour. To keep your project fun, and your sanity, look into some good paint, because the bottom line with this maneuver is: you will be doing the same thing over again later. The sanding and painting you learn are invaulable. Give that guy a gun and look out.

Post edited by: nads.com, at: 2006/12/30 04:19

nads.com wrote:

I've done alot of sprey painting,

Apparently without using a respirator or even a cotton mask?
Sorry, just funnin you. :laugh:

Seriously though, that's a lot of very good info!
But I'm curious though as to what type of breathing protection is the best to use while sanding and painting?

Since fine paint and primer particles will stick readily to a persons hands (clothes, etc.) and possibly transfer over to the piece they're working on (Murpy's law 101 :pinch:), do you recommend wearing any type of rubber or nitrile gloves to help prevent from contaminating the work during any/all steps? Any good cleaning and prep tips that should be followed during and between each step?

Post edited by: RetroRiceRocketRider, at: 2006/12/30 12:32

RetroRiceRocketRider wrote:

But I'm curious though as to what type of breathing protection is the best to use while sanding and painting?

Depends on how protected you wanna be.

You could always get a bio-hazard suit with an external air supply with biological filtering if'n yawanna go whole hog...

But since dry primer sanding and bondo dust, etc. is particulate, one of those little white dust masks properly fitted is fairly sufficient.

Since paints, reducers, thinners and catalyst/hardeners contain "aerosols" - chemicals sublimated by the spraying process - and especially urethanes, which contain methyl isocyanates (...the same stuff that in large concentrations killed 2,000 people in Bhopal, India when a tank ruptured back in the 80s...) - a good charcoal-filtered respirator is a good minimum option.

Since fine paint and primer particles will stick readily to a persons hands (clothes, etc.) and possibly transfer over to the piece they're working on (Murpy's law 101 :pinch:), do you recommend wearing any type of rubber or nitrile gloves to help prevent from contaminating the work during any/all steps?

You can, but two things: first, one aspect of fine-detail prep is being able to *feel* the surface; your fingertips can tell you a lot more than your eyes in that regard - so a set of gloves can only detract from tactile sensitivity.

Second, a lot of gloves come dusted with some kind of ick out of the box, so they can add to the odd debris on the surface if not washed first.

Personally, I get around that by wet sanding EVERYTHING - from bondo to primer stages, blowing everything off with a good moisture-filtered source and not sparing the tack rags before I shoot.

Any good cleaning and prep tips that should be followed during and between each step?

Clean hands and a clean area, free of oil and other contaminants is a good place to start. Wet instead of dry sanding cuts dust and body-oil contamination waaaay down from the get go. Liberal blow-offs and use of clean tack rags will pretty much handle the rest. Handling pieces properly is also a good idea - once blown and tacked, no need to palm a gas tank like a basketball - handle items deftly and with as little skin contact as possible.

If none of the above is possible, DuPont makes this stuff called *Prep-Sol* that's designed for wiping down surfaces to remove oils and such, but it ain't all that cheap, and is yet another perto-chemical in its own right.

Thanks PT, that's kind of what I had figured.

I'm considering taking a stab at painting at least one set of bodywork I have for my 650, and want to go into it armed with whatever tips and knowledge I can glean so as not to screw up and waste money and time.

Thanks again!

i spelled that on purpose to catch a fidsh

what spray gun do you recomend? i saw some cheap ones at habor frt tools, is this good enough?

leitrum wrote:

what spray gun do you recomend? i saw some cheap ones at habor frt tools, is this good enough?

kzrider.com/component/option,com_joomlab...id,6/id,96979/#96979

An earlier thread on the topic...