So I did my first paint test today. I sanded down my rear spoiler with 80/100/220/400 to get the majority of the imperfections out. I spent more than an hour sanding it and it still wasn't finished. I am not to worried about it because I am getting a highrise or FatBoy soon. This will also help me guage how imperfect I can leave the surface and have the paint fill in the rest. For my car I sanded until it was smooth as glass. That was a lot of work
Here is a picture of the spoiler before I started.
The sanding is the biggest annoyance for me. I was considering taking the car to Maacos and letting the prep it but then rememebered they suck at preping, haha. Blah.
So I followed the instructions about thining the paint. The first thing that I did was to open my pastel tint base and stirred it about a bit for 5mins or so. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything, right? It did create bubbles. Oh, and I did the "fridge methode" to get the bubbles out the first night I came home from HD with it. Well, after stirring that around I transferred my quart of tinted paint to an empty gallon paint tin that I bought at HD. I figured it'd be a good way to mix, seal, and keep the paint am working with. Once I was comfortable with the amount of paint transferred (didn't want to leave any behind and waste money- every drop counts ) I stirred it for a second and the DUMPED in the Odderless Mineral Spirits! Man, it was an accident but that stuff came out so fast and furious and it probably didn't help that I was squeezing the can while pouring. I thought for sure I probably screwed the formula and would need to let it sit and evaporate a bit. Well, stirred it and it seemed ok. Not super thin at all. So I added a little more. Then I remembered I had a camcorder that records little digital files so I ran to get that. Here is the first video showing my paint.
Also there is a short spot with my spoiler and then my car at the end ^_^
Well, the paint didn't really look thin enough so after the video I added a bit more. Then I was remembering some of the discussions in this thread about blowing out the bubbles and that they should pop by them selves, mostly, etc. Well, why wait until you paint your test subject to find out if your paint is thick enough? I noticed I had little bubbles on my mixing stick so I just pulled it out and blew on it to see if the bubbles would pop. The didn't... so I added some more mineral spirits. Tried again and it worked! I made a little video that shows some of the paints consistency and blowing out the bubbles. The camera takes blurry videos. I don't like it but it is all I have Oh, and it sounds like I was blowing pretty hard but I wasn't. It was just that my mouth was pretty close to the mics.
So, on went the first coat. I noticed a lot of little bubbles but they all pretty much popped by themselves in a few seconds! It was wierd. It was like 80% of the surface was bubbles and then they all popped and there was maybe one or two left on the surface that I just blew on. I didn't load up on the paint like crazy because I wanted to avoid running. It seemed like I got a nice even coat. I did notice some slight orange peel. I am not sure if it is normal or not and maybe I just needed to give it time to lay down. Maybe thinning the paint a little more will help it lay a little better. My paint seemed to dry pretty quick.
Here is a shot of the first coat about 1min after.
Here is a close up of the orange peel. Not very noticable until I am right on top of it. Maybe needed a little more time to lay.
So that is the only coat I will do today since it is late. I am getting some dust and debris on my painted surface. It is slightly tacky last time I checked. I used a soft face cloth and kind of just swung it at the surface and it knocked loose the debris without affecting the painted surface.
For now I will keep working on my website for this project and then reread the posts in this topic to see if I am missing anything.
I am still tweaking it. Full rez images are about 2MB.
Ok, I hope this little contribution was helpful
Cheers, -Serpent
You are doing everything according to order except for ONE! big thing....ODORLESS MINERAL SPIRITS DO NOT USE IT! STEP AWAY FROM IT. Get 100% MINERAL SPIRIT, odorless takes forever to dry and bubbles wont go away.
) I stirred it for a second and the DUMPED in the Odderless Mineral Spirits! Man, it was an accident but that stuff came out so fast and furious and it probably didn't help that I was squeezing the can while pouring. I thought for sure I probably screwed the formula and would need to let it sit and evaporate a bit. Well, stirred it and it seemed ok. Not super thin at all. So I added a little more. Then I remembered I had a camcorder that records little digital files so I ran to get that. Here is the first video showing my paint.
