Quote: Whew! I finally finshed this ginormous thread. I was curious why no one elsed tried the PENETROL...
Seems to me the pics looked really good. Did I miss something?
(read on for the PENETROL reference...)
It's been a little slow in coming but I did finally finished the "Lil' Red Mower" project. Here's a photo of the overall outcome:
And another shot taken from the side:
What's important to note here is the amount of "orange peel" you see in the BEFORE photos. This was the factory coating, and I did NOT wetsand it down smooth before painting. I gave it a light, dry once-over with 400 grit to give the Rustoleum something to grab onto.
Next up is another set of photos taken straight on (excuse the model, please!). Again, note the amount of peel in the BEFORE photo when making judgements on the AFTER:
To be quite honest, nearing the end of this project, I was not very happy with the amount of orange peel I was seeing, that was until I pulled out the photos of the original and compared the two. Here's yet another taken from the other side, showing a little more in detail the surface reflections:
Okay, last set of photos and then some information and observations. This last set shows the right and left fenders of the mower. The photo on the RIGHT shows the "standard" roller method, while the photo on the LEFT shows the fender as painted with the foam BRUSH instead of the roller:
Now for the important parts:
This is now the second project using the Rustoleum-Roller method and I was hoping to accomplish two things:
1) to see if I've learned enough on the first project and not to repeat the same mistakes (paint too thick, runs, etc)
2) to determine the long term (outdoor) viability of the paint under abusive conditions (never getting washed or waxed, lotsa debris, Florida summer sun and moisture) It is a mower after all.
Just as I was about to get started, the PENETROL issue came up so I decided to give it a try. My initial reaction was that I didn't like it... at all. Ultimately, it layed down and dried just as the mineral spirits dilution did, but it was considerably slower to dry, and more importantly, it was considerably slower to release the tiny bubbles. On a project this small (the largest panel is only 2'x3') it was just too nerve wracking for me to stand and stare at all the little bubbles and to have to wait to roller them out. With the mineral spritis, I was able to give a light puff immediately after spreading the paint and they were gone. With the penetrol, air did not remove them, and it too as many as 15-20 minutes of waiting for the paint to reach that "magic" moment of dryness when it could be light rollered to remove the bubbles without creating new ones. I simply found this very frustrating.
Let's speed things up here:
2 coats - wetsanded with 400 2 more coats - wetsanded again with 400 2 more coats - wetsanded AGAIN with 400!
Here's where I diverged (quite a bit, really) from "the plan", but it might answer quite a few questions that some have been wondering about. I decided I didn't want to spend the required time to do the final wetsanding and buffing. Wetsanding on the mower was not so easy because the original panels were not perfect to begin with, and the mower also got pretty battered during the last two hurricane seasons. I found myself sanding around high spot after high spot and finally just decided it was not worth the time - I'd learned enough. Anyway...
I decided to just go with one last thin coat and leave it as so, no matter how it came out (bugs, hairs, etc... again, it's a mower. Relax.) Problem was, I was out of the undiluted paint, but still had a jar of the PENETROL mix left. Waste not, want not - if figured it would give me a second chance at working with the PENETROL to see if my opinion changed at all. The short answer to that is... no. Not really. I still found it frustratingly slow, BUT... I think if you had to do a large panel, REALLY large, it might actually be of help in keeping the paint from drying TOO fast - if that is your particular problem.
The other thing I tried was to coat one fender using the foam brush instead of the roller. I had noticed on the foot panels (which had been done with several coats using only the brush) that I was seeing no orange peel at all, so I wondered what it would look like on a panel. The answer to that is... surprisingly, not bad! The paint levels out amazingly well, and although you can see very slight "streaks" in the paint, it is certainly no greater or of more texture than the orange peel effect from the roller. And even more amazing is that the brushed on paint did NOT sag on the panel surface that had an approximate slope of 45 degrees. That being said, I would not feel confident that the same would happen on a true vertical panel (90 degree - door, eg.). That's another experiment for later.
Overall thoughts and observations: I'm happy with the results. It's not a mirror finish, but then again it wasn't to begin with si it's hard for me to judge just how much of the final orange peel is related to the paint, or to the original surface texture. This issue has been somewhat problematic for me, I see some of the mirror-like finished here on the thread, yet I seem to be getting considerably more orange peel others. I do not think it's an issue of paint thickness, I'm putting it on about as thin as I can get it without it running. OTOH, when I look at the final finish (even in it's current unsanded-unpolished state), it certainly looks no worse than your average $500-$700 single stage paint job - orange peel included.
The last set of questions will be answered over time, as I use and abuse the mower over the coming summer. I'm hopefull that the paint will hold up - red paint in Florida is the first color to fade. Don't ask me why, but it's a fact born out by the countless number of faded red cars around town (silver too... weird, huh?)
I think the next project/experiment will be to get a donor panel (hood, trunk, etc) and work on the "perfect" finish - see if I can get that mirror shine like others have. The difference will be that I will try to start with as smooth a panel as I hope to have in the final results. I'm sure I missed alot in writing this up, but hope it helps answer some questions.
