Body Filler, Primer, and Cheap...but Good Paint Questions

[T-Bucket Bob]

1. What is a good body filler to smooth out welds and use on the body?
2. What is a good, but safe primer to use on the frame and body?
3. What is a good, but safe paint to use on the frame and body?

The primer and paint, I would like to spray in my garage.

Thanks, T-Bucket Bob

 

[Northstar T]

1. Evercoat
2. any epoxy primer except PPG. I use Montana or SPI
3. for a garage job, you might start by staying away from all base clear, unless you invest in a breathing system. isocyanates are bad for your health I hear. I hear. I hear.

 

[Keeper]

Couple other questions for you.

Is the body fiberglass?
How straight is the body?
1. I used a "finishing putty" since things were less then 1/8 of an inch out.
2a. I used evercoat quicksand (high build primer) to help straighten things out on the body.
2b. I used the farm implement primer with hardener on the frame. I also used the farm implement paint "High gloss black" on the frame.
3. Do not shy away from basecoat clearcoat for a garage job, just be prepared for some more work. I used base/clear on mine sprayed in a garage. When I purchased the paint I let the paint man know it was being sprayed in a garage. He gave me a bit faster reducer to help with any dust. Get an appropriate mask with filters and you should be okay.

BUT, of course there is a BUT. With the faster reducer, be prepared to sand out a LOT of orange peel. I mean a LOT.

Left side is prior to wetsanding, right is after.

 

[409T]

You don't have to spray in the garage either. I do all mine on the front lawn, early in the morning when there is no wind and when there are no bugs. The open air is much better for you and the grass keeps dust down. If you do spray in the garage DO NOT wet down the floor first. I know rookies say the wet floor is a good thing to keep the dust down, but it makes the air far too humid and the water in the air can get trapped in your finish. This might not be a big problem with single stage paint, but for base coat/clear coat, you really don't want any moisture trapped in the clear or it will look like you have a permanent fine layer of dust on the finish. The only solution to that is to sand everything off and start over.

 

[EX JUNK]

If you REALLY want cheap and good get hooked up with Summit. I did a favor for a friend and prepped and painted his '27 T. He had bought the primer and paint from Summit and I was rather hesitant to use it but thought I'd give it a go. Well, it was super user friendly and the results were great!



The smile on my friend Phil's face says it all.

Jim

 

[ellis8500]

Agree with Ex-Junk. Used Summit paint and epoxy primer. Never painted a car before and still got very good results.

 

[meangreen]

Some good advice above, but let me add a couple of things (I've been painting since 1966, taught auto body repair and paint in a local high school for 10 years, and still paint for a local body shop occasionally). If you want to get your paint locally so you can have access to a paint professional, find a local dealer that sells DuPont Chromabase (Do NOT use DuPont Nason brand) or Matrix System basecoat color. Both mix one part paint to one part reactive reducer, so that makes getting proportions correct very easy, and both dry very quickly which reduces the occurrence of "runs". I haven't used Summit's paint, but it looks good in the pics above and I've seen Jim's work; if he says it's good, it's good. Compare pricing between DuPont or Matrix and Summit.

For clear I like 5-Star Extreme Clear, but I have used other brands (Ditzler, DuPont, Silver Sails, Matrix, etc.) All the Urethane clears spray similarly, but some "build" faster than others. Look for the term "high solids" on the label. Clears don't all mix at the same ratio, either, so pay attention to mixing instructions. The clear should come with a hardener/catalyst in a separate container. If the temperature where you're spraying is above 85 degrees, get Slow hardener; if the temp is below 85, but above 60, get Medium; if it's below 60 degrees, get Fast hardener. Take your time spraying the clear and allow ample "flash time" between coats or you'll find yourself sanding and buffing a bunch of runs...

Get a proper spray mask with correct filters at your local automotive paint store. DO NOT spray automotive paint with just a dust particle mask or a cheap mask from the local hardware store that sells house paint. Isocyanate hardeners contain Cyanide - that's the same stuff used in the Texas gas chamber! Prolonged exposure to Isocyanates can cause permanent nerve damage.

As for wetting the floor... If you have a small confined space (small one-car garage) with poor ventilation to paint in you may NOT want to wet the floor for the reasons 409T said above. However, if you are spraying in a large, well-ventilated area you can lightly wet the area immediately under and around the car so the air stream from your paint gun won't stir up the dust from the floor. If the area is well-ventilated and the air is kept moving, just damping the floor will not raise the ambient humidity appreciably. When I paint in my home (2-car) garage I dampen the floor under the car, open the screened windows, and set a fan under the partially opened overhead door to pull air out.

One last tip - don't paint in your home garage at night or your paint work will be a graveyard for bugs! The light attracts them and the fumes kill them... just as they're flying over your freshly sprayed surface!

 

[Keeper]

I fixed that for you.

 

[meangreen]

Thanks, Keeper.

 

[RPM]

I fixed that for you.

Can you delete the next two post, it does not make any sense now.

 

[Keeper]

Can you delete the next two post, it does not make any sense now.

Done.

 

[T-Bucket Bob]

Some good advice above, but let me add a couple of things (I've been painting since 1966, taught auto body repair and paint in a local high school for 10 years, and still paint for a local body shop occasionally). If you want to get your paint locally so you can have access to a paint professional, find a local dealer that sells DuPont Chromabase (Do NOT use DuPont Nason brand) or Matrix System basecoat color. Both mix one part paint to one part reactive reducer, so that makes getting proportions correct very easy, and both dry very quickly which reduces the occurrence of "runs". I haven't used Summit's paint, but it looks good in the pics above and I've seen Jim's work; if he says it's good, it's good. Compare pricing between DuPont or Matrix and Summit.

For clear I like 5-Star Extreme Clear, but I have used other brands (Ditzler, DuPont, Silver Sails, Matrix, etc.) All the Urethane clears spray similarly, but some "build" faster than others. Look for the term "high solids" on the label. Clears don't all mix at the same ratio, either, so pay attention to mixing instructions. The clear should come with a hardener/catalyst in a separate container. If the temperature where you're spraying is above 85 degrees, get Slow hardener; if the temp is below 85, but above 60, get Medium; if it's below 60 degrees, get Fast hardener. Take your time spraying the clear and allow ample "flash time" between coats or you'll find yourself sanding and buffing a bunch of runs...

Get a proper spray mask with correct filters at your local automotive paint store. DO NOT spray automotive paint with just a dust particle mask or a cheap mask from the local hardware store that sells house paint. Isocyanate hardeners contain Cyanide - that's the same stuff used in the Texas gas chamber! Prolonged exposure to Isocyanates can cause permanent nerve damage.

As for wetting the floor... If you have a small confined space (small one-car garage) with poor ventilation to paint in you may NOT want to wet the floor for the reasons 409T said above. However, if you are spraying in a large, well-ventilated area you can lightly wet the area immediately under and around the car so the air stream from your paint gun won't stir up the dust from the floor. If the area is well-ventilated and the air is kept moving, just damping the floor will not raise the ambient humidity appreciably. When I paint in my home (2-car) garage I dampen the floor under the car, open the screened windows, and set a fan under the partially opened overhead door to pull air out.

One last tip - don't paint in your home garage at night or your paint work will be a graveyard for bugs! The light attracts them and the fumes kill them... just as they're flying over your freshly sprayed surface!

What do you think of duplicolor and Sherman Williams Paint?

 

[Joe-405]

I hate mixing paint so I am using the pre mixed ready to spray dupli color paint shop paint. I have used the primer and my dad has used some of the paint. We have not had any issues yet. I am painting my stuff in my garage. And I can vouch the primer dries fast which is kinda nice.

 

[T-Bucket Bob]

If you REALLY want cheap and good get hooked up with Summit. I did a favor for a friend and prepped and painted his '27 T. He had bought the primer and paint from Summit and I was rather hesitant to use it but thought I'd give it a go. Well, it was super user friendly and the results were great!



The smile on my friend Phil's face says it all.

Jim

Jim, does Summit mix colors and can you shoot this primer and paint in the garage?

 

[T-Bucket Bob]

I hate mixing paint so I am using the pre mixed ready to spray dupli color paint shop paint. I have used the primer and my dad has used some of the paint. We have not had any issues yet. I am painting my stuff in my garage. And I can vouch the primer dries fast which is kinda nice.

 

[T-Bucket Bob]

I hate mixing paint so I am using the pre mixed ready to spray dupli color paint shop paint. I have used the primer and my dad has used some of the paint. We have not had any issues yet. I am painting my stuff in my garage. And I can vouch the primer dries fast which is kinda nice.

How does the finish look and did you guys clear it?

 

[EX JUNK]

Jim, does Summit mix colors and can you shoot this primer and paint in the garage?

Their colors are super easy to mix , even for a novice. As for shooting in the garage, I so no problem except I would highly suggest that you ventilate it well and cover anything that you don't want painted as the overspray will mess them up. Clear was not necessary but since the color that I was using was a metallic I chose to clear it to ease the rub out process.

Jim

 

[iroct]

Mean green why don't you like Nason Thanks, Dwight

 

[meangreen]

What do you think of duplicolor and Sherman Williams Paint?

I haven't used Sherwin Williams in years, so I can't give them an honest evaluation. The last time I used their stuff was over 30 years ago and it was lacquer. When I moved from Indiana to Florida (1980) I moved to an area where there is no Sherwin Williams dealer. Also, the local Ditzler / R&M dealer moved out of this town about 15 years ago, so I haven't used their stuff recently either. I did use Ditzler products extensively when they had a local dealer and I liked it. They have high-quality stuff, but refinishing technology has advanced significantly since then, so I can't speak knowledgably about mixing and spraying Ditzler products.

The only Dupli-Color stuff I have ever seen /used is their touch-up spray cans at the local auto parts stores. I know they have been around for years and I heard or read something about them coming out with a new low-VOC lacquer, but I have not seen it locally, yet. If it's lacquer, that opens a whole different can of worms. I like lacquer; it's what I learned to paint with originally and there are still a couple of my old custom lacquer jobs running around after nearly 40 years. The good news about lacquer is it air-dries and requires no catalyst hardener, so you can put your leftover stuff back in the original can and keep it indefinitely. One piece of advice I'll give you here: DO NOT mix lacquer and urethane products on the same paint job (example: urethane clear over lacquer basecoat); that is heartbreak waiting to happen.

I have never liked pre-thinned "ready to spray" paint products. I have not tried Dupli-Color's new stuff and it may be OK. If it works for you, that's great; use it. My experience with pre-thinned stuff is it's usually thinned too much, sprays and runs like water, and doesn't cover worth a hoot. You usually end up using more product in the long run because of its lack of good coverage. Also, not all painters have the exact same tecnique and increasing or decreasing the amout of thinner/reducer in your paint is a trick that painters use to adjust paint viscosity to their individual tecnique.

Bottom line - don't be afraid to try painting. What's the worst that can happen? IF you screw anything up, it will probably be minor. You'll have to sand the mistakes off and do them over - that's the bad news. Learn from your mistakes and move on. The good news is - you can paint a vehicle 3 or 4 times yourself for what it would cost to have it done in a professional shop. When it's done and people ask, you can say "I DID IT MYSELF!"

 

[meangreen]

Mean green why don't you like Nason Thanks, Dwight

Hi, Dwight,
I'm talking about Nason's urethane basecoat here, not their Acrylic Enamel. I've not used their enamel products, so I don't know about them.

Nason's basecoat is OK (not good, just OK) for an experienced painter if you are using a solid non-metallic color like black, red, blue, dark green, etc. Their metallics, however, are so transparent that they require a matching sealer and multiple coats to achieve hiding and then there may still be "shadows" in the paint in bright light. For a beginning painter, the added aggravation and expense of dealing with tinted sealers and applying multiple coats of basecoat to achieve hiding just adds to the risk of failure. The old addage "you get what you pay for" often holds true in painting and a beginner needs good stuff to simplify the process. Nason is cheap because it's inferior; it's just that simple. Nason and Chromabase are both DuPont products, but the formulas are different. The Nason basecoat has much less pigment (the expensive part of paint) and more clear carrier (the cheap part). In the long run, the savings end up being negligible because the painter will use a lot more product with Nason as compared to Chromabase or Matrix.

For color-matching on a repair job (which is what I usually do at the local body shop), Nason's basecoat rarely matches and must be tinted and blended. It's a pain in the a$$ and time consuming. The Chromabase and Matrix are usually right on or very, very close which saves time and money.