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Marq!

1/ You use a 4inch high density foam roller for applying paint, and a second roller for popping the bubbles and flatting the paint. What kind of roller must this second roller be?
Also a 4inch foam roller? or an other kind of roller?





Well.. .first I will tell you a story behind the 'tippling' effect. For the boat enthusiast using Brightside paint, they recommended using a roller to apply the paint... and then follow it up immediately after with a soft-fine-wide paint brush ( obviously one with tightly held bristles ( so they they don't fall off and stick to the paint ). The idea behind the marine application method is that the follow-up brush lightly sweeping over the freshly applied paint is that it would pop any bubbles from the roller - and yet the paint would be fresh and wet enough to 're-heal' itself and self level any depth changes in the freshly applied paint.

Ok... so what I ended up doing is just being lazy. Since I was buying these white high density foam rollers pretty cheaply, I decided to use one of them as my 'follow-up' roller.

A nice clean 'follow-up' roller does an amazing job. But the key is to not use it once it has too much paint built up on to it. Otherwise it will begin leaving tracks or patterns when it is lightly rolled over the freshly applied paint.

So I would end up using two new 'follow-up' rollers during a coating of the entire car.

IF you are moving pretty quickly along with your rolling... your first 'follow-up' roller can be promoted to the job of the paint applicator half way though the coating of the car ( and you toss out the original foam roller that was being used initially to roll on the paint ).

IF you decide to instead use a wide-soft paint brush... it will work. But you will have to spend more time keeping it clean - so that paint doesn't build up on it or begin to harden or it. ( Obviously if the paint begins to harden or cure on the brush it would no longer be a 'soft' paint brush ).

Trouble is that to get a good quality paint brush, it usually cost 5 or 10 times more then a pile of high density foam rollers. So that is the logic on why I went with the 4" inch high density white rollers.

I did experiment with 6" and 10" high density foam rollers.. BUT they just didn't have the ability to manouever around the lines of a car easily. HOWEVER... if you were doing something with a ton of flat surfaces ( like a van, bus, panel truck, Winnebago etc ) I would probably go with the 10" high density foam roller ( because the ability to manoever it around the surfaces wouldn't be so important ).

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2/ My car has a lot of difficult places that are impossible to roll.
I want to spray this with rustoleum fire red.
In what order is this the best way to do it?





I faced the same situation. So I first cleaned like crazy all those nooks and crannies to get all the dirt, oil, debris and crap out of them. The point being to remove anything that would interfere with the paint's ability to adhere to those hard to get surfaces. I even dumped about three cans of aerosol brake cleaning solvent into those spots ( since it cleans everything off and leaves no residue ). Then I left it for a day to let the brake cleaning solvent thoroughly evaporate.

Then I hit those nooks and crannies with the spray bomb 'fire red' paint. I hit it first with a light coat - just to sort of prime the surface and ensure good adhesion. The next day I went back over those spots and laid down a proper full coverage coating ( taking care to try to avoid runs etc ).

IF any spray ran on to the rest of the body... you immediately take your handy 4" high density roller and work it out to flatten it or thin it down.

Once I had all my nooks and crannies done... I then was able to go after all the external and more easily reached parts. The beauty of this 1 - 2 procedure is that your roller job will be able to cover any 'overspray' or 'paint mist' that might have reached those external body panels.

IF you had painted the external body parts first... and then sprayed the nooks and crannies after.. the odds are that you will get furry, fuzzy overspray or atomized paint on your rolled paint.

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I'm planning to brush the paint in all the corners and hard places.
How much paint can I brush on this places? A thick layer? or a thin layer ?





I also used some assorted FOAM paint brushes of various sizes to do some pain in the butt spots on the car. They sell assortment packs of these cheap foam paint brushes ( which are basically black porous foam with a wooden stick shoved up them. They come in 1/2 inch, 1 inch and 2 inch sizes in the assortment pack.

When painting with them, I followed my spraying routine... that being get a thin layer on to provide good adhesion for the next coat. Then when I did the second coat over the area... I would aim for more fuller coverage. The number of coatings will depend on how much of a color change you are going from and trying to get to.

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3/ How much paint did you use on your car?
Here in holland we can buy the Brightside paint only in 1 Liter (=0.264 gal)
or in 2.5L (=0.650 gal)





I was doing a McLaren sportscar... basically imagine a Mustang Fox convertible. So I didn't have as much overall body surface to paint. However... I was going from BLACK to FIRE RED... and that required extra coats to ensure 100% color coverage.

I would say that when you go to buy your paint.... go with four 1 liter cans. The odds are that with 'thinning' taken into consideration... you 'should' be able to squeeze at least three overall coatings per can.

And again depending on whether you are going to do the underside of the hood ( bonnet ) and trunk ( boot ) you might want about 4 aerosol cans of the red paint ( this will also be used for the nooks and crannies that you will be spraying.

And just to answer the question before it is asked : Yes... the Armorall or Tremclad aerosol Fire Red is the same color as the Brightside Fire Red. And YES... both paints are friendly with each other. In that i originally painted the car doing the Armorall/Tremclad paint... and changed half-way through the paint job to the Brightside marine polyurathane. I have had no compatibility problems.

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4/ Where are all your photo's mate of your car?
Al the links are dead in the old topics from 2006.





I had to take the pics off my web server. The bandwidth consumption was killing me and interfering with the normal flow of visitors surfing the web sites.

I will try to attach a picture to this message so you can see how Brightside Fire Red turned out on my car

The picture I have attached was taken in July of 2006. And although it looks pretty sharp there.. it looked even better when I finished the job 'officially' in August 2006. This pic was before I started going maniac with my polisher and waxes Then it really shined. And the body was soooooo smooth that if I put the polish container on the car.. it would slide right off the car. I use to put the two videos of its slipperyness online - but the bandwidth of those videos being viewed were killing my server. You would be amazed by just how many people have read this thread about the roll your own paint job

As you look at the picture... just remember that the car 'was' basically black, black primer, gray primer, some white panels, a white fiberglass hood... and the front airdam and bumper were black unpainted molded plastic. So it was quite a zebra to begin with. Once you understand where the poor little car began from... you can better appreciate just how far along it came doing this 'roll you own' paint job

We are now sitting at Nov 2008 and if anything the car is more shiny then ever. Whenever I am bored I take out my Porter & Cable polisher and spend 20 minutes giving the car a fresh polish and wax. No problems. No defects. Just smoother and shinier each time I do it.

Marq

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Last edited by Marq; 12/06/08 05:05 PM.