Thread: Paint

What cutting compound do you guys use .... I can't find mine .... and I have looked. I usually use the 3M heavy cutters followed by there super fine cutters............ But there is nowhere around to buy this. I'd like to finish the roof tomorrow and throw the wheels back on and never look at the roof again (unless I'm on a house roof or similar ) ......... I've just been looking at autobarn/supercheap online, and they only sell crap at hugely inflated prices that wouldnt' be any good for compounding a sanded finish.

I'm keen to finish the roof ASAP as it'll no doubt turn to stone and be really hard to finish if I let it sit around for another week ( Oh the bonnet ..... well bugger it I guess I'm going to find how hard it cures when i do that).

seeya,
Shane L.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Your life will probably match everyone else ... ie: they say "look what i did" ... and everything just works ?? Me, I stuff everything up 15 times ... go in circles, waste paint .... break stuff .... Certainly my life is no car show where they "restore" a car in a weekend.



Even bloody sandpaper ... that stuff is trying to be difficult ... its disintegrating while I use it ........... ( er, well I guess all the 400, 800, 1000, 1500 and 2000 that was sitting around in the shed is at least 10 years old ). Yes, life would be easy if you could just drive to the paint shop and get more, but they are shut outside of business hours.





The 400 I used to cut back the spot putty covering the run is quite aggressive.... and I wasn't sure what paper to use to colour sand this stuff...

Wetsanding single stage paint | The H.A.M.B.

So I hit google.... Hmmm, 1000 sounds the go. So I hit all the spots with runs first with 600, then 800 ..... now I'm working my way over the roof with 1000, then 1500, then 2000 grit.

aa19.jpgaa20.jpg



weirdly most of the dirt and crap has fallen into the middle of the roof. I'm not touching the stampings pressed into the roof. If there is dirt in them it can stay there (to much risk you'll cut through the colour to sand that level .... Plus I really can't be bothered.... Unless your 7foot tall you will not see the roof with the wheels back on). I'm also only knocking the "hills" of the dirt, I'm not sanding the colour down until its perfectly flat like you would for a mirror finish.



The roof has come up really straight. Its looks shiny under the lights even after being sanded with 2000.

seeya,
Shane L.

Bloody good jobs well done!

Originally Posted by Meccles

Bloody good jobs well done!

Did you miss the bit at the start of those posts .... Just the first 99.9% of the posts and pictures where I said "I have screwed up again and made a bloody great mess of everything"





I have a variety of 3 foam buffs here (different grades) ... and this is what happened when I tried to use any of them... I guess they are 10years old now too .... sigh ....



So that only leaves the big on lambs wool buffing pad. These are very aggresive and will leave scratching. I also won't go near any edges with it ... So until I chase up some more foam buffs this is what it will look like around the edges.



This is the closest cutters I could find at auto-barn... but not really the right stuff.



I've decided I'll just forget the damn roof for now and move on. If I can see it from the ground I'll probably come back and give it a good going over to remove the scratching ... but for now, out of sight out of mind ( this is what I was trying to avoid, all the work of colour sanding ... then spending hours behind a buffer removing the sanding scratches). It looks nice in pictures, but will look really scratchy from different angles until i come back and finish it properly.

seeya,
Shane L

No Shane it was precisely because you said that that I think well done. I mean I have now useless Mercedes seats on gumtree a floor I’ve had the great pleasure of fitting twice several sets of seat bases two distributors etc etc. So don’t fell that your the only one

I wish the crap stuff just worked for me like it does for everyone else .... First I found the tip compressor has died ( its time for it to go back to the tip I guess ). Its crankcase has no oil in it .... So something must have died in it ... and it's all must have ended up in the receiver... ( where else could it go ).

1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg4.jpg



SO I grabbed my fathers little oilless compressor ... these things are loud as buggery, generate bugger all air that is hot.... You have to be careful to take shallow breaths so your not breathing more air than it supplies (or your getting fumes from the local area).

Anyway, I mix up some paint ... er ................ I can't unscrew the lid on the guns pot .... I rinsed all this stuff in reducer. So I stuffed around for ages... I ended up tapping the lid with a panel hammer before I could unscrew it ( This crap only happens to me right ? What can you do except laugh at yourself).... Anyway I pour the paint into the pot ................................... bloody paint EVERYWHERE .... What the hell ?? I had cracked the plastic pot trying to hold it while attempting to remove the lid............. So now the guns covered in sticky paint, my boots and the floor is covered in paint ( this is what we do to wind down and relax you see ). You guys must be starting to think I make this **** up...

Anyway, I pull the pot from a $15.00 ebay gun I have there that I'd sprayed body deadener through in the past and screwed that on.






I tried to get a photo of it .... Can you see the run down the side of the car ?? I was travelling 50% faster than I did for the earlier panels .... Why the hell am I struggling? I ended up travelling twice as fast with the gun as I did for the earlier panels to avoid runs. There is probably dry lines in it too (so it'll have to be colour sanded). You see that god damn compressor kept stopping, so I'd need to vacate the paint area .... it would then work again 5minutes later. It must have been tripping a temperature overload. (aarrrhhhh.... just to make everything easier )



It occurred to me what was going on when I mixed the very last pot of paint.... I was bloody sweltering ... the was sweat running down my back ... down my face and into the bottom of the mask. Its only 20degrees outside.... But those shed doors have the north sun on them all day. That bench is against hte doors. The paint is REALLY THIN as it is probably 30degrees easily in those tins against that door. When I painted the other panels it would have been eight degrees (the paints temperature). I instantly remember the guys at the paint shop warning me "the professionals that use this stuff have said they don't add reducer as its a bit thin to paint" ............................... OHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...... I shouldn't have added the reducer, only the hardner.

Anyway, other than I've put a run down the left side of the car ....



There is a bit of orange peel there ..... I reckoned if I'd added no reducer, I could have put more on without it running ... and it would level better.





These came up ok given how quick and dodgy I did this ... that is the drivers door and rear quarter panel that I to fix quite a few marks in.




I guess I'll throw the wheels back on and see if that tape will pull away after being stuck to the car for so long later tonight.

seeya
Shane L

Nice colour. Hate to say it but easier to stick with original colour unless original is metallic maybe.

I killed a compressor on the last/first big spray job.

My next spray job if I ever get the time to start.



Enjoying this thread also. Nice work. I feel your frustration.