1987 Renault GTA :: Gone to a new home

[PhilA]

 

Not too bad. Next coat of primer going on.

 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

 

Not even dry, straight out of the can.

 

I'm going inside to cool off and hunt for the rest of my wet-n-dry.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

It does. It's pretty broad for a spray can (about 3" wide at about 8" distance).

 

I'm going to write to them though and complain. They don't mark which side the paint pickup tube is with a little dot at the top of the neck and as such it's quite easy to get the can to sputter and fart as the paint gets low inside, and guessing which way round it has to be is a bit of a crapshoot.

 

Heck, even the can of spray oil I use in the kitchen for the pan has a mark on it for that.

 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Just looked on the custom filled can I got last week.what am i looking for?

 

Normally a dot of paint on the neck by the nozzle, like this (oil spray for frying pan) which indicates, at the bottom of the can, where the pick up pipe is, so you can always hold that at the low point and not suck up propellant and no paint.

 

 

In short, you want to keep the dot at the lowest point of the neck where you hold it to spray.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Then take your best bet, like roulette!

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

That's what that dot is for!  I'd seen it a few times and thought it was some sort of quality control thing.

 

Primer looks lovely so far on that boot lid.  Fingers crossed the silver isn't a chore.

[Ghosty]

Are you still going for the part yellow Renault racing livery, or just plain silver?

[PhilA]

Are you still going for the part yellow Renault racing livery, or just plain silver?

As much as that would be fun (and a lot cheaper to paint), I have decided to try put it back to silver. It's GM Galaxy Silver but it's really quite close.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

I just went back and re-read the first couple pages of this thread and it reminded me of something. I had to replace the capacitors in the windscreen wiper control box because they had expired; the ECU has a few similar ones (and some tantalum beads) that may also similarly be expired or expiring. I should pull the ECU out and fit new ones to see if it makes any difference at all to the car's running.

 

Also, made a note how much the paint has deteriorated in a decade. It did look better* when I first got it.

 

Phil

 

 

*From thirty feet or so, at least.

[For Fiats Sake]

At last paint!

[PhilA]

 

Rubbed the primer back with 1000-grit outside with water again. Came up pretty reasonable again, which is good.

 

Decided to lay down silver, despite it being particularly warm and humid (36C, 90%).

 

 

It's a bit stripey and I'm upset, half way through a drip of sweat dropped off my hand holding the spray can and landed smack dab in the middle of the lid.

Sopped as much as possible up with a cloth corner just touched to the surface so it wicks but I've a feeling that's going to mark.

 

That's 2 cans of paint, I think I'll be rubbing those down with 1500 then 2000 and see if the stripes can be persuaded to go away. If not, another couple cans and run back again to get some depth to the silver.

 

Here's hoping. A bit miffed that you can see the structure of the strengthening ribs on the underside. I'm guessing those are slightly raised or dimpled and either the paint sits differently or the rubbing back is affected.

 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

 

Silver is dry. It flashed and bloomed a little which should go away with some wet flatting. Tomorrow I'll start on that if it's not too hot.

 

I watched a demo on the Internet about painting silver, and have determined it's almost impossible a) here in summertime to have the right temperature and humidity, and get a spray can that doesn't spit and bubble randomly.

 

I wouldn't mind so much, but the cans are tiny and $11 each.

 

More tomorrow. At the very least I'm no worse off than I was to begin with in terms of finish quality so there is that if it all goes wrong.

 

Maybe should have started with something like the wing mirrors though...

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Thank you.

 

We'll see what it looks like after wet flatting, though. Hopefully the inconsistencies are mostly just bloom and overspray. I did manage to get the can too close at one point and the finish mottled, but I think I managed to cover it. I hope.

 

Apparently silver is all about what's underneath the top coat, so they say.

 

Phil

[mrbenn]

Good luck with the paintwork. I did a bumper recently and was disappointed with the results, despite spending ages on the prep. Was foiled at one point by a spitting can which didn't help matters.

[PhilA]

Might not get this flatted back because my paint booth is a bit wet.

 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

The booth stopped raining for a while, so I decided what the hey and made a go at smoothing the paint out.

 

With a lot of incident light it's got a decent gloss already.

 

 

But, straight-on it's all kinds of patchy.

 

 

Needs more coats of silver, or am I doing it wrong or just plain bad at painting?

 

All of the above are likely.

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

Silver is an absolute bastard to do with rattlecans.  Here's some tips I've got from experience, I'm not a pro, this is just what I've learned.

 

The first most important thing I've learned about painting silver from rattlecans is don't.  It seems to go right more by chance than design.  Matching the grey of the primer to the tone of the silver will help alleviate striping, you look pretty close in the photographs which is probably part of the reason your striping isn't too bad.  It's slightly counterintuitive, but spray in the shortest sections you can, so on the boot lid you want to be putting more on front to back rather than side to side.  For some reason this seems to load the panel better with paint.  Then finish by running the final coat on the longest run, generally running front to back on the sides of the car and side to side on the top gives the nicest finish.  If possible, break the panel down along bodylines (not that difficult with the GTA's styling) and do each section until it's close to not striping, then do the panel as a whole.  Again, this seems to load the panel more evenly and reduces the striping.  Use about twice the amount of paint you expect to get good coverage.

 

For some reason, silver seems really translucent, it's the worst colour I've ever painted and I avoid it whenever possible.  That said, what you've done so far doesn't look too bad, for silver, and repeated flatting and painting should get a reasonable finish.  It just might take you another half dozen passes with paint to get there.

[Noel Tidybeard]

did you paint flat or hanging?

[PhilA]

Flat because I don't really have a way to hang out vertical. I believe I would get a better finish vertical, but part of this was to see if I could do a large horizontal panel (think roof) which cannot be rotated to the vertical so wanted to see if there was a modicum of possibility.

 

I might just paint it white after all...

 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Actually, after a bit of thinking, perhaps not white.

 

I don't think I'm going to move forward with the silver, these results are too poor for the outlay in paint.

 

I'm thinking a solid color. Blue, teal.. the interior is gray and black so that would work.

 

Or yellow. Not sure yet.

 

Colors that are on the "not really" list:

 

Metallic anything

Bright green

Black

Pink/light red

Purple

Brown/beige (only because it would clash with the interior)

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

The most forgiving colours I've painted are beige, red, metallic turquoise, bright blue, and grey.  The most troublesome are silver, metallic brown, bright yellow, and metallic dark blue.  The most unpredictable are purple, mid-greens, golds, and whites.

 

This colour is pretty awesome and probably pretty forgiving to paint.  I don't know what it's called.

[Ghosty]

Do the racing livery except with a grey base

[PhilA]

The most forgiving colours I've painted are beige, red, metallic turquoise, bright blue, and grey.  The most troublesome are silver, metallic brown, bright yellow, and metallic dark blue.  The most unpredictable are purple, mid-greens, golds, and whites.

 

This colour is pretty awesome and probably pretty forgiving to paint.  I don't know what it's called.

I call that one "the color I was thinking of"

 

 

This is the pretty mediocre selection at both the auto parts stores locally.

 

It may end up white after all.

 

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

Far right, next-to-bottom shelf is a nice looking blue.  As is seventh from the left on the next shelf up.  I bet they're both metallics.

[PhilA]

Dark one is metallic yes. The next one up is even better, pearlescent.

 

Heh

 

There's maybe 5 shades that are not metallic on the shelf.

 

Phil

[Geep]

Is it possible for you to buy or borrow a spray gun, and compressor if required? If you're thinking of doing the whole car, even a panel at a time doing it with cans is going to be expensive and results may be patchy. It looks like you may have been holding the can too close or the fan was too narrow meaning overlapping each pass was difficult without going over the same bit again. A wider fan or holding it further away to get a wider fan then overlapping by about 50% each time is about right.

 

http://www.collisionblast.com/2012/09/25/diy-car-painting-techniques-spray-gun-overlap-for-applying-paint-coatings/

 

Even a cheap spray gun will give a better fan and control and paint will work out cheaper overall. With metallic, base coat will need lacquer which means more cans. Might be worth looking in to paint and spray gun as you have what most in this country don't have, a large enclosed area to paint in. Chap on the blue forum has just painted his spitfire outside with decent results, so not beyond the realms of possibility. 

 

http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/201146/1978-triumph-spitfire-1500-road?page=5

 

(scroll down a bit, about two thirds down the paint job starts)

[Sir Snipes]

I managed reasonable results with light metallic blue. Was just on the sills though.

 

Lol @ pearleaecent rattle can.

[PhilA]

Had a nice 10 gallon compressor but ex brother in law ruined it, sadly. Might end up getting one yes. Useful thing to have but if you don't take care of the things in the humidity here they don't last well.

 

Gotta go to town at the weekend, I'll try stop in at Harbor Freight and see.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

I have picked a color to experiment with.

 

Initial indications are good. The paint smells vile so that's usually a decent indication in my (admittedly limited) experience of the color being halfway decent.

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

Tease.