Joel 67

Jim,

I created a new post for this since the topic really does not relate all that well to the original thread's topic. I hope you don't mind . . .

I did a laquer job about 15 years ago in my driveway that turned out ok for a driver. I'd like to try again with one of my Corvettes and think I could do a good job, but most people won't even consider painting their own car.

I have many questions about what you've done here. It appears that you painted this car in the same spot as the photo was taken (jackstands, overspray on floor). If this is true, did you build any sort of paint booth for the work to keep dust and contaminants out? Did you spray with an HVLP gun? Is this BC/CC?

Can you provide an overview of what you did and your background in painting cars?

wmf62

lacquer can be painted, literally in a driveway (i've done it.... ) by a novice; because it dries so fast and therefore is easy to sand out mistakes. bc/cc (especially the cc...) is slower to dry, so it should be done in a clean dust/dirt free area.
Bill

lacquer


bc/cc

66since71

I have done it too. I painted my 69 race car red. Really surprised how it came out. After color sanding and rubbing out, it was nearly OEM quality.

I'd stay away from metallics.. solid colors only (so you can spot in repairs without creating "halos"). I wet down the driveway during the job to control dust and keep overspray from sticking.

Jim Dillon

Sorry did not mean to hijack the thread and will try to answer any questions I can. To answer your question about my paint background, I will try to not get too wordy. My painting expereince goes back to around 1964. Some of the older folks may remember my grandfather who was the largest car collector when I was born (Barney Pollard around 1200 cars mainly 1898 to around 1940), which was a great thing for a car nut. My grandfather had a restoration shop in the forties thru his death and so I was always around restoration with an interest in everything but painting. My grandfather put me to work in the paintbooth when I was 13 to force me to learn it. I was painting cars for guys in my neighborhood when I was 15 as well as two C1 racecars when I was the same age (first real exposure with these great cars). Got into painting pearls and candies a couple of years later(including C1s). I had a restoration shop in SoCal in the eighties concentrating mainly on 1930s luxury show cars (Packards, Pierce Arrrows etc) and some sports cars. That in a strange way lead to me doing show paint work for GM Truck and Bus Group (Truck Division) for a few years (1982-1984) which lead to me doing fleet painting projects for GM (Bus Division-development and overseeing,training, etc) until the bus division was sold. Did some other consulting paint work and problem solving. With having to continuously solve problems with paint vapors present I pushed myself away from the painting in the late eighties and only do it occasionally as a hobby.

Now as to this particular job I did paint it right there and it has very little dirt and what is there I am quite confident I can get out in block sanding process. I have painted in some fancy booths and outside and it all can be done but different things must be adjusted for the conditions. I will photograph the set up I have for air circulation and at least my fresh air system. I believe personal safety and your lungs are worth some basic equipment. I use an explosion proof fan that is easily adapted to the garage door and can be set up and taken down in moments. Paint fumes are not only toxic but explosive and my fan cost me I believe around $190 at Graingers about 10 years ago(I think). Even though I have every type of gun imaginable the HVLP guns are the best method today, because they save paint. They don't pump out as much into the atmosphere, costs savings and cuts down on the neighbors bitching. That being said they require more CFM of air from your compressor than a siphon feed so if you do not have a large compressor a siphon feed will have to do. Also the air cap on the siphon feed guns are interchangeable and so with a smaller compressor you want an air cap with as few holes in and around the air horns as possible. I could relate a bunch of bad stories about the effects of working with two part paint and I will never paint without a freshair system. Mine is a Survivair system I have had for years and still works great. I tape my air line for the gun and the freshair line together which is better than wrestling two separate lines. Still it is more cumbersome but you learn to adapt. Its worth it.

I try to blow out the booth the day before so all of the dust is either gone or harmlessly laying down and use some clear plastic taped or clipped to whatever you want to cover but nothing too close to the car because that can raise dust while you are painting. I still use a couple of buckets of water and squegee the floor just prior to painting-damp not wet or it will end up on your hose and surprisingly in the wet paint. Also find the best pair of tweezers you can find because bugs love fresh paint and its best to learn the touch of a surgeon to remove them.

I will try to answer any questions that I can-may have to answer a litle later as my wife is into horses and tonight is horsey night I hear-Jim

Johns_65Vette

And my wife is into horses also. Makes it tough to make a good dust proof area with them hay burners around.

Seaside63

You can practice your painting by pin-striping one of her horses and tell her it's a Zebra !!!

Johns_65Vette

Yeah that'll go over like a turd in the punch bowl.

Grey Ghost

I wet down my garage floor before painting too. Yep, dragging that hose through accumulated water and it will drip onto the car. What you are trying to do is keep dust/dirt down. I used one of those throw away paint suits, a good respirator (not a dust mask) and bombed the garage with one of those bug bombs prior to painting. Don't paint too late in the day, seems like more bugs are out later in the day.

I have painted single stage and bc/cc. Color sanding will fix most all your mistakes. Find you an old hood, fender, door, etc...and practice on it. You want to get the gun close enough so that it doesn't look dry, but not too close to make runs. Clear is kind of tough to do. It is hard to see how much is going on and easy to run. Stop by your local autobody supply store. Usually they will give you all kinds of tips. It ain't hard, I'm surprised more people don't do their on painting.

I have actually used a $50.00 import gun from Wal-Mart. After color sanding, it looked like a mirror. That was more than 6 years ago and the car still looks just as good. Solid colors only. I haven't tried metallics. But, I think one of the tricks is a diagonal spray pattern to prevent mottling.

My old '66, painted in the garage. 5hp, 20 gallon air compressor, Wal-Mart paint gun. 3 coats base, 3 coats clear color sanded:

macdarren

All this talk makes me rethink my paint....maybe I could have done it myself, saved some money and had my car done by now, or at least learned some stuff as I went through the process, as it is my car has been sitting in the bodyshop for a month while they think about starting it......Can minor body fixup and paint be done in 10-14 days? They claim it will be ready mid Oct....of course they have pushed it back everytime I ask, but this last time they said they were still expecting to be done middle of Oct and on my visit Wed it was still looking pretty much like it did when I dropped it off...Of course I still haven't settled on a color but why rush, I might still have months before they are ready to spray.

John McGraw

Booths are nice, but not required, even for urethane. Here is some pics of my 59 that was painted in the garage with single-stage urethane, and some pics of some body panels from my C2 that I just painted in the same garage a couple of weeks ago. A little 2000 grit wet-or-dry goes a long way toward removing all the dust nibs before polishing!

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...3/P0000955.JPG

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...3/P0001397.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...Z-P0001538.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...J-P0001539.jpg

I have always painted lacquer in my garage for the last 35 years, but when I started shooting urethane on my daily drivers several years ago, everybody told me that you just couldn't shoot it outside a booth, but it just aint so!
I am sure that it would be eaiser with a booth, but I am not planning on spending $6K on a booth anytime soon. The hazzard of breathing these iso-cyanurate paints can not be overstated, I always use a supplied-air respirator for any catalyzed paint!

Regards, John McGraw

MarvBarrish

You can rent a spray booth for about a $100 a day. Makes life a lot easier and also helps in not breathing a lot of dangerous fumes. Marv

Johns_65Vette

John, Did you buy or build your rotiserrie (SP?) If you built it, do you have plans somewhere?

Glenn's 67 BB Vert

Why paint the car with the doors off--Just wondering-why not just open the doors ?/-Glenn

wmf62

so you can paint the door jambs.....
Bill

John McGraw

John,

I built it myself, and have modified it to accept a C2 body. I made some plans after the fact, and if you send me you Email address in a PM, I will try and find them. Keep in mind, that the plans were made after the fact, and may not have all the details, but it should get you going in the right direction. I fabbed this up out of my head over a weekend, and only have about $300 in it, but that was before the price of steel went through the roof. I would guess that you could still build it for less than $500. It sure beats the heck out of laying flat on your back under a car with crap raining down in your eyes!

Regards, John McGraw

John McGraw

Glenn,

You always get the best job if you paint car with all the removable panels pulled off. You can get in all the little nooks and crannies, and can spray all the removed panels while laying flat on stands. The paint has much less tendency to run when the part is horizontal, and the visibility while painting is unsurpassed. The rotissere also helps in painting all those low parts of the car that normally get shortchanged on paint, and keeps the area you are painting, up in you direct line of vision and well lighted.

Regards, John McGraw

Jim Dillon

I agree with John, I try to paint with the car apart, 90% of the time. I also made a pretty nice set of metal horses, with removable uprights that can be set up to hold all of the panels quickly. If it is candy or pearl or really heavy metallic then I put the whole car back together so as to get the color just right. More of a pain that way because then you have to paint the jambs and troughs before or after and there is always an edge. On this job, the hood was just set on as well as was the cowl vent and the gas door. If you paint the parts separately sometimes and put a different amount of paint in a different manner when the job is all done you can see the hood for instance is just a shade darker or lighter. Maybe even though others might not notice it every time you get in the car you look at and shake your head. This paint was tri-coat which is a fancy way of saying it is bc/cc (with a mid coat in between).-Jim

Glenn's 67 BB Vert

Thanks Guys --i am sure i wasn't the only painting inpaired person out there--Great thread too--Glenn

Johns_65Vette

PM sent John Thanks

jprodko@yahoo.com just in case the PM doesn't work

Jim Dillon

Said in my earlier post that I would photograph the fan I use for air removal. It an explosion proof fan that pulls a large volume of air. Not only is it safer but it will allow you to see the job without having a constant cloud of paint swirling about. You will note I built a frame with 2 x 4s and some plywood (actually it is one sided melamine on the booth side). The bottom 2 x 4 is about an 1/2" off the floor so the squegee has a place to push the water. Then I just roll down the door on top of the top 2 x 4. You will also see the small blue compressor. This is my fresh air supply that I put in the adjoining portion of my barn with plenty of fresh air and away from the paint fumes I am sending out the fan. You have two hoses, one is sterile for breathing and the other is your air supply for your gun. I tape most of the two hoses together so that I am dragging one large hose (kind of a pain) rather than fighting two (a real pain in the rear). This unit is made by Survivair and it is about 20 years old. They probably have others available today, that may very well be better. An absolute must with any catalyzed paints you use. The iso-cyanate in the hardener is extremely toxic and over time can even enter through your skin.

Although these two items are not cheap your health is worth the money and what you are saving in doing it yourself is worth the price many times over. Seems like there is a lot of interest in painting it yourself. Painting is not as difficult as it is a discipline. Let me know if I can be of any help-Jim