Pete wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 23 10:54 pmLooking good!!
Looking ok, I’d say. Not as good as I’d hoped if I’m honest, but nowhere near as bad as it looked before! I guess this is one of those cases where I would say to my daughter when you’re on a tight timeline or a tight budget, “good enough is usually good enough.”
Having spent so long stripping everything right back with the grinder and wire cup, then probably overkill degreasing and gas torching the block to sweat it out, then applying metal prep and keeping it wet for 20 minutes, I guess I was hoping for a fantastic looking job after all the effort. Truth is, it’s ok if you aren’t staring at it for detail, but it’s just ok.
My honest appraisal of the POR paint system and brush paint (couldn’t get the correct Chrysler Blue I wanted in a rattle can) - it’s pretty good and I’m sure someone with more patience and talent than I, could get a much better result, BUT… here’s my reflective musings…
My first round of prep, I got the flakey paint off, degreased, washed off, brake cleaner, washed off, quick rub over with the prep pad to scuff what was left, stirred paint and started applying. It was shocking. 2 things from this - 1, this is not enough prep over a lumpy paint job. It just looked like a lumpy blue paint job, rather than a lumpy red one. 2. I stirred the paint well, it came out like water with a hint of colour and just rubbed off when I decided I wasn’t happy. Stir it for a LOT longer than you think.
So, take 2… after I prepped everything much better as I’ve already detailed, paint was stirred for a solid 15 minutes. (Once bitten, twice shy.) This worked a LOT better and it was much more pleasant to apply. It went on really well and I was pretty happy, though learned quickly to ignore brush strokes, as it overworks the paint and if you leave it alone, it sorts itself out as long as you haven’t lashed it on mega thick.
At this stage I would recommend whatever you do DO NOT use Frosts paint brushes… I like Frosts, I’ve used them for a lot and still will, but I’ve never seen brushes shed bristles like it in my life. I’m pretty sure there is at least one whole brush worth of bristles lying dead in the paint on the motor and oil pan. The more you try and get them out, the more the paint overworks, so have ended up leaving half of them. Not happy, though.
Having done one full coat and not worried too much about perfect coverage as I planned to do two coats, it was evening by the time I finished and thought that was ok for a first coat. As I was leaving early the next morning to go out for the day, I thought I’d leave it to dry a full 24 hours plus and then do the 2nd coat on Sunday night.
Then I re-read the tin. 1st coat must be finger drag dry, 2nd coat must be applied within 24 hours…
Consulted a painter friend who said yes, enamels can be temperamental, so do it like it says. Awesome.
Didn’t dry enough that evening, so ended up getting up at 5:30am on Sunday (losing an hour because of the clocks too, so pretty much 4:30
) to get another coat on before I had to go.
Bottom line is, as well as probably being too cold, the paint didn’t like the second coat at all and was very difficult to work with. It left a lot of brush marks that didn’t go this time, so I tried a bit heavier coat and that just resulted in runs that looked messy when brushed out too. In the end, I decided to just touch up bits if missed and where red was showing and leave the rest alone, as I was just making it worse.
On reflection, I wish I had just spent longer putting a really good, slightly thicker single coat on with much, much better brushes.
So I suppose it all boils down to spending more time prepping, being more patient and careful with a good single coat, avoiding the cold and buying better brushes. The paint and the system are pretty good.
So that’s my ramblings. Ended up with an ok paint job that looks better than it did, but that I’m only 50% happy with.
But it’s lots better than it was.
Hope this will help some others who might be thinking of it.
On to the next bit now.