What paint to use?

**magicmonkey** · 17th February 2010, 11:37

the engine side of things has all gone surprisingly smoothly so far and I've decided that since it runs I'm going to get all the cosmetic stuff up to scratch while I do the engine, mainly so that I can alternate tasks as cleaning the engine becomes tedious very quickly and I don't really want to waste a night watching TV when I get sick of it :P

So, I've popped the rear subframe off as there are some rust spots which I wanted to sand back and prepare properly but on sanding the spots back to metal I found that the rust extended under the paint which was a bit of a bummer. I've decided to go the whole hog and sand the whole thing back to metal then re-paint it but I've got a few questions for the venerable folk of KB as usual.

Firstly, what's the best chemical treatment to get paint and rust off (there are a few spots which I'll never get into with the sander)

Secondly, what paint should I be using? At the moment I'm thinking about just using normal auto primer, paint and then a clearcoat over that but I'm not sure is there's anything special I should be doing with the frame...

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get further into it but that should get me started down the right road at least!

**brockzila** · 15th March 2010, 22:12

try and find some hammerite smooth. its self prime and also a rust killer. english use it on every thing. and with the salt on the roads over there it seams to last reasonably well so here it should last for ever.

**blackdog** · 15th March 2010, 22:17

wouldn't worry about trying to chem strip. save yourself the headache and just sandblast it

**magicmonkey** · 16th March 2010, 10:30

heh, would love to but I don't have any way of sandblasting it!

**CookMySock** · 16th March 2010, 11:45

Yeh mate, take all the scruffy bits off, toss them in a box and get the lot (bead, sand, or soda) blasted and powdercoated. It'll cost a pretty penny, but it'll do a damn fine job of it.

Or else cheap out just use a self-priming paint as mentioned.

Steve

**magicmonkey** · 16th March 2010, 11:55

Originally Posted by DangerousBastard

Yeh mate, take all the scruffy bits off, toss them in a box and get the lot (bead, sand, or soda) blasted and powdercoated. It'll cost a pretty penny, but it'll do a damn fine job of it.

Or else cheap out just use a self-priming paint as mentioned.

Steve

Considering the area this is in (ie completely surrounded by plastic so no dings from stray stones etc) I figure that the cheap option should be fine so long as I do a decent job of getting rid of the existing crap ...