perils of DIY paint jobs

[tr8todd]

Today I painted my wife's TR8 in the driveway. All went well until the very end. A large bug decided to land on the middle of the hood and walk across to the edge. A quick flick of the finger and the bug was gone, but he left footprints half way across the hood. Looks like footprints in the sand at the beach. I figure I'll wait a couple of days, wet sand the hood and spray it again, but it's real tempting to just leave the footprints and put a horsefly sticker at the end of the tracks.

 

[DougF]

Patina. I had a similar problem. I happened to pick the same weekend to spray my car that the big ladybugs decided to swarm on everything. Probably wouldn't have been as bad had I been spraying the car in Pimento.
If you're lucky, it will sand out.

 

[glemon]

Same thing when I painted my Austin Healey in the garage, finally got a good coat of paint on the hood, bit inch long mayfly lands on the hood dead center, didn't crawl off, just died in the middle, I have just gotten done for the most part painting my TR250, and I decided this time I would get it done before the bugs got too thick, no bug problems!

 

[tr8todd]

I found out the hard way that bees are attracted to yellow. When I was painting the yellow on my race car, the bees were landing on it faster than my buddy could pull them off. He used loops of masking tape to snare them. Luckily it was a solid color and I could just add extra paint and wet sand it out. The car I just painted is a silver metallic, and I am not sure how it will take to wet sanding. It was the strangest paint ever. If you put any more that a dust coat on at a time, the metallic would migrate and leave blotches. I had to spray something like 6 very light coats which had a satin finish until it flashed and then it shined up nicely. The fella at the paint stored warned me it would be tough to spray because it had 10 different pigments and 3 metallics. Leave it to BMW to come up with such a crazy color.

 

[DrEntropy]

BMW have robots and spray booths. :wink:

Higher pressure at the gun and as you said, many "mist" coats. Tough to do "panel" jobs to match the rest of the car with those "sparkly" topcoats.

Down here we have "love bugs". They don't seem to care for epoxy primer but they LOVE finish paint. I've "archived" a few in Her MGB. :wink:

 

[PeterK]

I bought a 13x15 screen house on clearance for $50 for when I paint mine outside. Hope it works. And glad that yellow is nowhere in my choice of colors.

 

[angelfj1]

Is that for those famous black flies I have read about?

 

[tdskip]

it's real tempting to just leave the footprints and put a horsefly sticker at the end of the tracks.

LOL Todd.

Sorry the bug got 'ya.

Any pictures?

 

[tr8todd]

The paint looks silver in the bright sun. In the shade it's more of an anthracite. It is called space grey metallic. This pic was taken while I was cleaning up before the paint had flashed. Didn't take a pic of the bug tracks, but I will when I get back to it. Spending the weekend working on all of the black trim pieces and rockers in between the thunderstorms.

 

[WedgeWorks]

Pretty Car!

 

[tdskip]

BMW space grey is a really nice color, wedge lines will look good in that color (like you need me to tell you that).

I dig it.

 

[dklawson]

When I painted the Spitfire hardtop I was under an awning to keep things from falling in/on the wet paint. I had finished what I thought would be my last coat when a moth landed right in the middle of the front. I was angry but realized I would just have to shrug it off and laugh.

The worst paint disaster I know of was when a a co-worker painted his old Chevy pickup in an old wooden frame garage. He had just finished and was standing back admiring his work when a rat was overcome by the fumes and fell from the rafters right onto the middle of the hood.

 

[tr8todd]

That is too funny. Sounds like my neighbors house. Prime hunting grounds for my cats. I just wish they wouldn't keep leaving dead chipmunks for me to find. Here is a pick of the bug tracks. I tried wet sanding them out. No luck. This paint won't take to wet sanding. It looks like the black metallic floats to the top while the paint is drying. Wet sanding just gives it a marble effect. I'll have to respray the nose and then hit the whole car with some clear that I can wet sand to get the good shine.

 

[martx-5]

If you got a few minutes to kill, you can read about my $40 paint job, the the final outcome. It's not for the weak of heart! :laugh:

 

[booley]

Is that for those famous black flies I have read about?

the screen house will keep the blackflies from carrying the car away...