How do I get a decent shine using rattle cans..

[Vince70]

Hi I wonder is someone can give me some advice as I've got a damaged sill on my car and will pull the dent out and repaint it using rattle cans..

Now the problem is whenever I paint using cans I never seem to manage to get a decent enough shine as the original paint..

 

I normally use a hair dryer to help the paint dry and flat and compound the base coat back before using a clear lacquer to help get it looking nice or am I doing something wrong.

 

Should I just leave the base coats alone and spray the lacquer straight on top and the try and get the a decent shine afterwards by compounding and wet flatting just the lacquer...

[Junkman]

You need to heat the cans.

[Stixy]

Heat the panel too before you paint 

[Timewaster]

Don't heat the cans too much!

 

A bucket of hot water is good. An oven at gas mark 6 is not good.

 

Several coats of lacquer and a 1200 grit rub down and polish ought to do it.

 

My usual trick is to try to rub it down about 10 minutes after I finished spraying. I have no patience!

 

Leave it a day to two if you can.

[r.welfare]

I always thought you shouldn't sand the base coat, so the lacquer can get a good grip.

 

I've had good results with putting on loads of lacquer then wet sanding with 1200 followed by 2000 grit.

[Barry Cade]

Yup, don't flat basecoat, just spray it to get even coverage in light coats- try to get it as matt as possible. Spray the laqquer about 10 mins later, 1 lighter coat, then one heavier coat going for a shine, look along the panel as you paint, not directly at it- you'll see how you are covering much better- overlap each run by about 30%.

[Squire_Dawson]

All good advice... seems more of an art than an exact science.

[Partridge]

Captain Slow is a world* reknowned expert on spraying cars. Just saying like.

[Bren]

Lots of paint.

 

Lots of lacquer.

 

1200 wet and dry with lots of water.

 

Cutting compound and then polish.

 

When you have mastered it it really is hard to beat.

[Vince70]

Cheers guys it looks like then that's where I've been going wrong with flatting the base coat between coats..

But to my defence when I last painted a car properly it was in the old cellulose days before all this pearlescent and metallic became the norm, when you just painted a base colour and shined it up

 

 

It also looks like I may have to do a complete door which is going to be a pain as on a new beetle it's just one big flat surface.

 

Does it matter on which Lacquer I use as in autoshite fashion I was going to use the pound land own brand.

I may even use pound land black on the sill.

 

But I may splash out on the correct colour black on the door.

[Vince70]

The sill is coming along a treat I should of done a before and after pic..

I found some holes along the length of the sill which I managed to get a long Allen key in and push the worst of the dent out then I drilled about 10 small holes into the sill and used a claw hammer and self tappers to pull the remaining dent out and managed to get rid of about 90% of the damage.

[Barry Cade]

Cheers guys it looks like then that's where I've been going wrong with flatting the base coat between coats..

But to my defence when I last painted a car properly it was in the old cellulose days before all this pearlescent and metallic became the norm, when you just painted a base colour and shined it up

 

 

It also looks like I may have to do a complete door which is going to be a pain as on a new beetle it's just one big flat surface.

 

Does it matter on which Lacquer I use as in autoshite fashion I was going to use the pound land own brand.

I may even use pound land black on the sill.

 

But I may splash out on the correct colour black on the door.

Halfords laqueer is very good, but not petrol proof. This may only matter on bike petrol tanks....

[twosmoke300]

And their petrol proof lacquer seems to react to their basecoat

[fordperv]

^ i learnt this one the hard way 

[dieselnutjob]

Anyone tried this stuff

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/111339928356

?

[rml2345]

I used the Car Plan stuff from B&M as it was cheap and the results seemed pretty good. Unfortunately I can't paint worth a fuck so the result still looks a bit shit.

Good technique for pulling out tents BTW!

[fordperv]

The hycote stuff you get in small motor factors ain't bad at all

[Lord Sterling]

Good technique for pulling out tents BTW!

I've always pulled the holding pins out of the ground before folding tents away myself, but tents can be pulled out in a variety of ways.

 

Now dents on the other hand.......

[rml2345]

I've always pulled the holding pins out of the ground before folding tents away myself, but tents can be pulled out in a variety of ways.

 

Now dents on the other hand.......

Ah yes... I did mean dents. It's probably not a bad way for pulling tents out either lol.

[Barry Cade]

Anyone tried this stuff

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/111339928356

?

Yes, it's very good, and petrol proof. Here are the results with Halfords basecoat and that laqueer...

 

 

OR, get yourself a small airbrush, and use proper bodyshop basecoat and 2k laqquer- well worth it in the long run.

 

Here's my old Mica blue X1/9 arch tidied up with a 20 quid Ebay cheapie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vince70]

Thanks for all the help I finished painting the old girl yesterday and she really does look great...

I took your advice and can now see where I was going wrong..

The sill ended up only costing about £18 to do in the end as I had some old primer and filler knocking about and an old can of hammerite for the underseal.

I can't believe the results..

What I can't work out is why my pictures keep going upside down....

 

Also P38 is the autoshite pug of choice as you can see by the picture it's made for the perfect car.

[sierraman]

I'm doing a bit of budget body repairs on the fezzy at the moment whilst the nights are light and the alternative is several hours of big brother punctuated with programs about pregnant American 16 year olds and their boorish boyfriends.

 

It's been some time since I've been at it with the P38 so I'm enjoying the nostalgia of the smell of David's Isopon.