Rubbing down before applying laquer?

[volvos60s60]

Hi

I am repairing a door scrape using Halfords pealescent black paint. Having applied the black base coat, should I use 1200 grade wet & dry before applying the lacquer as it says on the can? I have done this & it is totally matt (not surprisingly) & I am considering using T cut to get a shine on the base paint before applying the clear lacquer. Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

[PJ S]

Never rub paint down on touch-ups with clearcoat provided/used.
Fill in with syringe needle or cocktail stick, dry with hairdryer on low speed low/med heat, leave to cool down to ambient temp again, then apply clear.
T-cut is probably too abrasive, something like AG Super Resin Polish or Meg's Scratch X should be used, once you've sanded down the proudness with 3 or 4K grit.

[mybrainhurts]

But, if you ARE spraying something like a mirror housing, yes, rub it down to matt them lacquer it.

You'll be amazed, it works...

[Anatol]

Not with an effect finish. The paper will pull the metallics/pearls out of the binder, leaving a muddy, dark finish that will look wrong when the clear is applied. The more metallic or pearl there is in the paint, the worse the effect will be.

DO NOT put T-cut, or any other wax/polish/compound on paint before you lacquer it. You would be introducing a fatal amount of contamination into the build. You don't want the paint layer shiny before it is lacquered. A shiny surface is very regular and hence has a low surface area. You want the paint to have a large surface area to assist with lacquer adhesion.

[volvos60s60]

To be a little clearer, the repair area is 1/2 a door (already applied filler, primer &, base coat).

Anatol, I want to clarify a bit further. Even though the can says use 1200 grade W & D before applying lacquer, you feel that the lacquer should be applied staright onto the 'as applied' base coat?

MyBrainHurts, you obviously suggest the W & D recommendation on the can is followed.

We all at least seem to have near concensus though that T cut or similar is a bad idea

Edited by volvos60s60 on Wednesday 8th September 09:01

Edited by volvos60s60 on Wednesday 8th September 09:03

[Anatol]

You're a brave man to attempt a door with rattle cans.

You need adhesion between the paint and lacquer layers.

If both the paint and the lacquer are solvent-borne, the traditional way is to overcoat the paint during the particular window when the paint is dry enough, but still soft enough that the lacquer and paint can form an interference joint of sorts due to the solvent in the lacquer.

A job with an aerosol is very, very unlikely to approximate a professional finish, so the instructions on it shouldn't be taken as how to get a professional finish. Flatting before clear on a pearl or metallic paint will ring major alarm bells with any pro painter - but won't cause any problems on a flat colour.

What do the full TDS's for the products say? These will be much more full and informative than the side of the can. If the paint doesn't come with a TDS, or your supplier can't give you a full TDS, I'd suggest running a mile before putting them on a car about which you care.

[With these feet]

Anatol is right, the basecoat should be applied and allowed to tack before lacquer applied.
If you attempt to rub down the base, it will change the colour and leave scratches that the lacquer will not hide.
When painting metallics you can leave it a little dry (especially where blending the colour across a panel) as the lacquer finish is what most people see anyway!

[Eddie 4 2]

volvos60s60 said:

Hi

I am repairing a door scrape using Halfords pealescent black paint. Having applied the black base coat, should I use 1200 grade wet & dry before applying the lacquer as it says on the can? I have done this & it is totally matt (not surprisingly) & I am considering using T cut to get a shine on the base paint before applying the clear lacquer. Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

oh dear lol if you dont no then dont do it.Advice pay someone lol

[volvos60s60]

Eddie 4 2 said:

volvos60s60 said:

Hi

I am repairing a door scrape using Halfords pealescent black paint. Having applied the black base coat, should I use 1200 grade wet & dry before applying the lacquer as it says on the can? I have done this & it is totally matt (not surprisingly) & I am considering using T cut to get a shine on the base paint before applying the clear lacquer. Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

oh dear lol if you dont no then dont do it.Advice pay someone lol

Eddie, thanks for being the only one to be unhelpful.

I do realise that you are probably in the business, but some of us DIYers are quite capable which may surprise you, & some are not. It's just sometimes some of us are prepared to at least try. I do not know it all & am not too proud to ask for a little advice. I have quite capably done the filling, sanding & priming to a good standard & have saved a lot of money to this point. I'll now finish the job to my best of my ability & if that is not good enough I'll get someone to professionally apply the paint & lacquer. The beauty about this kind of job is that you can always rub down & do it again.

Thankfully all the other posters, whether professionals or simply knowledgeable individuals are happily inclined to be helpful. Is business so bad that you have to be cynical when ordinary guys ask for a little advice? Have you ever carried out a DIY job around the house & 'robbed' a decorator, electrician, plumber, or carpenter of his livelihood? I hope that when you asked for advice a tradesperson did not unhelpfully tell you to 'pay someone' & then lol.

[Eddie 4 2]

volvos60s60 said:

Eddie 4 2 said:

volvos60s60 said:

Hi

I am repairing a door scrape using Halfords pealescent black paint. Having applied the black base coat, should I use 1200 grade wet & dry before applying the lacquer as it says on the can? I have done this & it is totally matt (not surprisingly) & I am considering using T cut to get a shine on the base paint before applying the clear lacquer. Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

oh dear lol if you dont no then dont do it.Advice pay someone lol

Eddie, thanks for being the only one to be unhelpful.

I do realise that you are probably in the business, but some of us DIYers are quite capable which may surprise you, & some are not. It's just sometimes some of us are prepared to at least try. I do not know it all & am not too proud to ask for a little advice. I have quite capably done the filling, sanding & priming to a good standard & have saved a lot of money to this point. I'll now finish the job to my best of my ability & if that is not good enough I'll get someone to professionally apply the paint & lacquer. The beauty about this kind of job is that you can always rub down & do it again.

Thankfully all the other posters, whether professionals or simply knowledgeable individuals are happily inclined to be helpful. Is business so bad that you have to be cynical when ordinary guys ask for a little advice? Have you ever carried out a DIY job around the house & 'robbed' a decorator, electrician, plumber, or carpenter of his livelihood? I hope that when you asked for advice a tradesperson did not unhelpfully tell you to 'pay someone' & then lol.

Ok Ile be helpfull dont do it with a can i dont no why harfwits sell paint cans? all they are going to do is make it look worse lol trust me iv seen it time and time again. nope iv never done one bit of DIY lol and business is really good atm thanks.
But if you are going to spray it i bet you make a right mess of it as paint cans are no good for that type of job.
But good luck

[retrorider]

volvos60s60 said:

Hi

I am repairing a door scrape using Halfords pealescent black paint. Having applied the black base coat, should I use 1200 grade wet & dry before applying the lacquer as it says on the can? I have done this & it is totally matt (not surprisingly) & I am considering using T cut to get a shine on the base paint before applying the clear lacquer. Any advise would be appreciated

Thanks

If you have not already finished this then what you need to do is :-

Get your colour coat so that you have covered your primer and allow to dry.

Use 1500 paper dry and very lightly flat and then use a tack rag across the area.

Now a final colour coat and leave to dry.

Tack rag across area again very lightly.

Laquer as required and dont go mad as you dont want runs now.

If its 1k laquer leave to air dry for a couple of days and then polish.

Stand back and admire work...

[volvos60s60]

Thanks to all for your help. Waiting for a good weather weekend to complete the job. I'll post an update on how it went for anyone who is interested

[julian64]

These sort of threads always have advice interspersed with scorn from those who believe only an oven will do.

Follow retroriders advice. There is obviously a difference between the finish you will get and the finish of a professional outfit. But not as much as the scorn would have you believe, and the finish is usually the time and effort gone in, so some so called professional outfits are truly dire. They seem to work on the idea that to repeat a botch makes the work financially unviable, but a home sprayer can do it as many times as is necessary.

The main thing to take on board is the fact that even if you screw it up, its all fixable.

The halfords spray cans are okay to use, but there is no constant in how they spray. Only the mid third of the can is really useable, so just spray the rest at cardboard. You will notice the first and last thirds are usually splatter fests. . After a while of this waste you'll start looking at compressors and dryers .

[With these feet]

I repair the teams race cars (and subsequently done work on the owners V8V) I dont have an oven, use/used water based paints and get, IMO a good finish. Most cannot see a repair once polished.

As for the "Halfords paint is crap" I dont agree.
I did a small repair on a friends Pug (met blue pearl) and rather than get a 1/2 ltr from a factors, tried them. (Though I did use my DeVilbiss rather than a can)
For a blow-in the paint match was pretty good. Better in fact than some companies Ive used recently spending near £50 a litre....

Only thing I would suggest is if you can, use 2k lacquer. If you are in a fairly warm, dry, dustfree area then most paint shops will mix you a can (about £15 IIRC)
Celly stays soft and can be re-activated by a number of chemicals. Whereas 2k being a chemical reaction, goes harder and gives a better finish.

Tip:
If youre painting a door try not to have the colour run to the edge of the next panel. Drift the colour out if possible leaving the original colour to butt up rather than the new.
Dont paint too much. No need to spray a whole door if you can get away with a localised repair and polish out the lacquer.

Edited by With these feet on Wednesday 15th September 18:49

[Anatol]

A controlled environment helps reduce (never eliminate) airborne contamination. On small repairs it is entirely possible to achieve good results without one. One large areas, the likelihood of contamination landing in the first pass of clear and then being buried completely under the second coat (ie impossible to denib and polish out) becomes much higher.

The main drawback of Halfords paint is that it is mixed purely from the paint code. Most decent professional repairers will pick a variant shade from a deck of chips of sprayed paint checked against the actual panel to be repaired. The variance between the factory shades can be very significant - to the point where you might think some must actually be a different paint colour. You are also at the mercy of whoever mixes it for you in Halfords. If the individual adding the tints overdoes one and decides that that will be 'good enough' for your job, there's nothing you can do.

2k reactive automotive coatings, such as the 2k lacquer you are being advised to use, are very likely to contain isocyanates. Exposure to isocyanate spraymist *has killed*. It can also leave you with permanent respiratory problems. If you do not have air-fed RPE (to protect you) and enforce a 5-10m exclusion zone around your work area (to protect other people - and this will not suffice if the pressure is above about 2 bar, the gun is larger than touch-up sized, or the spray pass is longer than a few minutes), there are serious health risks.

Edited by Anatol on Wednesday 15th September 21:40

[With these feet]

In all my years in the automotive industry, I have never had a single colour from any refinisher match a paint code, even when shades, batch numbers whatever have been quoted.
You will never get the paint finish exact, its impossible. Its all about blending and tricking the eye into thinking its the same colour.

Guy I started working for 20 years ago bought a new 3 series convertible from a dealer.
Thought the car looked odd when he first washed it.
BMW sent a paint specialist out to look at it.

It was 4 different shades over the whole vehicle. No repairs, rectification etc had been done, it was straight from the factory. 1 month old and had a full respray..... Some may not notice the difference, others will see it a mile away.

[Anatol]

You can help with creating a colour match to the eye by blending, of course. But the better the match you start with, the less things like technique and quality of spray equipment matter. For a DIY-er, possibly using aerosols, getting the most precise match possible is important. With DIY-level spray experience and a rattle can, blending in a poor (ie just mixed off the paint code, not matched by paint chip to the panel) will be impossible. Quoting shade, age or batch number is far less important than actually comparing a variety of available recipes to the existing finish. So many vehicles already have non-factory paint on them that what you need to match is what is currently there, not what was put on at the factory.

As you probably know too, blending a poor match grows the repair, usually to include all the adjoining panels, or in really bad cases, further. Making a DIY door repair suddenly the side of the car, if the match needs blending - not an easy task for someone with a rattle can.

With latest gen paint systems, with sprayed paint fandecks and a brand that invests in providing lots of regularly updated variant shades, matches can be a lot more hit than miss - those of us that run businesses that specialise in keeping repairs small insist on this level of precision. While a 'perfect' match is, as a matter of strict science, always an impossibility, matches that allow edge-to-edge repair without blending are not uncommon any more. Insurers are starting to insist that their repair network invest in paint systems that allow this, because it means they don't have to authorise adjoining blends on undamaged panels any more. And insurers have the majority of the power in the crash repair industry.

Edited by Anatol on Thursday 16th September 06:30

[retrorider]

volvos60s60 said:

Thanks to all for your help. Waiting for a good weather weekend to complete the job. I'll post an update on how it went for anyone who is interested

This 2k aerosol laquer on ebay is spot on for the money but remember to wear a mask.Leave it to air dry for a week and polish it up the weekend after...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Aerosol-Car-Lacquer-Professi...

[V8covin]

"I'll now finish the job to my best of my ability & if that is not good enough I'll get someone to professionally apply the paint & lacquer. The beauty about this kind of job is that you can always rub down & do it again. "


It's not always that simple mate.If you make a mess and then take it to a 'pro' most will want to remove what you've done and start again.Most self prepared bodywork has to be redone in my experience.A pro body man is not going to want to put his name and reputation on a job that has substandard preparation.
Also your small 1 panel repair could well turn into a much larger job ie you may have to have the adjacent panels blended in if your repair is too large.

Bodywork is different than other professions like plumbing,electrics etc,you can learn the technicalities but if you don't have the feel in your hand you'll never be any good.

[julian64]

Anatol said:

A controlled environment helps reduce (never eliminate) airborne contamination. On small repairs it is entirely possible to achieve good results without one. One large areas, the likelihood of contamination landing in the first pass of clear and then being buried completely under the second coat (ie impossible to denib and polish out) becomes much higher.

The main drawback of Halfords paint is that it is mixed purely from the paint code. Most decent professional repairers will pick a variant shade from a deck of chips of sprayed paint checked against the actual panel to be repaired. The variance between the factory shades can be very significant - to the point where you might think some must actually be a different paint colour. You are also at the mercy of whoever mixes it for you in Halfords. If the individual adding the tints overdoes one and decides that that will be 'good enough' for your job, there's nothing you can do.

2k reactive automotive coatings, such as the 2k lacquer you are being advised to use, are very likely to contain isocyanates. Exposure to isocyanate spraymist *has killed*. It can also leave you with permanent respiratory problems. If you do not have air-fed RPE (to protect you) and enforce a 5-10m exclusion zone around your work area (to protect other people - and this will not suffice if the pressure is above about 2 bar, the gun is larger than touch-up sized, or the spray pass is longer than a few minutes), there are serious health risks.

Edited by Anatol on Wednesday 15th September 21:40

Isocynates are dangerous, cellulose was dangerous, almost all aromatic paint fumes are dangerous.

However I have never seen anyone present with problems associated with this in all the time the paint has been available to the 'hobby market'. I think you would have to be a reasonable darwin candidate to suffer significant problems.