Guys, you might hate me. I may have finally cracked the secret to the $50 paint job. No joke. A few pages back, I told you about how I was painting the interior of my '60 Oldsmobile with New Holland Red tractor paint by Van Sickle. It's another Alkyd enamel, like Rustoleum. Well, I used the urethane hardener when I painted the trunk, mostly to improve the cure time because I've been painting in 40* and colder weather.

Well, at the same time I did the trunk, I had a little leftover paint...so I decided to put some on a fender I pulled off my old truck when I did the body work on it. This fender is going to the scrap heap, so what the heck. I didn't do any prep work at all...didn't even wash it . The top half I used a roller on (same 4" high density you guys have been using), the bottom half I used a 2 1/2" brush that cost me $1.25.

Now, with the paint I didn't thin it at all...it was straight from the can, mixed about 8 to 1 with the hardener. The hardener seems to make it thinner all by itself. This was about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I let it sit in the garage for a week, but then it was just getting in my way while I was working on welding a floor board in my Olds, so I put it back out behind my garage. We finally had some sun this week, so it got to cure out there.

The section painted with the roller had some pretty good orange peel...could have been because the paint was too thick, or it could have been the ancient primer under it, or maybe my rolling technique. Who knows. The brushed section was actually pretty smooth...it had some waves from the bristles, but it really was'nt bad.

So tonight I decided to see what I could do with it. I only had about half an hour to play with it, so tried to wet sand out the imperfections with some 400 grit, wet. Sanded through in a couple of spots, but it went through the orange peel plenty fast. Once it was smooth, I used what has to be the cheapest polish made. I paid less than $3 at the grocery store for it. I hit it with my Craftsman 10" polisher. Finished with some Meguiars carnauba paste.

The result? I just about crapped. You guys won't believe how good it looks for the work I put into it. I'm dead serious. Aside from the fact that the fender itself looks like ***, it's amazing since I only sanded with 400 grit and polished. I know, I know, this is all meaningless without pics, but it's pitch black outside and my camera batteries are dead. I was doing all this with a halogen work light. I'll try to shoot it at lunch tomorrow and post them in the afternoon. I've been doing body work for 15 years, and I gotta say...if this thing had maybe one more coat of paint and a real wet sand, it would look as good as any other enamel paint job on the road. It's that good. I've still got some more experimenting to do, but if this pans out it could make this whole "cheap paint job" a lot easier. Right now that paint is rock hard...no fingernail business. And I painted it a couple of weeks ago. One of the other nice things about using the hardener is that it actually "cures"...it's an anaerobic process. It's not like drying by evaporation where thin layers are important. You can have the paint thicker than the micro layers you guys have been using, and will still dry.
Anyway, like I said I'll try and get some pics up tommorow. I was just too stoked not to post something tonight. I won't have much time to experiment with this process for a couple of weeks...I've got too much going on, but if anyone else out there wants to take a stab at it, please post your results.