I think you are right about thinning probable should have gone a little more. The thinning agent I would not know where to start on what to pick. I did basically what you mentioned on coats real light tack coat and then two wetter coats I just did not have a real good feel of the paint so I went a little to far and the dry overspray from bad techniques. here is shot of the roof

here is a pretty good shot from rear quarter and I did not put as much paint so it is pretty smooth but It did end up being slightly transparent in a couple places wher I can see original gray where my rusto red primmer was sanded down, of course I could not see that in moonlit paint booth. It really does not stand out and you probably won't see it in the photo.

here is a close up of the trunk lid, lots of TEXTURE

Okay one of the front that shows that plastic bumper trim that I opted to paint. I sanded 120 then 220 primed with rusto red/brown then I did a test with rusto flat black in the little tin with a foam brush but that did not work to good so I rattle canned with rusto flat black. I will note that the very top peice that looks like quaerter roun was only sanded with 220 and 400 before painting as it was a different type of plastic.

Hope yall don't mind one more this shows some of the potential the overall paint job could or should of had but I just did not reach it. Again this is paint only no wet sand or polish or wax driver side rear door. also as a side note I got a new set of hubcaps from advanced auto. Just plain faux alloy look and kind of borring but I figured it's HUBCAPS. My disapointment was the very next day the whole troop went to Wally world and they had a better assortment of hubcaps at about half price.

Looks just fine but you do realize you cheated and did it the old fashioned way with a spray gun
Of course you did prove these cheaper paints can be sprayed and get a nice look.
Bottom line keep the cost down.

C38Coupe, You asked about using a 2K Clear over regular enamel. It was discussed very briefly a while back in this thread. I believe someone used Nasson (by Dupont)clear over rustoleum. If this is the plan, using some hardener in the rustoleum is a good idea. The hardener will add a significant amount of chemical resistance to the paint. If I recall correctly, it increases the chemical resistance by like 40%. This increase in chemical resistance may enable the rustoleum to withstand the strong chemicals used in 2K clearcoats.

Adding hardener to the Rustoleum is probably not essential if the correct clear is used. I've read that there are some regular basecoats (for base / clear systems)which do not use any hardener in the base. So using a clear coat that's compatable with a non-hardened base may work fine with regular enamel. (I've not personally tried it though)

For what it's worth, there is a hardener specifically intended for regular enamel paint. I've bought it at agricultural supply places.

Safety precautions must be followed with any hardener. The isocyanates used in hardener are very dangerous. Most paint manufactures recommend a supplied air respirator when spraying these chemicals. A few respirators on the market can remove these chemicals, but there is no way to know when the respirator is saturated as the isocyanates have no odor. If a person is considering using a respirator, get one from an automotive paint supply shop. There are charcoal respirators available at many hardware stores which will remove the smell of the paint chemicals, but wil NOT remove the isocyanates.

Lastly, I'd suggest counting up the cost of the clear, harder, reducer, and enamel. It probably would not cost much more to spray some regular automotive single stage or base clear. (PPG's Omni or Duponts Nasson lines are decent quality with reasonable prices. Of couse there are Kirker, SPI, Transtar, Western, and other discount brands. SPI has a decent reputation and their single stage black was around $100 a gallon a while back.

I'm not against rolling paint. In some situations, this may be the only practical option. But if a person is going to spray paint, it makes sense to consider regular automotive paint.

this probably seems like a dumb question, but here goes nothing..

i have an audi (1993, 90s) that i bought about a month ago, and the paint on the hood, roof, and a few other places is going through some unpleasant clearcoat failure, making what looks to me to be a potentially sexy car very pos-like.

so when prepping it, do i have to sand all the factory paint to look like the messed up paint does now (that is, the part that has undergone clearcoat failure)? or even as far as bare metal? or do i only need to sand of enough to make it a bit rough so the rustoleum can stick? or can i just get by fine without any sanding?

thanks

you need to sand down enough so that the rustoleum has someplace to bite into and stick to the old paint. also the goal with sanding is to get the car smooth. once its there you can apply paint, if that means going to metal than so be it, if it means just a light wetsanding then your lucky.

I've been reading up on this roller paint process (including dozens and dozens of pages here on moparts) so I have an understanding of the instructions and the process. I'm thinking about painting my car, possibly next summer when my schedule will allow it, and I have a couple of questions. I'm sorry if these were previously answered, I did read a ton on here but just don't have time to dig through hundreds of posts for an answer which may or may not even be here, so here goes:

First, metallic paint. I know some have said it won't work because the flakes won't be evenly distributed, which makes sense. What I'm wondering is, has anyone actually tried to roll metallic paint on a test panel, and are there any photos of the results? Or how about a rolled paintjob with just the last coat being a metallic spray? I don't know how well that'd work. I'm asking because my car is originally a light icy metallic blue, but it has a clear coat problem that's only getting worse, so it's looking flaky... and I'll be sad to lose the neat metallic quality, but I'd like to know if anyone has tried and had success or failure with it.

The other question is about the current types of Rustoleum paint. I understand people have used the oil-based "protective enamel" and also the "high performance/professional" version...but do the finishes actually come out looking any different? Is the pro. paint worth it? And has anyone tried the Rustoleum topside paint yet? I saw it on their website HERE and I see that some of you are trying out different topside boat paints, so if anybody has tried it, how does the Rustoleum version stack up?

And on a similar note, are there any paint bonding issues with using the enamel for the first coats and then finishing with a topside paint for the last couple of coats? I would think the topside would stick to the enamel paint ok, but I have very little painting experience so I'm wondering what you all have experienced with it so far.

Thanks.

April I think some have tried themetalic and it didn't work so well and as for the final coat being sprayed metalic i'm sure it can be done but kind of defeats the purpose of rolling the paint. unless you have all the equipment already.

as for the topside stickign to the enamel it will work fine. a few here have switched over in the middle of painting with no problems.

so where in wisconsin are you??

If you can spray the metallic, why bother rolling? Believe me, once you try rolling I'll be amazed if you can resist just grabbing the spray gun and shoot it that way.

Someone earlier asked about Transtar 6071 2k roll-it primer. Yes I've been using it for the past year and it works well. It goes on real thick, the data sheet says 5mil compared to ~2 mil for a sprayed on primer. It cures hard so it's a heck of a surface to sand but it makes a great filler for sand scratches around repair areas. I only use it on deeply scratched areas and where there's a chance of bleed-through. The rest of the car I spray with Transtar 1k speed prime which is thinned with acetone.

The cracked areas I used speed prime on lifted both Rustoleum and Brightside, so be careful. If your paint is so old that it shows cracks then sanding, priming, and filling will not fix it! It needs to be sanded down to the next layer of paint and the 2k primer used to level it back up. Blocking and guide-coating did not show these problems but as soon as paint went on things went down the toilet. I've stripped and painted my trunk twice already because of this. The cracks and ghost lines are gone thanks to the 2k primer. Now I'm being more careful with the rest of the car.

You can be very frugal with the 2k roll-it by using small cups to measure the 4:1. I use graduated plastic cups that came with my mold-making supplies, they hold about 1oz. per cup. The cups that come with cough syrup work great, too. 2oz. of primer mixed with the appropriate amount of hardener is enough to roll at least an entire panel enough to block out deep sanding scratches. Try doing that with a spray gun! The down side is I paid ~$30 a quart, and that's through my friend that owns a bodyshop. The 1k speed prime was ~$50 a gallon.

Rolling paint? You mean like with a roller like to put latex paint on walls with?? I painted a truck (56 Dodge 1/2 ton) years ago with a brush and it turned out pretty good. But a Roller?? How can I get to the beginning of the original thread? This one apparently starts on page 44(?)I want to read up on this!!

Part 1 starts HERE.
Part 2 HERE.
And you are in Part 3.

When I first read about somebody rolling paint on their car I was kinda skeptical about how it would turn out, but seeing people's results on here has made me seriously consider it.

Oh ok, any idea if there were any pics posted of what the metallic paint did? A visual would help me decide if it's completely out of the question or if I'd consider living with the results. And yes spraying on the last coat would sort of defeat the purpose, I guess I was thinking in terms of only needing a very small amount of paint mixed up to save $, and only having to mask the car once so there's no worry of dust from wetsanding coming off the masking paper onto your next coat. Or possibly even having a shop quote a price on a one coat job with a metallic once you've got the rest of your base coats on... although I don't know if a shop would do just a single layer, or what it would cost as compared to a whole job.

Thanks for the info. on the topside. I'm in Superior, just about as far north and west as you can go in this state lol.

And ron I'll keep the roll-it primer in mind but probably will just go with a simple rattle can primer. I don't think my car has any deep scratches, just surface ones that I'll take care of when I sand it down. There's only one dent I need to repair which I just might be able to get out with a dent puller or might end up using bondo, we'll see, but I think the rustoleum primer spray can should work fine.

Oh, I edited to add one more question about priming. The primer's purpose is to give you a good surface to start painting on, but I was wondering if you all have been sanding on the primer before you start painting, or just leaving the primer as is?

April,
You'll definately want to sand the primer before painting, especially if you use the rattle can. Marq had a very detailed explaination of why a page or two back. Basically, it comes down to the way the primer (or any rattle can paint) flows onto the surface. The sprayed on primer would have a fuzzy surface to it that would not allow good adhession of the paint. By wetsanding the primer, you remove the fuzziness and provide a solid base for the paint to stick to. Also, the rattle can layers of primer would be extremely thin so there isn't much base protection. For example, the hood of my truck had some pretty bad surface rust, so I sanded the entire hood with 80 grit paper, then sprayed it with 2 coats of rustoleum rattle can primer. It's been about 8 months, but the hood is starting to rust again. I know that primer isn't meant to be a weather sealer, but it's the best I could do at the time. So now, I'm going to sand the hood again and this time I'm going to roll on rustoleum's rusty metal primer. Eventually, I'll get the ret of the body work done on the rest of the truck and paint the whole thing.

One really good reason for using primer before painting is to provide a solid base of one color so the vehicle doesn't look splotchy, especially if changing colors.

Oh alright thanks! (and thanks Scott)

I didn't know that about the primer surface. I'd seen cars rattle can painted without sanding the primer before, so I wasn't sure how much it mattered. Granted, the cars were stock ice racers so the paint job didn't matter too much and didn't have to last very long. But yeah if I'm going to go through this painting process I'll definitely take one more step and sand between primer and paint too. I got tired of reading after about 50 pages of posts (starting in first thread) and then started jumping around and skimming and looking at people's before and after pics... so I didn't see Marq's explanation, thanks for the tip.

Bummer about the hood rusting through, but I guess it's better to happen now than later on after you've got a nice complete paintjob on the whole truck. Good luck finishing your project. It's funny, with "rust" in their name, shouldn't all Rustoleum paints have better-than-average rust blocking properties? lol.