Yeah I know the body has got to be nice for black.. the good thing about this process is if you see a problem you don't like, just sand it off, fix it and repaint

My black paint has dried nicely and is mostly unscratchable -- actually the only place it is scratchable is on the edges of things, and I believe that is because the paint is thicker in those places so it doesn't dry at the same rate or to the same hardness as where the layer is thin.

EXIT where did you buy your mineral spirit. I've been to 6 STORES so far and none of them sell regular mineral spirit all of them have LOW-ODOR and ODORLESS, i went to sherwin-williams just now and they only had a 5GALLON Bucket for 30.40$ the dude on the counter said paint thinner is the same thing and it was a gallon. I read on the back of it and it said
"contains: Petrolium *something* (Mineral SPirit 7153-45-3323"
Is that the same stuff? Home Depot only has odorless and Lowes only has Low-Odor. Can one of you take a picture of yours?

JEFF - awesome results, it all goes to show that if you take your time and prep the area good and take the time to polish/wetsand that you can acheive show quality results. i never took it that far, just about 75% to your work, allthough i know i could have i just wanted to drive my car sooo damm bad it was'nt funny!!! plus my car is not a show car and i never intended it to be, i drive it hard and ALOT, i just went crusin last night for about 150mi, and about $40 worth of gas, damm 440 and gas prices!!!! very good job jeff, if i had the time and not as many hobbies then i'd go all out mental and have a perfect paint job, just goes to show that it's possible to acheive almost show quality results. the # of coats you did and the time you took, obviously you have the "hang" of it, and have what it takes to turn out a killer paint job. i can't wait to see you at a cruise night or a show and tell people "ya, i rollered it on with tremclad/rustoleum!!!!" and see the look on their faces.............that's priceless.

EXIT1965 - black is the hardest color just because it shows all flaws in the reflection, if the body is'nt perfectly straight you'll see every wave and imperfection, unlike bright lighter colors and for example white, which hides all imperfections. black takes 3 times the amount of work regardless of what paint tequnique you use, just make sure your car is arrow straight before going black, or you'll be unhappy with the end result, nothing worse than seeing a black car with poor prep, if you dare to do black make it 100% or don't do it.

Thanks, for all the replies, I chose the black to test because of the reflective qualities. I think the hardest part of painting is the final wetsanding and polishing especially with black because it shows every little scratch. With a lighter color it will be alot easier to polish. Now that I got it down I plan on paintiing my 69 chevy truck as soon as I finish the body work and possibly my 69 camaro.

69charger-

Great thread! I am thinking of trying this method to paint a hood. I am a little hesitant to use rust oleum and will instead be using a marine high gloss oil based paint.


do you find that after the paint has cured and the car has been exposed to the elements for a while it holds up pretty good??

I was talking with my dad yesterday and he said that you could get a good paint job with the rustoleum like so many have done so far. He was just a little worried how it would hold up being in the sun. His past experiences with it is that it fades pretty bad. 69Charger, is that why you have to polish a few times a year? I'm still making slow progress on my test hood and will post pictures when I'm done.

Could you paint over chrome? I have some old cheap chrome wheels that are rusted and would look a lot better with paint.

guys, think about what this paint is made for, steel lawn furnature, mail boxes, wheel barrows, steel railing and fences, does this stuff ever even get wax? or polished???? and the stuff sits out side all the time. i only have polished once, after painting and final wetsanding, then i wax 2 times a year, 1 spring, and 1 fall, that's it, just like any other auto paint. the stuff is tough as nails, it never went dull at all on my cars. also you can paint over chrome, just sand the chrome really good, until all the shine is removed. and yes tomgunns, the paint holds up extreemly well to the elements, my 85 honda CRX was the first car i painted with tremclad about 12yrs ago, i drove that car 300000kms with a black tremclad paintjob that was'nt even polished, and it's survived 3 canadian winters with tonns of salt, ect....no issues, if only i did'nt crash that car

When I was cleaning up the stuff I used to paint with I pulled off the plastic wrap I used in the paint tray as a paint tray liner. I decided to check out the flexability of paint so I balled it up a few times and streched it and it never chipped, cracked, or peeled off the plastic wrap. I never seen a paint flex that much and be that hard on metal before. If you plan on painting plastic or urethane bumpers or spoilers this paint should work awesome with out cracking chipping or peeling.

Another day with no luck in finding 100% Mineral Spirit only Low-Odor and Odorless.

I think it will work fine with the odorless because you said before that your paint felt hard. Just make sure it's dry good and hard before paint another coat.

I picked up a 1/2 pint of "Smoke grey gloss" and to my disappointment, it looks just like primer grey. Not sure if I'll do a little area with it or not. Black may be out of the question for my whole car, maybe I'll try that canvas white..

If you don't like the color as soon as you took the lid off you should take it back. When I was at Home Depot the other week I found out that they can tint the paint there and they had a little paint card sheet with over 100 tintable colors and some of the colors are pretty good. You should check Home Depot for one of those sheets if they don't have any I can mail you one just email me.

Jeff-I'm definately taking the smoke grey color back, didn't match the color on the label at all.

Was the color card you saw specifically for rustoleum stuff, or for all paints? I saw at one home depot today they had industrial Labor Saver "masstone tint base" in gloss. I'm guessing that's what they would tint, but I'm not sure if they can put the same stuff they use in house paint, but i'm not sure.

I'd sure like to see a silverish grey color on a test area.. the silvers I see on cars seem like they have some metallic in them so I wonder how a non metallic silver would turn out.

I opened up my can of Canvas white, which if I go with a white, it will be this one.. it's the taped off area in the pic. it's less yellow than the almond. looks nice but I'd like to get my mitts on some silver and it could be i have to get a gallon and have it tinted to do that.

The color card I got is just for the rust-oleum it says it's for quarts or gallons of rust-oleum.

I took and scaned the color card heres a pic of the front.

Heres a pic of the back.

Thanks

What color do you think you'll end up painting your cars?