Hey all. A bit OT but I need help. I have just frenched the headlights on my 54 Dodge, and filled the holes in the hood. Looking good at the mo. I went to put some acrylic primer on today and it blistered and bubbled. It looks like the solvent in the primer is reacting with the existing top coat. This suggests that the paint on the car is enamel, right??? What's my best course of action here, isolator and acrylic primer or just enamel primer and stick with enamels all the way through? Bear in mind I'm a self taught spray painter but I've never had this problem before. I know that the best thing is to strip all of the paint off but that aint gonna happen. Over to you guys.
If I read ya right, the finish under the filler is what started moving, right? If that's the case then you're pretty close to knowing what the problem is. Most times when filler is applied over existing paint finishes then, yes, the filler softens that finish to a point where the new mat'l will try to lift it. I'm thinkin ya got a nice ugly ring around your new body work, right? So how to fix it: You need to remove the filler from the painted area, re-apply over new metal, sand and feather all of the edges nice and smooth, re-apply your primer but don't get it too wet. Once the primer is on give it lots of dry time. If the existing finish is something that's reactive to the new mat'l you'll need to get some compatible top coat. I hope some of this makes sense.
Old paint finishes create most of the refinishing problems . If you dont know what was done , what materials were used, what conditions they were applied under. REMOVE THE FINISH ! This problem will haunt you for years to come . If the sublayers are unstable the top coats , no matter what materials are used or how they are applied, will fail in the short term. Been painting for close to 40 years. Go to the website of the paint manufacturor . Most have a technical troubleshooting guide on line. Best of Luck Larry
Thanks for the info guys. It was actually the finish once the primer came into contact with it. As I suspected, the existing paint job was done in enamel. I was applying an acrylic primer over it, thats when it started to react. It didnt react with the filler, thats OK. Tomorrow I will get some enamel primer and cover it. In the short term this will be OK. Unfortunately, stripping all the paint off isnt an option at the moment as this is my daily driver and I need it to cruise to work on monday. Ultimately, I will strip the paint off and redo it all. I'm not so confident with the isolator option. How do I apply it? i.e. can it go straight over bare metal, filler, etc? The car will be due for a suede panit job by summer, along with some off-white scallops or pinstriping or something.
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