The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop brush and roller painting??

i just got a 47 1 1/2 ton to use around the farm and for my construction biz. it has the origional paint and the body has a few rust holes that are 1/8". if i paint it will a flat, oil based paint, will it be a huge headache to do it right at some hypothetical future date? painting with a brush and roller simplifies the whole project into something manageable for me. any thoughts???

Yes, I seeee why your name is HOMER!

"simplifies the whole project into something manageable for me" is all the justification you need. Go for it - sandpaper doesn't discriminate should you ever want to do it again.

I got involved with old Chevy trucks in rural Washington in the 70's where most of the hairy locals drove AD Chevys. Most of them were painted with a brush or roller. The point of those trucks then were they were cheap and easy to repair. (Heck, the junkyards would darn near pay you to haul them away. Oh those were the days.) Painting with a brush also allowed you to change your paint job on any sunny day. They didn't look bad . . . from a distance . . . at night . . . with one eye closed . . .

We painted our 45 Chevy with brush and roller,general purpose oil paint.Looks great from 10 feet away, in fact ,we get compliments on the paint job, go figure!!

Tony, your truck looks good from a lot closer than 10 FT ! I wouldn't have known the difference.

buy a quart of trimclad rust paint, add a little thinner, and spray it with a gun, painted a car a few years back for less than $15 and you could not tell at 5 feet what it was painted with, even fooled a car painter...

I know a guy (this was in the early 60's) who painted his 53 Chevy with a pump-up flysprayer, if you know what that is, and it looked good to him. Didn't have much shine but what the heck. If it looks good to you and keeps the truck from deterioriating further go for it. It should not make a future restoration any tougher,other than a little more to paint to take off, should you decide to in the future.

You'll be sorry when you decide to put a nice paint job on. Sanding all those uneven brush strokes out is going to be hard hard work.

If you just want to keep it from rusting and don't care how it looks just wash it really well, let it dry completely then spray on some Rustoleum primer. When you get ready to paint it properly that primer will sand easily and it will give you a nice base.

I once painted my car with a spray gun in one afternoon. I washed it, dried it, masked it and sprayed it. Was it a perfect job? NO. Did it look pretty good? Hell yes it did. Painting a car/truck ain't no biggie.

JUST DO IT!!!

I guess I'm gonna be the gloomy gus on this subject. I'm on my second resto and I'm 2 for 2 on having to contend with rolled and brushed on paint. When I told my wife about the subject and how the responces were going I thought she would smack me (she did most of the stripping {huh?} on the first project).If you are going to dip the metal then I can see no problem. If you are going to sand or strip then I just hope it's you who gets to do it. Also it's EXTREMELY important that you prep whatever you're painting over and use the right paint. Then you can just sand till it's smooth. Also I had a MASSIVE orange peel when I first painted part of my '52 GMC (acrylic enamel). It took some time and a bunch of paper but I was able to sand and buff it out. Pictures on my website www.jandcawards.com
best of luck
Jim

thanks for the imput. my plan was to use flat paint just to make it look a little aged so as not to show off all the dents and such that i was not going to fix. i was planning on filling the few little holes. my main motivation is to preserve the body and make it look presentable enough to drive it to the jobsite.

Well, I've only done my frame, springs, and axles so far, but I'm doing everything with a brush and True Value XO Rust Red Metal Primer and Satin Black. Looks good, is cheap, any moron (myself included) can wield the brush, and it's kind of fun and meditative.

I'm strongly leaning towards doing the whole truck, including the sheet metal this way. I just keep chanting my mantra "It's only an old pickup, it's only an old pickup, . . ."

Good luck whatever road you choose. Keep on truckin'

I took a small roller and painted the rust spots on my '55 Pontiac with Rustoleum red primer. It goes on easy and looks smooth after it dries. I would have sprayed it, if I could have moved it inside, but that's another story. It dries to a dull dark red color and looks ike it was sprayed. :p

[img]http://photo.starblvd.net/hedgehog/1-3-2-1056175719?m=1&pg=0&ro=2&co=1[/img]
Brush painted w/ Rustoleum. Sleeps outside in the rain.

(The panel truck, not the bike)

Hedge, were the rear turn signals on there when you got the truck? I've never seen them mounted below the beltline before.

Yep.

Weird. They're supposed to be above the beltline. Looks like a dealer or someone on the assembly line didn't read the instructions very well. Makes it unique! At least they were there - you don't want to try to find '39 Chevy taillights - EXPENSIVE!

I plan to put the optional above-the-doors brake light on, and I'm going to modify a '39 Oldsmobile tallight housing. It's almost the same thing, just without the indentation.

Vintage replacement Lynx-Eye lenses show up on eBay all the time, they aren't very expensive.

Hedge,
Is that the rustoleum Forester Green or the regular green? How long has the paint been outside? Hey, your tomatoes are way ahead of ours. You ever see the bumper sticker "Rust never sleeps"? Looks great! - Scott

GMCpanel: The signal pods are in the stock location. There's a matched pair of holes in the body halfway between the beltline and the top of the inner walls (measured from inside the truck). There's also a curved backing plate for each pod that not only matches the holes but the curvature of the body panel; it can't fit anywhere else. See photos here and here (kinda dark) and this thread.

FYI: I'm using a NAPA "trailer wiring kit" (Balkamp #755-1086) to make the 1157 bulbs in the pods carry tail, brake and signals; I wanted more illumination without punching another hole in the body and this was an "under $20" solution.

Scott: The color was called Rainforest Green, I had a couple gallons of it mixed after I decided Dark Forest Gloss was too dark. It's been on the truck for over two years, and is holding up fairly well. Rust spots are appearing where I've chipped the paint, but it's holding it's own; in two years it's only had three baths and it's always outside. Once in while I touch it up w/ a rattlecan of Rustoleum Hunter Green, a pretty close match. The bumpers and grille are covered in Rustoleum Gloss White (also rattlecan) which makes rock chips a 30-second repair.

edit: That picture was taken in the summer. Each winter the garden is under 2" of water (property used to be an orchard, choice bottom land). As soon as the sun returns this spring, it will look like a jungle.

I did a complete with two cases of $1 midnight blu rattle cans from Wally World, a light wet/color sand and hand rub polish/wax years ago to help a girlfriend sell a car and I must say, it looked pretty good. Earl Schibe had nothing on me. But that might be more effort than your willing to put in it.
About six months later I saw it again and it was holding up well except the new owner painted white over paper doiles to make it look like it was a snow storm or blizard.

edit: I'll admit it when I'm wrong, and I was wrong After checking mine they are indeed under the beltline. :rolleyes:

On the lighting issue, I'm going to put two-filament bulbs and sockets in mine for turn and brake lights, I've got a couple of beat-up left-hand door taillights that I'm going to modify into a matching right-hand door taillight, and I'm adding a third pod to the roof for the accessory tail/brake light. Instructions for high-mount light at Jim Carter\'s

No one is going to miss the fact that I'm there!

Hedge, Is that "Dark Forest Gloss" a rustoleum or what brand? Thanks - Scott

Scott, I can't find an example of the paint chip for Dark Forest Green, but it was almost black in anything less than full daylight. They might have renamed it or just not bothered to put a sample on the site.

Here is some paint chips for the Chevys. Jeff Nelson pointed me to this.

Paint Chips

Another possible cheap paint solution: Van Sickle tractor paint. It is cheap ($20 or so a gallon), and according to a friend, lasts forever and stays glossy. He painted several cars with it, as well as a tractor that sat outside for about 10 years until he sold it - and he said that the tractor still looked okay at that time.

Van Sickle paints