Painting Gurus!! Tips on setting up my HVLP guns?!?!
- Thread starter diesel450
- Start date
Diesel,
On that film thickness, if you look elsewhere on the tech sheet it will have a recommendation for number of coats or how to apply them, something like 'apply one light coat followed by a medium coat and then a heavy coat' or something like that. The thickness they say is optimal is the thickness you should come up with if you had followed their application instructions. So if they say 4 mills and 3 coats, then its 4 mills after 3 coats applied as they recommend.
As for how to measure it, well take a church-key and, in one swift motion, make a deep scratch the length of the vehicle .... No, not really. Some paint shops have a machine that can measure it optically so the measurement is non-destructive.
On that film thickness, if you look elsewhere on the tech sheet it will have a recommendation for number of coats or how to apply them, something like 'apply one light coat followed by a medium coat and then a heavy coat' or something like that. The thickness they say is optimal is the thickness you should come up with if you had followed their application instructions. So if they say 4 mills and 3 coats, then its 4 mills after 3 coats applied as they recommend.
As for how to measure it, well take a church-key and, in one swift motion, make a deep scratch the length of the vehicle .... No, not really. Some paint shops have a machine that can measure it optically so the measurement is non-destructive.
Midcoastcustoms
"Live life like the captain of a sinking ship"
Hey post some pics of your success/failure with getting the paint to go down right. Also what brand paint are you using?diesel450 said:
I will post pics, next time I get over there I'll grab some. I'm using the restoration shop stuff from TCP. It was recommended by a couple guys as good quality at a decent price but I'm not married to it. I'm open to trying some different stuff to see what will work.
How about a list of your favorite brands?!?!
I think I've got it pretty well now, most of the peel I'm seeing is actually in the primer. I'm going to shoot another test panel and see how flat I can get both primer and top coat this time.
I'm using urethane on the frame and bits. I don't want to use a base coat / clear coat as I think the urethane has a more utile/vintage look to it and it should hold up well. Was going to use it on my rims too, unless someone has a better suggestion.
Thanks for all the tips, they've really helped!
How about a list of your favorite brands?!?!
I think I've got it pretty well now, most of the peel I'm seeing is actually in the primer. I'm going to shoot another test panel and see how flat I can get both primer and top coat this time.
I'm using urethane on the frame and bits. I don't want to use a base coat / clear coat as I think the urethane has a more utile/vintage look to it and it should hold up well. Was going to use it on my rims too, unless someone has a better suggestion.
Thanks for all the tips, they've really helped!
So if your not getting the primer to lay flat does that mean your not using a fill primer and sanding it? The thing I use personally, and all body shops and painters use is fill primer...You can basically make it fairly thick over a bunch of light coats and then sand it like bondo...Obviously I wouldnt use that on wheels, etc because if you have aluminum wheels I wouldnt even use a primer, get a special paint for Aluminum like VHT makes and just base that on...Usually you can use any clear on that paint as long as you let the base set up well before clearing over it..
On the frame I'm using an epoxy primer which, from what I've read, is not supposed to be sanded or primed again. Maybe I'm wrong on that though. When I get to the tank and tins I'll use standard build primers and sand those smooth. I should have a lot less trouble with the base and clear because of that.
Plenty to think about here. If you are planning on painting your frame a solid color, particularly if its going to be black, then a good single stage paint will probably come out a lot better than a base-coat/clear-coat (BCCC) job. This is just my opinion of course, but I think that most good single stage blacks are blacker than base coat blacks.
As for paint brands, that is up to you of course. You can buy anything you need on line and there is a lot to be said for doing that. For one thing if you use a distributor like TCP-Global you know they have good inventory turnaround, so you don't get paint that's been sitting on the shelf for months. On the other hand it takes a while to show up because of special shipping precautions on some of the stuff.
In almost any city of decent size, lets say 25k or above, you'll find at least one auto parts store that more or less specializes in auto finish supplies. If you're really lucky you may have a devoted automotive paint store within reasonable distance. I have to travel almost 100 miles round trip to get to the closest paint supplier but I do it once every couple of months just to keep in touch. They stock PPG stuff mostly and so I use PPG stuff exclusively in my prep work. I do that to support my local distributor, because he has saved my butt more times than once. That said I use House of Kolor for all of my finish work. It works for me though in honesty you could find better intercoat clears and clear coat than their' s. I have been toying with trying Southern Polyurethane's clear coat, it comes highly recommended but I haven't use it yet.
As for paint brands, that is up to you of course. You can buy anything you need on line and there is a lot to be said for doing that. For one thing if you use a distributor like TCP-Global you know they have good inventory turnaround, so you don't get paint that's been sitting on the shelf for months. On the other hand it takes a while to show up because of special shipping precautions on some of the stuff.
In almost any city of decent size, lets say 25k or above, you'll find at least one auto parts store that more or less specializes in auto finish supplies. If you're really lucky you may have a devoted automotive paint store within reasonable distance. I have to travel almost 100 miles round trip to get to the closest paint supplier but I do it once every couple of months just to keep in touch. They stock PPG stuff mostly and so I use PPG stuff exclusively in my prep work. I do that to support my local distributor, because he has saved my butt more times than once. That said I use House of Kolor for all of my finish work. It works for me though in honesty you could find better intercoat clears and clear coat than their' s. I have been toying with trying Southern Polyurethane's clear coat, it comes highly recommended but I haven't use it yet.
david.stylemaster
New Member
diesel450 said:
Lesson I learned the hard way is that different manufacturers of paint can react to each other. So primer, main coat, and clear should all be the same company, or at least have the paint shop tell you they are all compatible. Secondly, go down to bare metal if you can. I did this job last year and depending on where it was I had metal, primer, and paint. I hit the entire thing with heavy build primer, sanded, and then 2 stage paint. I had spots where the paint would not adhere properly do to reactions between the different materials.
Time spent in careful surface preparation is key to not being disappointed later.
good points there. I'm feeling better about this as I have already done or am aware of most of what I'm being told as far as prep etc. is concerned. I had good success today, I got my primer nice and flat with no sanding and the urethane also layed over that nice and flat. I think I'm ready to start in on the actual frame.
Kong - I do have a couple of local options and will utilize them as I can. The TCP stuff is significantly cheaper than similar product locally sourced, even with shipping. not sure why that is but its enough, probably 25%-30%, that I can't ignore it. I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that most of these places are supplying pros who just pass cost along to the consumer, they're not dealing with enough DIY'ers.
Here's another question; What's the best way to dispose of the stuff after clean up?
Kong - I do have a couple of local options and will utilize them as I can. The TCP stuff is significantly cheaper than similar product locally sourced, even with shipping. not sure why that is but its enough, probably 25%-30%, that I can't ignore it. I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that most of these places are supplying pros who just pass cost along to the consumer, they're not dealing with enough DIY'ers.
Here's another question; What's the best way to dispose of the stuff after clean up?
