Professional paint job at home - how do I do it?

[Owl]

i dunno, i keept asking about hardner at the paint shop and the guy said "nah dont need it"

they seem pretty onto it, its the wairu paint center in glenfield...

Im a bit gutterd because if any petrol or solvent falls on my paint work - its going to take it off.

Les, im using "quick dry enamel" so hopefully it'll be ok! but yeah you have to sand with 2000 grit then buff this stuff to get a good finish (unless you just want a good from afar look!)

Who manufactures it? It could be quick dry, but the only reason I ever saw gloss loss was due to all purpose thinner. The proper quick dry thinner left a pretty good finish.

[Owl]

Does not enamel, withnone of that hardner stuff, take several liftimes to harden up properly at ambient?

Yes, unless you put hardner in it and then it only took one lifetime!

I used to spray paint quite a few bikes back in the day, but then we were using nitrocellulose lacquer, which gives a superb finish (that guardsman's boots shine that you see on show vintage vehicles) extremely easily,at the expense of needing to be buffed after spraying (and the trivial risk of blowing yourself and the neighbourhood to Kingdom Come, it being blasting cotton) . Which is why it dropped out of use (the buffing, I mean).

Probably Duco (nitrocellulose) you were using which was replaced by Dulon (acrylic). Both needed to be buffed, so Duco may have been dropped because of its explosive properties. Didn't they originally use nitrocellulose for billard balls to replace ivory, until they exploded?

My impression is that modern materials , arcylic laquer or enamal are much harder to apply and give underwhelming results, and that to get a decent finish you need to used the cyanide two pot things that kill you dead before the paint dries.

I've tried and tried to get nitro (I don't mind buffing) , without success. Why is it all the good old simple products that *work* are no longer available.

Nitrocellulose , gunpowder tyre patches, red oil, asbestos sheet for brake and clutch lining and exhaust stuffing, all impossible to source, without any good reason for their disappearance. Its a conspiracy I reckon

What can I say.

[imdying]

Never wipe prepsol (other similar product) on without having a clean cloth to take it off.

Noted

Complete one panel at a time! As for minimum time, it's never been an issue for me, as I work in an enironment that's 20+ degrees and it's the first step in a line including setting up and tacking off the job using air.

Tacking off with air?

My impression is that modern materials , arcylic laquer or enamal are much harder to apply and give underwhelming results

I find it the other way around... they give too good a result... you can spot (vintage) cars and bikes that've been done in modern 2 pak paints... they look excessively glossly :S

Les, im using "quick dry enamel" so hopefully it'll be ok!

VHT?

[The Pastor]

Noted

Tacking off with air?

I find it the other way around... they give too good a result... you can spot (vintage) cars and bikes that've been done in modern 2 pak paints... they look excessively glossly :S

VHT?

dont follow sorry

[Owl]

Tacking off with air?

I haven't used a tack cloth in years. Instead I use a PVA sponge 250mm x 250mm x 2mm soaked in water, then rung out. They'll last up to 6 months and work better than any tack cloth. + air!!!

[imdying]

I understand what a tack cloth is, but I don't understand what you mean by tacking off with air? Did you mean blowing the excess crap off with air, and finishing up with a tack cloth?

And what the heck is a PVA sponge and where would you get one?

[Owl]

When you tack jobs off, you use a cloth in one hand and air blower in the other. Both at the same time otherwise you just move the dust from place to place.

PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) sponges are as rare as rocking horse shit here and even I struggle to find them. Paint suppliers either don't know about them or don't want to know about them. They want to sell tack cloth as selling 2-3 sponges a year to every auto-refinish shop will only make them friends, not money!

http://www.mitomel.com/pva.htm

PGT-26 on this page should give some idea.