Charles Smith
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Got another wierd one to add on to this. Was asked today to paint (color change with gelcoat) a slide for a pool. The guy has an awesome pool setup in his backyard with a waterfall and everything and the installers put in the wrong color slide. Have no idea what to give as far as an estimate, no idea at all what something like that would take. And not really sure how good it would buff out once it was done. I am assuming that you would have to sand and buff this thing once it was done. Taking it out isnt really an option. This thing is built into the waterfall. I dont think that it looks that bad right now and I would hate to have something that wouldnt be a definate improvement. Any thoughts?
Is there any certain gelcoat systems that are easier to work with than others? And can toners from one company be used with other companies? We did a spot job on a boat the other day and the customer brought gelcoat in that they ordered from the manufacturer and it was off ( a touch to dark) and what is a decent gun setup to use to spray this stuff? We used an iwata with a 1.4 and that was amusing to say the least. We thinned it with acetone to get it out of the gun. I was thinking maybe a airgunza with a 2.0 tip or maybe even a little larger.
Thanks, Chuck
I have been hearing a new excuse not to give blend time “Its not on the same sight plane” and they paid us to do it the right way the second time around when the customer complained of a slight mismatch between a new decklid and the quarter. But if I swear its not going to be a good match then they will normally give us the time as long as we take pics of the car in the booth.
Can you buy that stuff locally? We have switched over to black beauty for the remainder of the stripping. But the crushed glass sounds interesting. Might have to give it a try this winter on my Volkswagen.
I ended up taking vinegar and washing the whole thing three or four times then washed the crap outta it again. I still wasnt to sure about it so I went back over it again with 80 on a da. I think I will stick to aircraft stripper from here on out. Either that or just sand it off. But I finished most of the mud work on the cab today. Tomorrow I will shoot some epoxy on it.
I start off with 3m 1500 finishing film with an interface pad. Makes it real easy to find any imperfections, blow it off with a blower then hit my nubs with 3m 1000 without an interface pad, ( I find with the 1500 it wont cut the nub out flat enough) Then I will chase it again with the 1500/interface combo. On darker colors I will use 2000 Abralon pad ( I think that it eliminates any random pigtails) then go to 3000 Trizact. I like how the Trizact will foam up when it is cutting, lets you know when to get a new one. And recently we have switched to the Mirka Compounds. The C20 cuts real nice and quick and finishes out nice. Find that it dont have alot of fillers that trick you into thinking that it is buffed up.
I have a lph 400 with a 1.3 and really wish that I had a 1.4. Seems that a 1.4 sprays metallics easier for some reason. I have all three caps and find myself using the orange cap for most of my work. But the silver tip will work better for clear. If I could have only 1 cap I would use the silver. I generally will use my w400 for clearing though, but a lot of people love the lph 400 for all of it. Iwata has a forum as well that will help you get you started for you settings.
Chuck
I have used a few gallons of this stuff and it is great for small jobs like bumpers that need to go the same day. It’s nice to have the wet on wet application, saves a few minutes. But with anything that dries that fast it seems to pinch up a bit. The big drawback that I found is if you wait to long to buff, not very fun at all but if you do it within 30 min or so works out real nice.
You might consider a dessident snake, you can use these for a few jobs before you have to replace it and something that I have found works really well and is fairly cheap is one of those toilet paper filters by motor guard. You can actually use toilet paper for the filter. Just stay away from the scented ones have been rumored to cause fisheyes.
Chuck
When doing hoods on big trucks i take them off, when doing roofs I will paint them first them first then mask them off. When replacing roof skins I will paint them first before the body techs glue them on, will normally have to touch them up in the jambs once they are done.
If you decide to shoot your base again you might want to add a capful of clear hardener to your base coat to avoid any lifting issues. And put your first coat on light and let it flash before you put any more on.
I am starting to think that my fisheye issue is being caused by my air, I went on vacation for about 10 days and no one kept an eye on the dessident drier. The indicator showed that it needed to be changed so I changed it, but maybe it took a few days to get any contaminants out of the system. I have to keep a real close eye on our air supply due to the fact that we share air supply with the body shop. We have our own refridgerant system but if no one shuts the main supply off at night it will continue to pump air through the system without it going through the drier. Everything that I painted yesterday turned out clean with no issues. On a different note I did get to spray some debeer 1-204 ms clear. It’s a 2:1 clear that sprayed extremely well and buffed very easy. Decent price as well it was like 260.00 for a kit with 1 gal of clear and 2 qts activator. I don’t know if I will get to use it to much more cause my boss wants to get everything through our Sikkens jobber. It sprays a lot like the older clears before all of the voc laws kicked in. Didn’t have to hammer it on like the pro air. Ryan I will get you the guys number that I got it from in case you ever need it. Thanks for some of the other recommendations on some of the other cleaners as well.
Thanks, Chuck
I have been letting them air out in the booth while I mix my sealer as well. That along with spraying one cloth to wipe wet then another to make sure I dry it before it flashes. Had one today that had small fisheyes in my blending additve, but seemed fine with the base. I tried some debeer ms clear to see if that changes anything. I was told that a lot of the Sikkens products have a rough time in an old crossflow booth. I have been using pro air clear up to this point. I like the way the debeer ms sprays, tomorrow I will see how it buffs. Our Akzo rep is supposed to get some sort of test kit to see if our air supply could be a source of the fisheyes.
Chuk
Those Audi mirrors are a pain, most of them that we seem to get dont want to pop the mirror out without breaking the glass.
So given a choice which would you rather use? My jobber was telling me that you can use this like a 1 1/2 coat system, half trigger first coat then immediately follow up with a full coat. We are supposed to get some box trucks in at work and I was thinking if this was true it could save my arm. But if it is better to use two full coats I might just stick with the 3.8