The roller paint job was started by a Mopar guy in Canada. He had his 69 Charger all ready to go except for paint. His choice was, leave it in the garage for a year till he saved up $5000 for a paint job. Or figure out a way to do it himself. He painted the car with cheap Tremclad (like Rustoleum) orange paint. 2 thin coats, sand with 600, 2 thin coats, sand with 800, 2 thin coats, sand with 1000, rub out and wax. The whole deal took about a week of working an hour or 2 a day. It looked pretty good, no one would guess it was hand painted. The idea got around the internet, others took it up. The Australians were the first to use yacht enamel which is made for brush or roller application and shines real nice, and is weatherproof ans salt water proof. Hot Rod tried it a few years ago and found it worked. They figured their Falcon came out better than a cheapy MAACO paint job but not as good as a real expensive body shop would do. The method has 2 advantages, one is it is cheap because you do not require expensive equipment or expensive paint. The other is you can do it anywhere, the neighbors will call the cops if you start spray painting cars in your garage but a brush or roller, who cares. Neither of these reasons apply if you have a fully equipped paint shop and body shop, or lots of money. A web search will turn up all the information you need.
No sense getting all worked up about how a person applies paint.I will be using Tremclad gloss white and spraying it . I kind of like the flippin the bird attitude that you can have when it`s done. I want to park and not worry if I get a chip . Paint snobs beware!
I use to work at Amercian Airlines in Tulsa Oka. the Red, White & Blue were all done with rollers. Top and bottom of wings and vertical all done with rollers; But the key is that the paint was made to do this. we added Roller additve to the paint which made it flow out. the nap rollers that we used dind show much roller marks after it dried. The other big thing though was that it was all flat surfaces. A car would be hard to not get runs in. I wouldnt do it or less there all flat surfaces and you can put a retarder in the paint to slow down dry time so that the paint will flow out.
The Flit gun paint job was real. An old time customizer said he started doing it when he was a kid and could not afford a compressor and spray gun. He used a big hand pump bug spray gun like farmers use in the barn, to paint a whole car. Later when he had a bodyshop with proper equipment, he still kept the bug sprayer around for doing small jobs like blow ins, and door jams.
If what you are really after is a decent looking paint job do whatver it takes to spray the paint on correctly. If your goal is a ratty looking POS take the roller approach. Ron
Here's my top 10 reasons to NOT do this: 10. A roller can't get around panel edges like spraying, your door jambs will look terrible. 9. A roller is very likely to give you issues with uniformity of paint layer thickness 8. Cheap paint fades out, cracks, bleeds, shrinks, stains, and looks like general crap 7. A sprayed job simply looks better with less work 6. Spray guns are cheap, temp paint booths are easy to build, Google is your friend 5. A roller makes it hard to get into nooks and crannies of body lines, small parts, inside corner edges, etc 4. Sanding between coats and buffing a car takes a lot of time to make look good 3. Henry Ford was sharp, but realized that rollers and brushes had to go 2. Your friends will tease you. The horror. ANd the number one reason to not use a roller and cheap paint is..... 1. Someday you'll want a real paint job, but you'll have to strip your car to get rid of that crap! But in all seriousness, I can see why people would want to try it, but my point is these old cars are worth the extra time and money to spray them with decent quality paint. It's not like we're talking about garden furniture here....
I'm doing a roller / brush paint job on my old truck that I intend to use a a daily driver. I'm rolling two coats of Rustoleum Rusty Primer, the first coat of satin Hunter Green and then brushing the second coat of green. I am cutting in the door jambs and such with a brush and using PENATROL so everything is laying out nice.So far it is turning out just as I have planned it. Using a roller and brush means that I dont have to deal with overspray all over, clean-up and the neighbors complaining about the clouds of paint coming from my garage and sticking to THEIR stuff. I know that most on here will say that this is wrong but I intend to use the truck for fishing trips, beating around and whatnot so I'm not to concerned about shiny paint, just the need for easy maintenance and touch up. I'm sure I will catch HELL for this but it really doesn't matter to me , it's my truck, I'm driving it and I'm the one working on it. My buddy is a painter and what I'm doing is driving him nuts. I've got a nice shiny black paint job on my 36 sedan and that is good enough for me. Mitch.
I suppose if you never intend on selling it you the end result makes you happy go ahead and roller up.
I only introduce this method to you all because I saw an old episode of monster garage and Pete Finland rolled paint on to the milk bomb truck which was an old 56 apache truck. It came out really nice. Any thoughts? Colin
I'd be keen to see how it goes. Seeing this thread reminded me of my uncle , about 30+ years ago. He was restoring a 1937 Austin 7 Ruby. At this point he was getting ready and then painting the chassis and running gear. Takes me out to his single garage, windows boarded over, sliding door sealed shut and about 5 form's of electric heaters all glowing away, , , place felt like an oven , well maybe not , but was a whole bunch warmer in there than outside . Primered and sanded chassis was warm to touch. On the workbench was an old , small (bout the size of an average microwave of these days) oven, and inside that (with the oven door slightly open) was a tin of Gloss Black Enamel which he'd not long put in there. I didn't hang round to watch him apply the paint (he was kinda the guy who liked to work alone , un-disterbed) but went back a day or two later. The shine of the Black was awesome , and so smooth , not one brush stroke anywhere , , , infact , I remember my grandfather telling me "no chassis in those day's (1930's etc) never looked as smooth and high glossed like that , and he (uncle) was going over the top with his perfection-est attitude. Car never got finished. But the paint on the rolling , running frame , wheels , driveline etc was outstanding. Keep this thread alive , and show us "believer's" how you get on . Shrapnel
A school chum painted his early 60's Plymouth with a roller. Looked good at 1,000 feet Ya know, you can paint a car with a roller or jerk off with a wire brush, but neither one will leave you with a good feeling
Pages 17 and 18 of this thread . Amazing results too . http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=464441&page=18 Enjoy . Shrapnel
i've done 5 trucks and they turn out ok but don't think you can do it in a day or two, 2 weeks to do the one i'll show,lots of sanding and more sanding,no overspray and lots of bugs,first is what i started with and second one finished results
Watched my uncle do this years ago, he put a nylon stocking over the roller to keep the fuzz from the roller out of the paint job. Looked ok for what it was.
I side with the "go for it crowd". I worked my way through college as a house painter and became quire good with a roller. The only caveat is to be sure to use a high quality automotive paint that you can later sand and apply a top coat with a sprayer after you win the lottery. Charlie Stephens
http://youtu.be/_qPJTTRWttQ Here ya go all you need to know about painting with a roller is in this video. Ive done exactly what this guy has done on a truck and it looks as good if not better than the fatory red. Lot of work but no one will beleive you painted it with a roller if done correctly. Good luck
Im gettin ready to paint some panels on my ford with a roller, ill take pics and show ya it can look good.
I've got a better idea, you should just apply it with your hands, no roller, no brush, just your grease covered hands! Brushes, compressors, spray guns and rollers? Those are for pussies!
Like the other guys said - One, It takes a real long time for straight enamel to dry enough to wet sand. Like anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks depending on temp / humidity. Two, better pick a color you can live with. Urethane or epoxy primers will lift uncatalyzed enamel paint. If you change your mind and want a real paint job later you'll be stripping the enamel back off. Three, enamel water spots like no other. I had a red Chevy pickup that had been sprayed with, I think, Duplicolor. Every time it rained I was trying to buff / wax out about a million water spots. It was almost back down to the primer in no time. Don't rule it out as a cheap way to get some paint on your ride, but don't go into it with your eyes closed, either.
if you have somewhere you can spray it ..then just spray it , so much faster but yeah if you live somewhere thats not possible then the roller jobs can come out good , its alot of repeated sanding to make it respectable
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