Here’s a heads up for other noobs to painting.
I’ve been painting my 69 Bug and
have about 8 coats. I’m rolling Rustoleum Pro Regal Red. As I tried to set up for the final coat, I’d be using 1500 paper and still sand through the top coat which left what I’ll call leopard spots.

When the wailing and gnashing was over, I decided to learn something about my new HF rotary polisher since I would need to paint another coat anyway. Well..how happy was I when the leopard spots completely disappeared ! I did an initial run with Turtle Wax polishing paste, and then a run with Meguiars #2 ( Fine Cut Cleaner ) and holy smokes...this thing is awesome!

Bottom line is that now I know that I can sand all the orange peal off and get a finish that will be everything I’d hoped for. Huge thanks to 69chargeryeehaa and all the posters who have helped me understand this process. I’ll try to get some pics up next week.

yah i know... ive been telling everybody that i am using ppg paint and they think its cool how its comming out. but there is no smell
then in the spring ill say its rustolium!!!!!!

i did have a few spots that sanded through the clear and i hope i can buff them out???? i will try this weekend and see what happends...

Don't know how to link, but it's a 7" variable speed polisher/sander, part 92623. This is a rotary, which is not as forgiving as the orbitals.
When I started looking for a machine, HF had this on sale for $25 and I'd read that some folks were getting good results with it. ( Others were not, so it's up to you ).

I did a lot of web searching and the main issue with rotary is speed of the pad edges. If you use a 7 or 8" pad at high speed, that edge will cut right through all your hard work.

So I got a new backing plate and good 6" pad, and am using that with the least aggressive polish that will do my job. I have an old hood that I've been painting along with the car, and when something needs to be tested, the hood comes first.

The trick to using the rotary is to use the slowest speed that will do the job. When I had the Turtle Wax Polishing paste on there, I ran it over the roof area around the drip rail, thinking that if it were going to do harm, I'd see it there. It just made it very shiny.

Here's an update on the leopard spots, with some before and after pics attached. The spots are still there, and will no doubt show in direct sun, but they are still very acceptable for my purposes.

( edit: sorry...I'm a computer putz)





They are pretty clear in the first two pictures where I had sanded with 2000, used the polishing paste, but hadn't yet used the Fine Cut cleaner. The next two are after, and the spots are only apparent in the second shot.

The body is on a dolly, and I'd roll it out of the garage but it's been raining all day.

Has anyone else run into these spots ? Any suggestions ?

Only one pic was attached ...

BTW ... I used to have a '67 red vee-dub when I was 16. I used to dream of being able to do a dolly-type restoration on it.

Another quick question: I was in walmart and ace hardware last night, and I noticed Ace has 4" white rollers (Ace Brand), and Walmart has 4" yellow rollers (RubberMaid).

Anybody have any experience with these brands? Which is best?

I don't know if anyone has tried one of the yellow ones yet and reported on it. The yellow one, and cheap white ones, are less dense foam than the ones that many here have used. I have not seen a walmart that carries the dense ones that I and others have used with success.

I havent compared the performance of dense vs. non dense, but I imagine the denser one leaves a smoother finish and for that reason would only use the dense one from home depot/lowes.

Ok ... what brand & color were you using?

The brand at our Lowes is "Whizz" roller system, comes in a 5 pack.

Tried enamel hardener on some paint work I was doing today. Not Rustoleum, but another alkyd ename...the results should be the same I would expect. The weather here was a high of about 36* F, so it's not exactly ideal painting conditions. I mixed the hardener about 8-1 with the paint. The can recommends adding the hardener first, then the reducer...but I wasn't thinning it at all so I just added the hardener. The paint seems thinner with it in there. Definetly easier to apply. I used both a foam roller, and a regular bristle brush for areas I couldn't get a roller (I was painting the inside of the trunk of my car). One of the first things I noticed was waaaay more bubbles in the paint when I rolled it compared to using the paint straight out of the can. Brushing it on wasn't much different from the straight paint, but it was a little easier since it seems thinner. It seems to flow out ok...probably no better or worse than plain paint.

But here's the big difference--in this weather (even with a small heater running in there) my drying times have been measured in DAYS. It was taking about two days just to get where it wasn't tacky any more. With the hardener in it, after about 3 hours it was pretty well set up. I'm going to go check it again here in a minute, but the difference in drying time is pretty dramatic. I would think this would be a benefit for anyone working on this... My paint layers are also a *lot* thicker than what you guys are aiming for. I want coverage in one or two coats (it's just the trunk, it doesn't need to be mirror perfect). A thinner coat should dry hard very fast this way.

I'm still going to try this on a spare fender I have and see how it turns out. So far I'm pretty impressed. This might be the answer to getting the paint to harden without waiting 4 months

Just to add insult to injury when it comes to professional painters attitude towards roller painting as a crap finish to doom.

My neighbors brother claims that he's been painting cars for over 20 years now, and he couldn't tell by touch even that the paint on my car had been rolled on.

Granted my car is all white, sitting in a garage, and hasn't yet been wetsanded since the photo I posted, so this 'might' make it somewhat difficult to notice a difference right off.

But even after I showed him the tray, mixing can, the paint I;ve been using, AND the paint roller in the trunk, he still refused to believe that what I had done was a roller job.

So the old saying seems to remain true that you can show someone to a door of truth, but only that person can make the choice to open the door and walk through it.

Professional paint jobs are great, who wouldn't want one if money wasn't the decisive choice on the matter? But if I'm satified with a paint job that I've personally done, on a car that I've wrenching on from the ground up-- I could care less what the professional painters opinions are-- especially if one can't even tell the difference after touching a rolled on paint/base primer job.

So I attempted to roll my test door the other day and I've quickly learned the following things.

1) Surface prep is ridiculously important and my skills need a lot of improving

2) Brightside paint is amazing.

Aside from the sanding scratches and poor prep job, I can see my reflection in the deep dark black brightside. Amazingly a single coat gave me almost 100% coverage. I was so excited that I started preping the rest of the car. Many thanks to this forum and charger

So, what brand of hardner did you use? And you say it mixed 8 parts paint to 1 part hardner with no thinning?

Is this the hardner that will kill you if you breath it, cause that would be a drawback for me. But otherwise it would be sweet to get more coverage and shorter drying times and a harder finish. Sounds like you could manage 2 applications in a day.

Stevesbug,

Quote:

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Has anyone else run into these spots ? Any suggestions ?

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Yes, I had the same problem with the black Rustoleum Pro on my test fender, I attributed it to not wetsanding all of the orange peel out of the underlying layers.

I've only done the test panel so far...

After you are finished , the car has been fully polished the best it can be....

Does it keep a shine just being left outside ?

or do you need to keep it polished and buffede ,

I am lazy and do not want to do much more them wash it off with a garden hose !

Beaulieu

Montana & Exit - See my post on pg 59 concerning the yellow roller covers from Walmart. I was happier with the results from the Shur-Line brand after a trial run.

Never heard of/seen black rollers - I might have missed any mention of it on page 59.

Both Lowes and HD have high density foam rollers, they are the "best" (most expensive) they carry as far as i've seen. It's either the cheap yellow ones or the dense white ones.. not too many options.