and I want to make sure that I do this thing right the first time as I dont want to re do it again. Right now I am in the process of sanding it down and getting it ready for primer. I have always been a motor guy and never really cared about how things looked, and now I have a custom which is all about how things look. I have been reading up on things and just keep getting more and more confused. When I sand this down can i put the valspar self etching primer on sanded down paint and on the evercoat bondo, or does it have to go on bare steel? If there is kind of a guide to getting me through this that would be awesome! I feel like such a newb asking this but i jsut want the car to come out right.
Do one panel at a time..and take your time, use good products, And I usally primer first then mud over that and then re-prime and guide coat and block, over and over and over... I may be wrong but ...hey its worked for me this far,good luck.
When I decided to try painting, I bought "How to paint your car" by either Paterson or HP Books (can't remember wich publisher) BUT it was the best $20 I ever spent. The book covers everything from start to finish and made my first paint job go a ton better.
Self etch primer is made to go on bare steel. If you strip everything bare, spray the whole car with self etch. If you just have bare spots, only go over those areas. You need to be careful about putting primer over old paint, sometimes the primer will cause the old paint to lift. If the old paint is decent and you only have to spot in bodywork here and there before paint, then I would do that, but if the whole car is going to get worked over, I would strip the whole thing down to bare steel, self-etch the whole car, then do your filler work until it's as straight as you can make it, fill-primer the whole car, then guide coat it and block it out, if it needs a second repeat of fill primer, do that (doesn't always come out perfect the first time), once you have the fill primer blocked out satisfactorily, seal the whole car in epoxy primer, then wetsand that smooth with some 600 grit wet paper once it's dry, then paint. Like I said, that's not necessary if you're just fixing a few areas or changing colors, but to "do it right" you should strip everything. Who knows what kind of shoddy workmanship is under the old paint, unless you were the one who painted it originally. You would hate to have a beautiful new paint job bubble up because a hole was mudded shut instead of welded up by the previous builder.
thanks man, this is exactly what i was looking for, i went and did some bondo directly on the metal, so I am gonna sand that off and hit it with the self etch first then re -do the bondo work. there are spots where the chop was originally done were i am noticing problems and i know where the bad is underneath, so i am going to take care of those problem areas as best as I can. Will it affect the overall finish if i go to bare metal on one part of the quarter but not the whole thing? Any good tips for block sanding, I have 100 grit that I am atarting out with? Thanks guys for the answers! The car was already chopped and i dont want to affect the work that was already done there if i can avoid it
i only have old pics of the car, and the reason i am doing all this work is I need to address some problem areas on the car, there are some rust spots popping up on the rain gutter, there was a ton of holes that were drilled into the firewall and inner fender wells, the left rear quarter was bumped by a friend one night when leaving a party, and tweaked where the taillight housing is, and i have an idea for something involving the rear wheel openings. The car in question..... westcoater thanks for the compliments, I have a lot of ideas and things to do to it to make it better, and i hope it comes out close to what i have envisioned in my head.... here is a photoshop with an idea of what i want it to look like after paint, just think a flake white kind of like "may cause dangerous", and fire mist orange flake for the rest. Open to ideas and criticism guys
Self etch only on bare metal, it's not compatible over or under filler. If you must, use epoxy under the filler. Personally I fill over bare metal. Then self etch around the filler areas, then epoxy. You NEED to read the P- sheets. Only a few self etch primers are compatible with epoxy.
There's kind of 2 roads to travel here. One involves self etching first, followed by either a compatible epoxy or a urethane primer. Then filler, blocking, high build, etc. I wouldn't dare putting filler under or directly over self etching primer. I would do my best to keep a layer between the two. The other road, the path which I chose to take seems far simpler IMO. Epoxy primer first (a good epoxy made to go over bare metal with good corrosion resistance) then filler, then more of the same epoxy, then blocking, more epoxy, etc. A lot less things to watch out for going this route IMO.
If you own the '54(nice ride!) in the picture don't forget to sign up on our new 1952-54 Ford Social Group in Community
Now I think I learned something. I know you can't put self etch on top of filler or old paint, but I wasn't aware of problems putting filler over etch primer. I always put my filler on bare steel, but I didn't know that I shouldn't do it on etch. Me giving bad advice here, that's no good. I guess if you're stuck on using self etch primer on the car, you'd have to strip it bare, etch the whole thing, but then grind or sand the primer off where you want to do your mud work. Wouldn't make much sense to mask off the mud work areas, but I suppose you could do that too. If self-etch primer has all these bad reactions with filler, what's the point of using it? I'd probably skip it all together and just use fill primer and epoxy. I've never had any reaction problems with either of those. Interesting stuff, I'd like to hear more about this. Neat car too, I actually have a chopped '53 Ford 2 door sedan that's going to need to be worked over pretty soon. I did it in high school, the paint is getting old and wasn't that great to begin with.
Squablow, that just me. I know that filler can have reactions with self-etch depending on how soon you apply the filler on top of the etch. I'd rather not chance it. I'm sure there's going to be 10 posts to follow of how I did it once and it worked, yada yada, but I would keep a layer between the two or let it flash off for a while. I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Dont use etch primer! Use epoxy primer over bare metal then do your filler work then more epoxy primer. Etch primer is old technology. You can do filler work over bare metal then epoxy primer. I use House of Kolor kp2cf e poxy primer as it sands easy and has a high build.
Hey, I wouldn't be so quick to turn up my nose at etch primer over epoxy, as a rust preventive measure! Epoxy primer, until recently, contained lead, chrome and zinc. Thanks to the treehugging cocksucker/nanny -state, those elements are no longer contained in paint products. No one can tell what the future will bring, as far as protection goes, from today's paint products. Want to know when your paint rep. is lying to you? Watch for his lips to start to move! I'm not a paint chemist, and I don't play one on T.V., but last I checked, titanium dixoide and urethane resins arn't very effective at holding back rust for long. Using etch primer beneth repairs can create problems, even when overcoated with epoxy, if you sand through them when blocking your filler. Always check your product lable for compatability with other products. Multi layers of dissimilar materials, beneth a paint job, is a sure invitation to paint troubles. Swankey Devils C.C. "Spending A Nation Into Generational Debt Is Not An Act Of Compassion!"
Some people are using Slicksand instead of etch primer. It is a sprayable polyester filler. It will adhere to bare metal. We used it on a 65 Lincoln e few years ago with no problems. We done the bodywork, sprayed the whole car with it, sanded it, sprayed with high build urethane primer, sanded it, then paint.
When I took collision repair, the only time we used etch primer was when we had a straight, bare metal panel, with no need for filler work. Guess how often THAT happened. I don't see a need to have a rust inhibitor in my primer, IMO, if I haven't gotten the panel clean enough to not worry about rust coming back, then I shouldn't be painting over it. I'd rather just use some kind of acid wash on the metal, then go straight to filler/epoxy. I've always used my filler over bare metal as well, but there's nothing wrong with putting it over epoxy primer. Epoxy is a good first stuff since it gets the metal covered, but you DO need to rough it up in area you'll be putting the filler over... something like 40 to 80 grit. There needs to be some mechanical adhesion, or I wouldn't trust it as much. After your mud work, then you can go to a heavier, sandable primer, or even something like the Slicksand that was mentioned, which is basically polyester filler (like spot putty, which is a little bit different than bondo and can be safely put over primer) that has been thinned down just enough to be sprayed. There's a few different brands out there; in school we used one alot called Reface, I think. It sands out great and makes a great base for your sandable primer. You need a big honkin' fluid tip on your gun to spray it though. Your concept art of the finished car looks killer... great choice of colors. Is there some orange pearl or something over the white that I'm seeing?
yes there will be a little bit of orange pearl in it. the concept art was mainly to see how things would flow together. there was a post on the photoshop thread that showed a couple of different variations of the same car. There will be a change of wheels too, as one of my hubcaps got damaged when it flew off the car on the 405 freeway going to the last ink and iron show and finding another one or these has been difficult. I also need to get at least one more flush fit fenderskirt to continue on with this project. Thanks guys for the tips and the compliments, stuff is finally starting to make sense, and i always like the compliments.
Hey Thar ! Thanks for all the prime/paint info! Have'nt built anything, in 25 yrs! Everthing NEW! Havin' to Learn all over!!! UR Posts surley helped, Thanks. "Happy Motoring Starts at The ESSO Sign" John
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