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Painting advice

14K views 71 replies 12 participants last post by  Dan444 
#1 ·
I’m Going to paint my hood and fenders but need some advice. Here is my loose plan that needs tweaking. I have serious rust that needs dealing with. I’m not going for show quality.

1) coat surfaces with oven cleaner. Sit over night and pressure wash. Light sand after if needed.

2) spray filler primer. Looking at rustoleum primer filler. Spray one coat, then another. Sand if needed and put on third coat. .

3 case desert sunset paint as topcoat.

do I need different primers? Or should I say additional? Comments additins' suggestions All welcome.
 
#2 ·
I’m sure your plan will work. Personally, I would apply an epoxy primer as my first coat followed by a few coats of the Iron Guard gray or red primer. I’m sure Rustoleum will work as a primer but I’d feel better applying a known compatible primer under the topcoat. I’m assuming you’re using the CNH Iron Guard desert sunset paint.
 
#3 ·
I'm the worst painter on the planet but I can add a bit about Rustoleum.

I've used them a lot and I think their rusty metal primers do work, for what they're intended.

But they don't leave a very nice finish for something that mattered, like a hood. Additionally, they have a cone shaped spray pattern. After trying Duplicolor, with their fan shaped pattern, I liked that much better.

Frybie does beautiful restoration work and he has sworn off them too. For the same reasons.
 
#4 ·
I'd go get a couple of cans of SEM or other brand of automotive primer. The good ones have a lot more solids [paint] than solvents/propellants. Don't believe me, just look at the weight of identical cans and compare. I have had good luck with and self etching primer top coated with a high build primer. Block it down with 400/600 and water after it has dried, clean and tack rag it and you can lay down a finish to be proud of.
 
#5 ·
Thanks everyone. I’m leaning toward SEM self etching primer, then a filler. SEM and duplicolor don’t have a quart filler primer, only rattle can. So... anyone have a specific recommendation for filler primer? I looked at iron guard but it’s a 4 pack only. (Also didn’t find this was a filler primer or not) I don’t think I need that much. How much do I need? I was thinking 2 quarts?
 
#6 ·
I had to relearn a lesson I learned maybe 10 years ago when painting. If I am going to us Rustoleum for finish coat, their primer works fairly well. If I am going to use Power Red as the finish coat from spray cans I need to use something other than Rustoleum as a primer. I had the fenders off of my my tractor to paint them. I had painted them a couple of years ago and sort of test fit them back on the tractor. I felt they were almost good enough to leave on the tractor, but not quite! Took them back off of the tractor and since I had Rustoleum Primer left over from another project, I used that. Sure laid on nice! I waited for the Appropriate dry time according to the can of Rustoleum Primer (36 or 48 hours), hit it with Power Red and instantly had Shriveled paint on my fenders. Once that dried I did a total re-sand on those fenders, used Duplicolor for primer, then power red, put the fenders on my tractor when dried. Nice job!

I would have been better off just to have cleaned the fenders off, sanded them and Used Power Red w/out Priming. Might not have been so PO'd at myself!!

Bill
 
#7 ·
Just go with the SEM high build primer on top of your etching primer. It is sandable as a lot of primers [like rusty metal is not.] How much to buy depends on the original surface. Rust pitting takes a lot of primer to fill, sandblasted metal takes more than just hand sanded ect.
 
#8 ·
I can vouch for SEM products as well. They're not expensive and their etching primer and high-build primers work great under a lot of different finishes. I use their Guide-Coat a lot too for block sanding panels that need to look perfect and finding defects that may indicate another coat of filler primer is needed.

I use Rustoleum Rusty Metal primer a lot on the function-over-form items because it is very durable. Like Bill has experienced, it has bit me in the rearend before and curled up when sprayed with topcoat from another brand.
 
#9 ·
I’m planning to spray with a harbor freight cheap gun. I’m seeing now Some paints work better with this. I went to my local case dealer and they have rattle spray cans or quarts and gallons. I also realized krylon has something called iron guard and that is what I found some info about.

Anyone know what might work best through the harbor freight purple gun? Since I can easily get the real ironguard easily, thinking go this route.
 
#10 ·
I used the CNH Ironguard with thinner and hardener out of an inexpensive gun and it worked fine. The mistake I made on the first go round was to borrow a spray gun. I fought with the thing through a bad coat until I realized it had a huge clog in it. Got it cleaned out and I finished, but ended up buying my own ~$50 gun. It has a slightly bigger opening which seemed to work better with the Iron Guard. More importantly I am now the only one to blame for clogs. So far so good with cleaning. If at any point it fails me I’ll just toss it like an old paint brush. Still with the investment in paint and time in prep, I get a bit nervous that the cheap gun will let me down at exactly the wrong time during a project. If I was painting anything other than tractors I would probably reconsider my choices.


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#11 ·
I got fed up with a cheap [central pneumatic] gun and got myself a used Devilbiss proline for 100 clams. NIGHT and DAY. Can spray primer at 9 psi and Iron gard color at 15-18 pounds smoothly. Very little overspray compared to the old one and a joy to use especially since you don't have to cover everything within a hundred yards from overspray.:sidelaugh:
 
#13 ·
Got my parts off today, pounded two posts into the ground, tied a rope and threaded through my parts. I sprayed the oven cleaner on one part and let it soak. I think oven cleaner idea is a steamy load of horse manure. The morning may prove me wrong, but the stuff essentially drained off fairly quickly.

so.. plan b. I have an 8 gallon compressor and was going to hit harbor freight and get the 20 lb sand blaster and have at it. Issues with this is its only 8 gallon husky from Home Depot and 3.7 scfm at 90 psi. I really am not sure this compressor is up for the task. I don’t have lots of parts, but they are rusty. Anyone think this plan will work?

I also found where the mice were living once upon a time. Under the gas tank I found a nest.
 

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#14 · (Edited)
"Issues with this is its only 8 gallon husky from Home Depot and 3.7 scfm at 90 psi. I really am not sure this compressor is up for the task. I don't have lots of parts, but they are rusty. Anyone think this plan will work?"

You might find a gun that will technically work under those specs but conventional wisdom is that your compressor will be way under sized for anything but tiny amounts of work at any one time. I suspect you'll be spending more time clearing the gun than blasting anything.

How bout using
electrolysis for rust removal? A hood will take a pretty decent sized tank to fully submerge but its so easy and works so well. Lots cheaper than tooling up to do real blasting.
 
#16 ·
Hadn't thought of electrolysis. I'll look into it, also looking for somewhere to take and have done professional. Not sure I'll find somewhere.
Here is a thread for you that should cover most of what you need to know. I did another in a plastic kiddie pool for larger parts. I will say that on some things, it was almost like magic. Other things required extra tries and some elbow grease.

https://casecoltingersoll.com/showthread.php/84375-Electrolysis-Tank?highlight=electrolysis
 
#17 ·
I agree with Dave ... you'll likely find that your air compressor is too small to handle very much sandblasting. And the electrolysis rust removal is definitely worth looking into. You might also want to try a power drill with a 3M (or similar) paint & rust remover wheel (like this: https://www.amazon.com/3M-7772ES-Paint-Rust-Stripper/dp/B002E9IQ9M).

I often find myself using a combination of those 3 methods to remove old paint & rust. I usually start with electrolysis (when possible) and go from there. Like Dave said, it works great on some parts but others might require a bit of follow-up work to get the surface ready to paint. And even in situations where the part needs some additional clean-up after electrolysis, I've found that it nearly always loosens up the paint & rust to the point where other methods (sand blasting or paint/rust remover wheel) will finish taking it off much easier than they would otherwise. So even though I have a fairly large compressor & sand blaster, giving the parts an electrolysis pre-treatment cuts way down on the time spent blasting as well as reducing the amount of blast media needed.

Years ago, I bought a Zendex Speed Blaster when I was doing some work on a car that had some surface rust around the windshield & rear window openings. The "Hot Spot" collection bag attachment worked great for keeping blast media from going all over the place inside the car. I've used it a lot since then (with & without the collection bag attachment) for small blasting projects, including final clean-up / surface prep after electrolysis. A small blaster like this might work okay with your compressor. Even if you have to strip the majority of the parts with other methods and only use the blaster for the hard to reach areas.
 
#18 ·
I’ve been researching this and looks like electrolysis is the answer. Commercial sandblasting is more cash then me buying a giant compressor and blaster attachment. The drawback of this method is I don’t have a large enough container for all parts at once. So either go kiddy pool route or paint them one at a time as they are ready. I have a plastic container I can fit a few small pieces at once or one big one. So I think this is the route I’m going. I’ll post some images here once I get ramped up.

One thing. Decals. Will this process remove the decals on the hood? If not, hows best to remove?
 
#19 ·
I had some success with a heat gun for decals. Takes a bit of patience.

When I had my 446 frame commercially blasted it was less than $100. I think he would have charged me basically the same even if I had added a few pieces. Next time around I’ll just bring him everything rather than struggle with the wire wheel method.


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#20 ·
I got a price of 450.00 for all yellow parts removed from a 444. Two quotes about the same. Maybe I’m heavily rusted is why. I’ll bust out my heat gun and get going on the decals. I won’t have the tub setup til next week sometime.
 
#21 · (Edited)
#22 ·
I started a bit today. Touching up a few places. Didn’t turn out as good as my previous touch ups. But looks lots better than it did. Shown is Chevy orange red by duplicolor.
 

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#24 ·
Another idea for a larger tank, saw it on youtube. The guy used square bales, but many other thing you may have lying around would work for the walls. Then line it with some heavy ten mill plastic. Just be careful how you set the parts in it.

:cheers:
Gordy
 
#25 ·
Picked up some rebar today but not sure about it. It’s short and will not reach the bottom of the plastic tub I’ll use. I was going to tie it tight to the side so it won’t slide down. Anyone see issues with this?

Also is it ok to hang the pieces with the same type of copper wire? Not the same piece, a new piece from the same roll. I have a useless roll of thick copper wire and was going to use it for everything.
 
#26 ·
Picked up some rebar today but not sure about it. It's short and will not reach the bottom of the plastic tub I'll use. I was going to tie it tight to the side so it won't slide down. Anyone see issues with this?

Also is it ok to hang the pieces with the same type of copper wire? Not the same piece, a new piece from the same roll. I have a useless roll of thick copper wire and was going to use it for everything.
I had to learn it the hard way but don't let any parts or especially their hanging wires, directly touch the plastic. A 5 gal bucket wound up with several inches of slit from a hanging wire getting hot.

In a bigger system with multiple anodes, it may not be an issue but it sure was on that one.

On my barrel tank, nothing touches the plastic, including the rebar anodes. Copper for the electrical connections, steel bailing wire to hang the work piece from a piece of wood spanning the tank.

On the kiddie pool version, I hung some old mower blades from steel wire for anodes and the wire degraded quickly. But that is directional. The same wire hanging the work piece was unaffected.
 
#28 ·
I have some wire laying around I'm thinking to use for hanging parts. I don't have bailing wire. It's either galvanized or rebar tie wire I bought 15 or so years ago at tractor supply. Don't recall. Think this will work, safely?
Pretty sure your supposed to use bare steel to avoid contamination, bad fumes etc. but its been a while since I was studying that and other than the washing soda, already had everything I needed.
 
#32 · (Edited)
My spool of copper wire seems to have grown legs and walked away. I do have some 12 volt wire kicking around. It's normal wire, not tinned. That do the job safely? If not I'll add that to my list to buy.
I'm not sure what you mean by 12 volt wire.

I used plastic vessels and 10 ga solid copper to wire the anodes together. The copper never went in the water. Uncoated steel rebar tie wire to the work piece. That did go in the water. When I also used that in the water on the anodes, it rusted itself nearly apart, in days but was unaffected, when used on the work piece. I seem to remember something about not letting copper be in the water but it was a while ago and can't say for sure.

I probably watched a doz. or more youtubes, read several posts and articles about it but I'm no chemist. Washing soda is supposedly the safest but even that creates a flammable gas, so I did it outside only and unplugged it at night. Don't let the work piece and the anodes (or either's wires) touch each other. Be aware that you're working with a 110 appliance around water and intentionally putting electricity into water. Take appropriate precautions. Thats the limit of what I'm willing to say is safe.
 
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