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Finished my 2nd paint job. I tried flat black for about a year, it looked good, but I wanted a more finished look. I have decided that this method isn't any easier than spraying, but it is a lot cheaper for a similiar ammount of work, plus the ease of touchup is huge. Color is Rusto Almond, with Rusto satin black. 6 coats, then polished with turtlewax rubbing compound, then polish.

I ended up hand polishing and not using my polisher, I didn't really think that the rotary polisher worked that great, may be my technique.

The car is really shining now though!

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You say the hood is now satin, so in your pictures when it was black, was that flat or satin? I thought for sure it was satin then. Can you re-post the link to your photo album? I seem to have lost it.

As far as satin black goes, how hard is that to match if I spray it? Because of our fog I have to paint panels within a few days or it'll rust through the primer, which means painting my car in stages. Will I end up with a multi-hue black? I know 69Charger said he touched up and couldn't tell the difference, but that was gloss.

Here's my car when it was in epoxy primer, before it became a chalky, faded mess about a year later as the rain washed most of it off. I didn't know about UV stability then. Funny thing is, I touched up a few spots with Krylon ultra flat and the door with Rustoleum flat black and those spots are still there after 2 more years of sun and rain. So much for "cheaper" paint, huh?


Here's what the epoxy primer looks like now. $180 literally down the drain.

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I spent about 2 hrs buffing and waxing on a quarter panel tonight and I have to say that the shine is coming out finally, but I am really thinking about buying some brightside. There is just no real comparison between the gloss of the two paints.

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Two tone paint job? The original coat on my '72 Satellite is blue/light grey, and a thin chrome moulding piece to separate them. A few of the guys have managed to pull this off and I'm pretty stoked about giving it a shot. Question, tho...when you did yours, you taped off half and rolled the other half. The one guy who had the problem with his truck...I didn't see if he had prepped with primer first; I believe I can avoid the "paint peel" problem with a good, sanded smooth primer coat. I also plan to do the bottom half first, and then work on the top half. Thoughts? Opinions?

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Prime/Not Prime? It boils down to prep. It seems to me that the more prep you put into it the better off you'll be. Besides, I do have a lot of scale & surface rust which I need to remove, and even a few holes to treat/fill. On top of that, the fella with the Forerunner pretty much brilliantly demonstrated that a consistent bottom coat makes for a better final coat. So I will be priming before I even start the final coat.

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Two tone paint job? The original coat on my '72 Satellite is blue/light grey, and a thin chrome moulding piece to separate them. A few of the guys have managed to pull this off and I'm pretty stoked about giving it a shot. Question, tho...when you did yours, you taped off half and rolled the other half. The one guy who had the problem with his truck...I didn't see if he had prepped with primer first; I believe I can avoid the "paint peel" problem with a good, sanded smooth primer coat. I also plan to do the bottom half first, and then work on the top half. PATIENCE is the key here, and I plan to finish the bottom half, let cure for a week, move on to the top half, let cure for a week, repeat, then do the first sanding on both sides.

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Rims? I've seen some discussion about doing rims in the same method. My rims are originally chrome, but I plan to have them sandblasted to remove the chrome...but I am undecided on whether to have them re-chromed ($$$) or simply prime and paint with the same light grey I'm going to put on the bottom half. Since they are Magnum 500 rims, I was also going to flat-black the segments. The conversation I read said that Rust/Tremclad of these would not be such a great idea (road damage, etc). Thoughts? Opinions?

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There are two ways to look at 'doing it yourself' rims. The one beauty of painting the rims.... is that EACH YEAR you can remove the rims and redo them cheaply and fairly easily in order to have them look their best. The main problem with 'paint your own' rims... is that the heat, chemicals, road chips etc really give that paint a beating. Personally... I would rather find a friendly rim jobber and have them professional prepare / restore them. BUT this cost a heck of a lot more then the cost of paint and time you will spend over the next ten years doing your annual 'do it yourself' rim paint job. Another thing you might consider is picking up a spare set of 'beater' rims and do your paint job on them. If you like the result... you can slap them on the car - and start doing a restoration on the original rims at your leisure over the next one year.

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Finally, I have a question that I didn't see anyone else bring up in the entire three threads. The main push in these three threads, besides PATIENCE, seems to be PRACTICE. I don't have a junkyard in my backyard to pull parts from, or even a beer fridge which needs a racing stripe...so I was wondering if I could practice on something besides metal surface. You see, I do have a sheet of plywood and I was thinking I could nail down a smooth sheet of wall paneling to it. I figure after priming it, it might be a good surface. Easy enough to remove a botched piece of panel, replace, and start over...whether horizontal or vertical.

Thoughts? Opinions?

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My only thoughts on a wood panel is that it would probably absorb paint and mineral spirits... Whereas if you are painting on a metal surface, there is no penetration and what you see is what remains on the surface. The el cheapo route might be to go to a junk yard ( auto-recycler ) and tell the guys you want to practice some painting on a trunk lid. ( I say trunk lid instead of a hood simply because they are usually smaller, cheaper and easier to load in your car to take home ). Since you aren't looking for a mint condition trunk lid, you should be able to dicker one away from them for less then $20. After all... there isn't a huge market for used trunk lids on most types of vehicles. An alternative might be to drive around your neighborhood on garbage collection day and you might find something suitable being tossed out - like a metal filing cabinet, maybe a fridge door ( since by law they are not suppose to be attached to a fridge that is being thrown out etc - for the safety of dumb children that might climb in a fridge or freezer that has been tossed out ).

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Well it has been a while since I last posted and I wanted to give an update. The good the bad the ugly and the peel and dry overspray. I somewhat finished and car has paint on it and it's all put back together. Recapp I used HF HVLP gun with Rusto royal blue thinned 15% MS and around 10% flowtrol, First let me list the dont's so maybe it will help others: If you setup a makeshift paint booth and it feels like an oven that is not good, If you grabbed every 100watt and 60watt bulb you could find and it does not look like the car is sitting in daylight in fore mentioned booth it is not enough, If paint looks pretty good on car but could use another coat dont' put it on a few minutes later do it the next day other wise it won't stay peel free, If your gun seems to change it's spray pattern IE more globular don't keep going cause it does make a difference, If you feel like you are not supplying enough VOLUME of air to the gun you aren't IE reg. compressor 90PSI and reg. on gun won't go above 40PSI with trigger pulled you have too much restriction somewhere my gun said 43PSI max at gun so I just chugged along anyway not the brightest move. So to recall I made some serous errors and mistakes but I was under the gun to get project to clompletion one way or another and if time was not a factor I would wetsand and see where I stood but as of now I am done. As I put the car bak together it looks OK and a lot better than before but I was most unhappy with my lack skill when it came to the Horizontal surfaces I got that wet and dry look. here is a side shot

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