DEC beige/creame/white paint

On 1/10/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: Jay, I paint old airplanes, cars and internal combustion junk now and then. Those prices seem reasonable for good quality paint. Have you been able to identify if the paint is (acrylic) lacquer or enamel? If its lacquer then it will be a more forgiving process to refinish and dry faster versus dry and cure for enamel. Suggest you look at using autobody supplies from an automotive paint store and avoid the Home places. If the metal is Alum. then you need to do a few things differently. Assuing its steel, first clean everywhere you plan to repaint. Start with soap and water, rinse with hot water, then use a grease remover/prep solvent (autobody store) cleaner, or if you can't get that use Naptha, wipe an area to wet it and float the oils and then wipe it dry with another clean cloth. You do this in about 12" x 12" areas at a time. What you are trying to do is get the oils, waxes, and any silicone off the surface so it does not contaminate the sanding process. There is stuff that soap and water will remove, and stuff that a solvent will remove but neither will remove both, thus the wash it and then use a degreaser is the right process. Use some 80 grit wet/dry sand paper and a foam sanding block to open of the scratches, and then move to 120 and then 320 grit paper to feather the area between bare metal and good paint. Then scuff sand the entire item; you can use sand paper or scotch bright pads. Using the foam sanding block (autobody store) will help prevent sanding grooves into the old paint from pressure from your fingers. Clean it all up using solvent. If there are areas that are rusty, for instance the bottom of a deep scratch, you need to get that out and down to bright metal... A wire brush, dremel tool, etc can be used here. You dont want to wire brush the whole item, it will leave scratches that will telegraph thru any new primer or paint you apply and show on the surface of the new paint. Spot prime the area. A self etching primer in a spray can is a good pick for this. I use Mar-Hyde. You may need to build up layers of primer and do a bit of spot sanding to get a totally flat and even surface. If the scratch is deep or a dent then you might want to use a bit of polyester body filler (aka bondo), or a glazing putty (autobody store) and then another layer of primer. Wet sand the final coat of primer with 320 or 400 paper. BTW, get a primer thats a similar color to the final finish, for instance dont use dark grey or Red oxide for off white top coats, Mar-hyde has a buff colored version... Ok, now clean everything up again; wash and solvent, wipe with clean cloth. Then use a tack cloth (paint store, get a hand full)) to pick up any lint or last minute dust. Now you can paint. You have a lot of choces here, Acrylic Lacquer is the easiest and most forgiving, Acrylic Enamel (often called 1-part paint). The 2-part systems start getting really toxic and I would not recommend you mess with these unless you want to make a investment in some serious safety gear. Unless you have a perfect match in paint color and texture, you will want to refinish a panel area; the gaps between panels break what the eye sees so the imperfections in texture and color are not easily seen. Thats why autobody shops want to repaint a whole fender or hood. Also, 1-part enamel needs about 15 to 30 days at "room" temprature to reach full hardness, even though its dry to the touch in say 24hrs. If you get a run or a bug in the paint, you will have to wait for it to cure before you can sand it out and try again. There is a lot more detail and probably some stuff I left out or forgot that would be in any good hot rod painting book so that might be a good place to read up on this before you begin. bob.