• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A spray the paint

Share this page

S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
I learn from my mistakes and before I jump can someone give me a heads up on painting this frame on my tr3. I bought some oil base enamel with a xylene base and want to spray the paint with one of those home depot gravity feed paint guns they sell in a kit for 80.00. The guy at the paint store believed I could spray the paint right out of the can. Before I try that, I am looking for some suggestions because he also said if need be, I could thin the paint with a 5 % mix of xylene. The people I have talked to were not sure if the paint would come out of the gun ok or not and talked about the mm tip size of the gun and whatever. To me most of this stuff is yet jargon.
 
Go back to the paint store that you bought the paint from and ask them for recommendations of what to use with it and how to apply it. I have always had great luck in working with the store people.
Charley
 
I bet the Home Depot help knows less about the paint gun than he does...

The size of the tip makes a big difference in spraying. Your best bet is to try it without thinner on a cardboard box or something and see how it lays down. If it spits, comes out in large globular droplets or won't come out enough to cover well...then the paint needs to be thinned.

It never hurts to thin if you are in doubt.
 
I hate to admit it, but back in 1990 when I did my body off 1976 TR6 I sand blasted the frame (that took forever) and rattle canned the primer, and the semi-gloss black. It held up beautifully and still looked great when I sold the car 40,000 miles and 25 years later. I think the key was in the primed bare metal. I was working in a Chrysler dealership at the time and the un primed frames were peeling paint after only a few years.
 
Some reason you want to spray it? Brushing at lease the first coat would be better to get into the nooks and crannies. What does the can say. Most will have directions for spraying and thinning if it's even recommended. The tip size on your gun is very important. You might be able to thin the paint to the max but won't be able to come out of the gun fast enough to get a pattern. Once I had to spray some heavy high build urethane primer and the largest tip I had wouldn't work. So I used a "junk" primer gun and slightly enlarge the tip hole by drilling it incrementally by one thousandths at a time until I got the right size.
 
Hi There sp53,

Here`s another "Option" that you may want to consider.

Blast or Wire Brush (On a Drill) the entire chassis. Then "Prime" & paint with "POR15" Chassis Blk (Either Gloss or Medium) finish. You can "Brush-On" the POR15 & it comes out just great looking as if it were sprayed & hard as a rock!! POR15 is about $50.00 for a "Pint or Qt"? I forget but I think a "Pint" & goes a long way. Not cheap but well worth the $$$.

Should you decide to go this route; Wear some "Heavy Duty" gloves cause if this stuff gets on your hands etc; You`ll have to blast if off!! Ask me how I know!!

Have Fun.

Russ
 
If its an oil based general hardware store enamel then yes you'll have to thin (reduce) so it can be sprayed. Any cheep enamel reducer or lacquer thinner would work but you'll need to reduce it more than 5% as the paint is quite thick. Be careful where you spray it . Since this type of paint takes a few days to dry, the overspray will stick to everything within 50 feet.
 
I guess things are going good with the painting. The paint is a slow drying industrial enamel, so I am taking my time with the drying, but it is supposed to rain tomorrow. The paint came right out from the bucket in kinda small splatters but after I went back off it the paint seems to blend together with a nice looking enamel finish. It does not seem to run and I am able to squirt it into those hard to reach areas. I went with the primrose yellow because that is the way the car came and it should look pretty interesting powder blue with a primrose yellow frame.
 

Attachments

  • CIMG1469.JPG
    CIMG1469.JPG
    183.1 KB · Views: 135
CJD said:
I bet the Home Depot help knows less about the paint gun than he does...

The size of the tip makes a big difference in spraying. Your best bet is to try it without thinner on a cardboard box or something and see how it lays down. If it spits, comes out in large globular droplets or won't come out enough to cover well...then the paint needs to be thinned.




But then I do not buy my car paint at Home Depot unless it is in a rattle can. I may pay a little more by getting it at a paint store that offers automotive paints, but the results have always been worth the extra. I used Por15 on my last frame. Very good product.
Charley
Click to expand...
 
I sand blasted the frame and bought the paint at a commercial shop. They do not due automotive their and were conservative about discussing it. It looked like most of their stuff was for airless applications where they put on gallons a minute or something. i wanted the paint to be a little soft. The auto paint stores around here seem to have sniffed too many paint fumes because every question there needs to make a sale and has multiple answers depending on how much money I have. I got the paint for 45.00 a gallon and the sprayer for 80.00 with two guns and a bunch of toys. I have used the por 15 and found it to be really heavy duty. I was looking for something a little easier to work. When it does comes to doing the body, I will get into that stuff then.
 
The varying state laws regarding automotive paints have really put a damper on most do-it-yourselfers. I am also sure that that has caused the paint stores to offer a lot less help. I live in a smaller area am fortunately am able to get help/ advice when I need it.
Charley
 
The car had a roll bar that was welded to the frame and to the side of the shock mount then up through the body. I cut it off and left the two end bottom piece on because off the scaring from welding. They actually used larger pipe on the bottom and stuck a smaller pipe inside and welded that. It was actually a good idea, and I could reuse the base and stick a top section of roll bar back in or just let it go. I eye balled the room and the stubs should not hit the tub and if they do I will them down some more.
 
Back
Top