The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Opinions? Buff out old paint and rust and clear coat? 51 GMC

I have a 51 GMC 1-ton. I'm not restoring, just fixing up to be presentable. Paint is good in areas and worn down to metal in others, but only has surface rust. Your classic old GM forest green truck. Has anyone just buffed off the rust and shined up the remaining paint, then clear coated, or waxed, or somthing, to retain the old "patina"?

My worst fear about a paint job is rubbing it off in the brush. Baked on stock paint holds up, but I've seen a lot of paint jobs where paint can be scraped off with a fingernail.

Thanks

If there is rust that means that there isn't any paint in that area. Buffing it won't help.

You will spend tons of time on that old paint that's bad anyway so you might as well just paint it. If you are concerned about new paint pealing you need to do a bit O homework beforehand. Auto body shop suppliers will give tons of free advice. That's how I began, by picking brains.....

GOOD QUESTION!
Don't give up on this...I think there's nothing like the old,worn paint you are talking about!
In my case, I have a 52 with dents that this working truck naturally would have. I don't care to remove these dents, but wish I had the old faded paint to go with it. The PO painted the truck with a blue metallic shiny paint. Good God!
I have been trying to find a way to shoot it with a dull mix of paint...I am even concidering an olive drab shade that looks a bit like faded forest green.
I hope you come-up with something!!

Add my name to the column under Russntustin in that I agree that there is a lot of character in the old paint.

Covering it with clear will only look like what you have done; sprayed a clear coat over the old paint and rust. The clear will be very hard to get to look even halfway decent and will only make the surface shiny...including the rust nubs and dings.

I would suggest that you just buff it out some and you can put a coat of wax right over the rust as long as it's not loose. Wax will cover and stop the rust for the time being. Also, I have seen old finishes that were "shot" with WD40 and rubbed with a rag that look pretty amazing. The oil will bring up the old paint color and also knock down the surface rust.

I like the original unrestored look personally, but each person has their own likes. Lots of repainted trucks around, but there are darn few with original paint and to that end, your truck has a lot of character until it is painted.

Just one man's opinion.

I buffed out the original 53 year old paint on my 50 and it really surprised a lot of people including myself.
Yes,it was very faded,dirty(don't think it had been washed in 20 years),worn down through to the primer and even had surface rust in some places. I used 3M Perfect-It compound with a Makita buffer and a foam pad. Then used Meguiars hand polish followed up with 2 coats of yellow wax.
The bottom line is it really looks nice,not super glossy,but just the right amount.The primer even picked up a little gloss and most of the surface rust was removed.As long as I've kept waxing it,it hasn't returned,even on the bare metal.This was done over a year ago and it still looks very nice,but most of the time the truck sits in the garage.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I was afraid it was just another one of my nutty ideas. The rust on bare metal is very light and will probably scotchbrite away as brjr51 suggested. The is still quite a bit of original paint left and very few dents. Waxing sounds like the way to go. Clear coat would probably be too gaudy. Might as well paint it pink

Sidehill, but my friends call me izzenhood.

Clear coat doesn't have to be shiny. Since it is basically a regular paint without color there is no reason you couldn't put in an additive that would get you the preferred "dullness".

You could prepare it as above without the wax or oil and then shoot a flat clear coat that would protect and simplify maintenance.

Izzenhood...Watch out with the Scotch-Brite! If it's real Scoth-Brite, it will permenently scratch anything , including chrome and glass! (good stuff for the light rust spots tho)