I painted a 1920 dodge for a friend. He uses his cars for movie props, and just needed it to be presentable.My friend suggested I use vansicle, tractor paint. I bought a gallon with reducer and hardener for $70. It turned out amazing, no orange peel and super shinny. Not bad for a days work and less than 100$.
I’m sure you’re a better”shooter” than I am! Henry’s motto was black and quick. You’re way ahead of his game for sure. Looks great
I un-masked it, ready to go. On a side note, this car was found in a barn, with original interior, without a rip in it. With a little work it runs like new, and this is only its second paint job in its 100 years of service.
Clicking on the find your store at the bottom of the page that is Coastal Farm and Ranch here locally. https://vansicklepaint.com/products/tractor-equipment-industrial-enamel?page=0 I've been looking at using tractor/farm equipment paint on my boat tail roadster project for price and the colors That fit in with what you would expect to see on an early 30's 2 seat race car.
Jim, That's really surprising and the results are great. Great for a daily driver and a movie prop. Will be interesting to see how the paint looks after a year or more. My last paint job was my 3W back in '99, and it was 3 weeks of spraying and sanding. I've got an old GMC that needs a repaint and I'll try the tractor paint on it. Your friend should be very happy .
That’s good quality paint,,,reasonably priced. When I first read the title,,,,I thought it was going to be a bitch thread,,,,lol . Great job on the application ! It’s amazing how much markup is in the paint business ! Black is not an extremely cheap pigment ,,,,so you got a good deal there . As long as people buy expensive paint,,,that’s what the price will be . Tommy
I don't mind it. I use to get it at tractor supply but a few years ago they changed to a different brand so I get it at Theisen's farm and home store now.
Yes, the first pic is an old brushed on paint job. This is after I sanded the car in 220 grit to get rid of the brush marks. The yellow is filer, where I fixed the 15 biggest dents and cracks I could find. I then spot primered the car and sanded it in 320 again, before laying down 2 coats of tractor paint.
I've heard from others that used the VanSickle paint that it's surprisingly decent for as cheap as it is, and that it holds up a lot better if you put a lot of hardener in it. What is this car?
I love it .... I also went to tractor supply and bought my paint. I figure the haters will join in soon ..... they thought it looked good, to bad you have to remove it all to apply good paint ..... Horse pucky I say. I did pay up and go to napa and get a universal hardener, I also used tractor supply reducer to go with the paint .... paint, $65. reducer & hardener was less then $100. The primer was another $60 but I needed it. I started to paint it gloss black, I put the brakes on that really quick .... My body just has way to many character marks in it ..... I went out and bought the low gloss paint ... I spent another $100 but am much more happy with it .... My care about body work just lacks. I painted this last October so several months old ... It is no garage queen .... never been washed. Heaven forbid I actually wash it and wax it ...... Never going to happen. Just saying our $100 paint job today is better then the paint it was born with ..... I want to drive the wheels off it .... no way I want to spend thousands $$ and be afraid to drive it to the hardware store for lumber
I used "agricultural" enamel paint on my chassis and suspension. With the catalyst added, it took about a week to harden up, but I then found out from others that was normal. It hardened to a very tough, satin finish. Very durable, and I would be using this stuff again. What do they put into enamel to make it "agricultural".? 'Taters?
All it is is an Alkalid Industrial Enamel and if you use automotive reducers and hardner it does great. I’ve used it on patio furniture with no issues and it’s been over 10 years. It’s not as glossy as it was but hasn’t faded and that was the old Valspar TSC paint with automotive reducers and hardner. Just painted my chassis and front end parts with it on the ‘51 and they look great.
Okay how’s this for a cheap paint job with more color options than you can shake a stick at. Now the jury is still out on this one but it looks great and I’ll have to see how it holds up but this might be an option for a daily or beater. I went to Home Depot and got their exterior oil base enamel (semi gloss) mixed to match what my wife wanted for our other patio furniture and I used Nason Ful-Base 441-21 reducer with an old can of NAPA crossfire standard hardener CH254 that’s at least 15 years old. I shot the TSC enamel primer after scuffing the rust and loose paint off and after 24 hours I sprayed the color @7:30 this morning and we are going to be eating off of it tonight around 7:30 tonight and it’s completely dry. Only time will tell if it’s worth a shot but it was way cheaper than single stage paint a gallon. And it came out super wet looking with the hardener I used. But yeah if you want cheap with more options this might do the trick……
The best part about cheap paint is storing outside. It gets that popular patina look I dig Car looks great. ya did swell
Van Sickle is great paint, I’ve painted many tractors with it and they look great. I just finished our “new” car trailer with it in Ford blue and it turned out fine.
I still use crayolas but sometimes I go outside of the lines. I like how your job turned out. I know people who roll on tractor paint with great results.
Well they are the roughest set of fenders I have ever come across .... They are simply sitting on the back burner till I get to them ..... I will fix what I have and make it presentable ..... Not buy the new fiberglass replacements available.
This again? OK, I'll play. Oil base red oxide primer. about 3 years old, the spots on the fender are bare metal, the blue around the edges was when the truck first got built, a future color choice around the glass and the edges. The same truck in its first blue oil base paint. That same oil based blue paint, now about 5 years old. The truck was a daily driver, sat outside and was also a snow plow. see the coupe in the background? after it sold, this truck got a makeover. New glass, some more body work, new tires and new oil base paint (from the same can as the first blue paint job!) Here it is with the new paint and the new tires. About a year later the truck was totaled. The white Dakota in the back ground was the donor truck for my 48 Plymouth coupe that got built from the proceeds of this trucks total. This one proceeded the truck above. That white and gray were both oil base paint. The car has a for sale sign in the window, so that white and gray paint was about 5 years old and was getting pretty rough around the edges. The car sold the next summer in black primer with red/orange, and yellow flames (I don't have a picture if it then). Oil base paint, custom mixed. The paint here is pretty new (see the red primer earlier truck in the back ground?) This paint went about 4 years before it started getting paint chips on the front facing surfaces (just like all the others). It may have faded a bit, but not bad. But hitting bugs at 70 mph does chip the oil base paint, even with the hardener, and other scratches appear as well. That stuff starts showing up after about 4 years and gets worse every year afterwards. This truck got driven 44,000 miles before it sold. My 48 Plymouth coupe. This blue was the last that was left from the gallon that painted the blue truck twice (at this point that gallon was around 10 years old!) This was brushed on and in this picture the blue paint was on the car for about 4 years. even in this picture you can see the paint failing (though it may have been because of the age of the blue paint). Can't blame this one on bug chips, but the car did sit outside and it was driven probably around 60,000 miles at this point. A close up of the old, but failing oil base blue paint. The car got redone because that rear window started leaking water. it wasn't the old rubber seal, the sheet metal holding the rubber gasket had rust holes in it. When the car was repainted, I used automotive paint. I was tired of repainting everything every 4-5 years, even if the paint was cheap. Last one. This is my current truck right after it was built. Remember that red primer old truck that started this mess? This truck has the paint from that same can of oil based red oxide primer that 1st truck was painted from. This gallon was probably 20 years old! I was surprised it was still actually liquid! This was also brushed on. I ran out of that old primer before I got the inside of the bed fully covered and had to buy a quart of the modern version of the same stuff to finish. The new stuff doesn't compare to the old stuff. The truck had body work done on it the next spring, so it only wore this old primer over the winter. A lot of the red primer was removed in the body work process, but a lot still remained. What remained was DA sanded smooth, and fresh primer and sealer covered it. OK, this is the last one! This was the last ride I did with the oil base paint (outside of the over the winter primer of my current truck). I sold it in 2021 with year old oil base paint (a tractor color). I saw the truck last fall and as far as I know it still sports the same paint. The wheels and some other stuff has been done, the truck still looks good going the other direction on the highway.
Back in the '60s we used to get AirForce blue paint for 2 bucks a gallon at the neighborhood surplus store. Brush job looked pretty decent on the old wrinkled '46 Buick. Lasted pretty good, too.
The car looks great and I am all for cheap and presentable when it comes to paint but (and now for some useless info) apparently shiny paint and movies don't always go well together. Father in-law has a restored stock Model A that was used in the production of the movie Cinderella Man and he told me they sprinkled Hot Chocolate powder on shiny cars to dull the paint. I am guessing here but too shiny may have been a glare risk for the camera's or possibly they wanted the cars to appear well used, not right off the showroom floor I say "used in the production of" because we couldn't find it in the film, I guess he literally ended up on the cutting room floor
They wanted this one shiney, it is a 1920, the movie takes place in 1923, so it is supposed to be a newer car.
Nice work Jim! Automotive paint material costs are insane! Always wondered if I could do better south of the border like some do with booze, tobacco and Rx...
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