I am working on my '31 Ford Tudor. It is a complete but fairly rough car so I am going to make some kind of a vintage hot rod out of it. While making decisions about the body of the car I wanted to keep some patina but in stripping the nasty red metallic paint from the 80s, I could not save the cool old paint underneath. This lead me to look at keeping the car in bare metal or painting it. I don't know how to paint and don't have the equipment necessary to do that myself. So... I started researching bare metal finishes and saw some cool metal patina finishes. I am practicing on a fender to perfect my technique. This is the first go. Science is cool... Starting with a little Fe with some C thrown in, we have shiny bare metal: Next we add a little H2O2 and NaCL and we get a pretty good layer of Fe2O3: Of course we know that isn't stable so we want to convert that to some Fe3O4. How does that happen? I doused it in boiling water for a spell and got: Now to rub all the loose stuff off and treat it with a little boiled linseed and mineral spirits: Don't mind the rain messing things up. This is just to test the process and I wasn't patient enough to wait for dry weather. I will be testing this finish in the elements and looking at other top coat options as well as perfecting the application. Thoughts?
A brush and roller don't cost much, they're easy to use and you'll end up with a finish that's way more traditional than what you're trying now, unless you are going for that rat rod shit box look
Not sure what you mean by that question. It is running and driving, but the old Banger is tired. The car is complete but it all needs to be gone through. The new engine is on the bench being built, I still need a transmission and the chassis needs rebuilt before it is streetable. All of that is being worked on. The body needs love too. It's all part of the ongoing process. Rat rod isn't really what I am going for. I think there is another category. Vintage driver? Not a show car . Not strictly traditional by 50s or 60s standards, but not rusty pile of random parts. Maybe something that could have been built in '53 and left in a barn for 40-50 years and resurrected. I often lay awake at night wondering if The HAMB will run out of opinions. Ha Ha. I know this isn't for everyone but its been fun to try and figure out how to make it happen and I am pretty happy with the results. Wondering if others have done similar and how it worked out long term.
Or a bit of paint poking out of the rust… I want a bit of satin to it. Not glossy but not bare rust either. So oil finish or a satin clear.
My phone is a bit tough to discern on. But I get what you’re after. I’m trying to see/understand how to get there from your fender pic, it looked like bare sheet metal to me. I’ll have to look back, I may have missed something.
So, we have come to accept that certain building practices that "could" have been utilized before 1966 were not done often enough to be considered "traditional" (4-bar suspension, disc brakes, etc). But, now we have this thread...... I would wager that, in the '40s, '50s, '60s, the number of guys that decided to "CREATE RUST" could be counted on the fingers of a one-armed man.
Harbor Freight $15 purple spray gun, and satin black paint or Rustoleum. Even if you fuck it up and run it, it will look better than what you are planning.
I am getting the feeling that you cats are partial to paint... The old paint is mostly gone now, so too late for the red and black. And, I don't like red on cars. VW Dark or Medium blue would look nice... I'll keep experimenting.
I'm not opposed to patina, rust, primer, flat paint, or shiny paint. But just like 99% of everybody on here, I think "fauxtina" is a bad look. If ol' Mother Nature created it, fine with me. If you have to try to purposely rust your car to emulate that, no thanks. My last project ('63 BelAir Wagon) looked like it had a repaint sometime in the '70s. It was faded, chalky, and had small rust spots showing. I liked it. My current project ('47 Buick) has factory paint with custom work by Mom Nature. Being from OK, it has been sun baked. I like it enough to not plan on painting it. It's a fine line, but seems to be the majority around here. Only Rat Rods have patina "added" to them.
I think fake patina is one of the lamest things there is besides calling frigging rust and rot patina. On the other hand if I were to actually do fake patina the rig would go down to no damned rust, get primered with decent primer, then get Tractor supply or similar paint pretty well the same color as the primer and lay that on and scuff it and go over that with the same brand of paint in what might be an "original" color of choice. let that set up good and hard and then start "color sanding" areas where a tarp would rub if the rig was under a tarp and where natural wear such as the drivers door just under the window where your arm rides and over sand it until the different color starts to show through in spots. This Merc was a much loved car that belonged to one of my customers around 1990 who was scared to death to drive it because the gas gauge didn't work and kept it under a tarp in his yard. he couldn't grasp the concept of figure out how far you could go on a tank and fill it when you had driven half of that. Anyhow this is one of the best examples outside of what we saw in another thread of actual patina as far as a car goes. Well cared for and loved but you can see where the paint was worn though by the tarp and I have seen cars that were polished so often that the paint was worn though. A friend of mine painted the same car the same colors three times over a 35 year period because the owner's favorite pastime was polishing that car every week even though every six months would have been plenty.
Approximately 95% of fake patina looks fake…the other 5% look convincing and IMHO look fantastic, and seem like a good way to get a hot rod on the road without spending lots of money on a proper paint job!
Fake patina, fake Olds valve covers on a SBC, fake lake pipes, dummy spots, fake tits, all suck,......... except maybe the fake tits. All great products for the gold chainers. I just don't get it, why not buy or build the real thing? If you want old paint, buy a car with real old paint, If you want an Olds Rocket engine then buy a car with one in it, or build a car with one. Don't put Olds valve covers on your SBC. It's lame. Now that I have vented I feel much better. Time for a cocktail. Now back to the original thread.
I had this same problem. I wanted to leave the real patina but needed to repair the rot. I ended up compromising by brushing black chassis saver on the repair area and then spray can dusting a sparse coating of iron oxide primer on. It offers some protection and doesn't jump out at you from a distance.
I vote for the cheap primmer. Repair your dents and rust holes, then brush on some cheap primmer, just enough to make it all one color. Park it outside in the weather, and in as couple years, you will probably have the look you are after. The best part is, it will deteriorate slowly over time and will be natural. If you want the two color look, put the base coat primmer on with better material, then cover it with the 2nd color of the cheap stuff. That oil base red oxide primmer lasts a long time, protects the metal, and starts to look like rust under a different color of cheap primmer in 3 or 4 years. Some times you learn things by accident.
I'm not going to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do with their vehicle. but I do know what I wouldn't spend more than a glance at a car show.
The Jalopy Journal
