i had a quart of oil based enamel that was called tractor red. it was a really deep bright red color. its just the color that i wanted. Unfortunately it has been sitting in my garage for approx. 8 years. i don't have a/c or heat in my garage, so it has probably frozen and rethawed every winter and summer. it had never been opened so i crossed my fingers and hoped that it would be o.k.
i shook it up. the label said it could be thinned up to 15%, and said to thin with xylol. i didn't have any xylol so i used acetone instead. i was concerned that it might get too thin so i only thinned it 10%.
i started spraying it and it was coming out kind of sputtery and heavy. but, it was kind of looking like a wrinkle finish and looked kind of like vinyl. this wasn't exactly my plan but i decided to go with it and see if it would look like red vinyl when i was done.
only certain areas actually wrinkled, some areas came out smooth. and the color when it was dried was closer to chevrolet orange.( probably from not stirring and shaking it good enough). the age of the paint might have been the reason for the thickness, or maybe it was the fact that i used acetone, or that i only thinned it 10%. here are some pics that i took after i already started sanding off the messed up stuff.
almost ready to repaint, next time i will document things more thoroughly.
okay, one more time.
after sanding, i took a can of flat black spray paint and gave the entire top a light coat of paint. this is called a guide coat. next, i wet sanded the top with a sanding block and 400 wet or dry paper, sanding off the light coat of paint.
any low spots will show when you do this. the black also helped fill sanding scratches from the coarser paper that i used to get the heavy red paint sanded down.
after sanding, i rinsed the top good and then dried it off. the new can of paint i bought said to wipe the surface being painted with acetone, which i do have. it also recommended thinning with acetone.
in the above pic is my siphon feed paint gun with pressure gauge, paint, thinner and measuring cup (the one my wife has been looking for).
i masked off the areas that i didn't paint on, trim and glass,tops of doors.
since the paint came out so thick last time, thinned at 10%, this time i thinned it 20%.
guess what, it still came out thick. i tried adjusting the paint mixture screw as well as the air pressure but couldn't get any finer spray. it wasn't as thick as last time though. so once again i said "what the heck" and shot it anyway(some people never learn)
at least the color came out right. its not so bad really. next week, after the paint has had plenty of time to cure, i'll get out the buffer some rubbing compound and see if i can smooth it out a little. the bad thing about painting outside, the bugs seemed attracted to the pretty red color.
it still looks a little like vinyl though. this time however the finish came out uniformly all over.
okay, since the crappy looking paint couldn't possibly be my fault (yeah right) i decided to buy a new paint gun. i've been wanting to try an HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) so i went by my local Cummins Tool store and bought their best quality $29.99 paint gun.
this is the paint that i used Rustoleum satin black, it was $8.95 a quart. and believe it or not i only used 1 quart to cover the whole car. there are probably a few spots where it is thin. it was really windy the day that i painted.but, overall it came out pretty much the way i wanted it to.
check the before and after page on the nav bar for more photos