The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop I think it is time for my "Rules, Rules, RULES" speech.

Guys, with all the talk about POR-15, ZeroRust, Molasses for striping parts (God forbid) and all the other "home brews" I see around here, you really need to read the following article.

It comes down to this very simple FACT there are products specifically manufactured to do everything you could ever want to do on your truck. There are companies who spend MILLIONS of dollars DEVELOPING these products. Why in the world would one of us think we could come up with something better in our garage on a saturday with our 12th grade education (me) that some lab technition with a masters degree in chemistry working in a ten million dollar lab couldn't do?

I have seen these labs, I had the phone number and would call these guys to get answers to problems, THEY KNOW THEIR STUFF!

They study products for months before it is released to the public with FULL INSTRUCTIONS on how to use it. They have done advanced weather testing, scratch tests, corrosion tests,etc. ALL done to insure that YOU will have the best possible outcome when you use it.

PPG, DuPont, Sherwin-Williams, etc. ALL make complete systems to do anything you could want on your truck. If you need some "special" product to cover rust, well, than you are not repairing it properly. POR-15, or ZeroRust are very good products to do these "repairs" on rust. I understand, I use them too. Not every project "deserves" to be sandblasted or acid dipped to remove all the rust and then primed with a primer in the system of your top coat like PPG, DuPont or the like. In these cases POR or ZeroRust can be a life saver. I am not knocking these products, they just have to stay in their place.

Use them all over the car, chassis, firewall, axles, rad support, seat frames, etc. But please, DON'T use them under your paint and primers on the outside of your truck. Use a COMPETE paint system by an automotive paint refinishing like PPG, DuPont and the like.

And before all of you go off on me telling "not all of us have shops, compressors, money, etc" I understand that. I have been in the same boat, I havn't always had these things. But that doesn't mean you can't find a way. It also doesn't mean you can't be educated in right from wrong.

Also, please don't tell me about how you or your uncle Joe have mixed and match products and used lemon juice as wax and grease remover for years "without any problems".
That is fine, but you really don't know if it could have been better if you used another product, you haven't done blind tests with a standard, thus, you really don't know much about the outcome of using these products in that way.

It is VERY simple, these are FACTS , not my "opinion". The FACTS are if you use the proper product following the tech sheets recommendations you WILL just by the odds have better results, PERIOD.

The example I give of the "junior chemists" in my article are REAL. These guys THOUGHT they knew more than the people who developed the products. They really did, they thought that their "real world" experiance taught them more than the people who studied and worked with chemistry every day knew. They caused me more headaches than you can imagine. I saw so many failures that I could tell you what happen in such detail you would think I was standing behind you when you painted it. People would try to lie to me so they could get replacement product and I literally tell them EXACTLY what they did. I could see in thier eyes that they were actually scared that I could know so much. Like I was a stalker watching thru the window! I would tell them how much solvent and which ones they used, if hardener was used correctly, if it was sanded correctly, where they overlapped thier coats, how many coats, and on an one. But it was simple, I saw this stuff EVERYDAY I REALLY learned how to make these products work, and what causes problems. I had painted everyday as a living for almost 20 years when I took the job as a paint rep. I had no training, just the "real world". Well boys and girls, the "real world" doesn't teach you CRAP about these products and their chemistry. As a rep I had hundreds of hours of formal training in training centers in a number of different states. S-W spend tens of thousands of dollars on this training for little old me. That along with the "real world" experiance AS a paint rep going to hundreds of shops all over this beautiful state of California taught me THOUSANDS of times more than the "real world" as a painter ever would.

I am not the best painter, not in by a long shot. I do not know everything, not by a long shot.
But there is one thing I do know, following the manufactures recommendations will provide you with a better end product, PERIOD .

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>

Rules, rules, rules, so many rules.
Use this don't use that.
Sand this, don't sand that.

These companies must think we are stupid right? They tell us to buy their products only. Of course they do, so they can make money off of us, right?

That is how many people feel. They mix and match products thinking they can out smart the chemists that created the product!

The manufacturer spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly even millions, developing the product. They did EVERYTHING possible to make it perform it's best. Heck, if they found it worked better if you painted it while standing on your head, THAT would be in the tech sheet!

Did you know that most of these products you use have a lifetime warranty? That's right. The manufacturer will stand behind their primers, paints, and clears for your LIFETIME. Now, as a DIYer you can't have this warranty. What makes the difference between the warranty YOU have (usually none) and the lifetime warranty a shop may have? The training, that's what. The manufacturer has classes for the painters to go to. He then takes a test, if he passes, the manufacture knows that he understands the procedures and proper product choice. The manufacturer has learned that it is likely the painter will use the product properly and it will perform as expected. The manufacturer puts hundreds of millions of dollars on the line with this warranty. They know they can, if the product is used EXACTLY as they have instructed on the tech sheet.

I have always been the kind of guy to follow instructions. Even before I had the training I used the products exactly as I was told to. I am sure this accounts for the very few failures I have had in the 28 plus years I have been doing this work.

Five of those 28 years I was a paint rep. If there is one singular thing I came away from that job with it would be importance of following the recommendations. As a rep I visited hundreds, possibly thousands of shops. These shops were in every shape and size. From one with seven frame machines and five paint booths doing a million dollars of business a month, to a one man shop with two stalls.

Among these shops there was a very distinct pattern: the ones who went to tech school, had only ONE brand of product on the shelves, and REFERRED to the tech sheets, had fewer problems. Most of these shops had NO problems, EVER.

They were open to hear about new products and ready to learn about how to make any product or tool perform better. Oh yeah, and they made more money.

Then, there was the “dark side”. These were the shops that would buy any product, any brand, just to save a dollar. Their shelves were covered with so many labels, it looked like the cans of soda and beer in a Quickie Mart cooler.

If, and I mean a BIG if, you could get them to a tech class, they were disruptive and later told me how they “could have taught that class”. They were quick to tell you how smart they were and how the paint company didn't know jack about the “real world”. These shops took up about 99% of my trouble shooting time. They didn't have little “how can I get this primer to dry faster?” sort of problems. They had TOTAL catastrophic failures! I was the first one they called because we must have put out a “bad batch” of product.

The one thing I never understood is how these guys would complain about the product saying it is crap, all the while there was a guy right down the street using it with great success.

I tell you this only so you can understand where I get this passion that I have for using products properly. It was like watching a basketball game where one of the teams was wearing wet jeans and cowboy boots! After a while you wouldn't even have to watch, you would know what the outcome was going to be.

Most product data sheets can be read in a few minutes. They are available on line, as well as in the store where you bought the products and many are even available on “Fax Back” right over your phone.

Get proper mixing containers. Be sure the solvents used match temperatures of the booth. Double check to be sure you have ALL the components (and enough of them) BEFORE you start so you don't find yourself tempted to be “creative”.

The three most important things and the most common cause of failures are as follows:
1. Mix the proper components accurately .
2. Use the correct solvent for the temperature.
3. FOLLOW THE RECOMMENDED FLASH TIMES.

All this info is on the product data sheets, use them.

Painting can be difficult, there are things that are quite honestly out of your control. So, why not do EVERYTHING that IS in your control correctly.

MARTINSR,

So, am I correct in thinking that you have no opinion regarding the merits of using sulphured vs unsulphered molasses for rust removal?

Thanks again for a clear and informative posting.

Tim

O.K., I give up. Why shouldn't molassas be used to remove rust? This has been used for years by restorers in my area, and I've never seen or heard of a problem with it.

Barry,

I will have to choose among one of three rust-removal techniques for my next project (in a few years): molasses, electrolytic, or a a large sandblasting cabinet.

electrolytic technique
molasses technique
Hillbilly Blaster

A manufactured cabinet is expensive and requires a large compressor. Molasses is not cheap where I live. Setting up the electrolytic bath would be cheaper for me.

I've got nothing against molasses. If it works and the price is right, use it. By the way, my bet is that your feed-grade molasses is sulphured. Here is a link that briefly notes the rust-removing and chelating properties of molasses.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/molasses

Tim

Barry, it isn't that this particular "home remidy" is going to cause a problem. It is that it is not the best way, or even the a close second to getting the job done.

Now, right off the bat, I have never done it. I have never went down to the local supermarket and bought a product for stripping rust. It may work great, I can't tell you that.
All I can say is this, if you follow the manufactures recommendations, the ODDS are you will have a better end product. PERIOD.

Let me ask you this, do they use molasses to remove rust off bridges? Does the military use it to maintain our ships? Does ANY company sell it as a rust cleaning product? Does ANY company offer any recommendations to use it for cleaning rust? Does ANY company make a rust removing product that even resembles molasses and it's characteristics?

Molasses has a PH level of many other FOODS. So, you could clean rust by soaking your parts in tomato juice, vineger, salad dressing, coke which has a lower ph (higher acidity) than molasses, and many other food products. Right off the bat, why molasses? Isn't vinegar cheaper?

I am not saying that you shouldn't clean metal with molasses, I am saying, why? Yes, you save some money, and that is a decent reason.
However, there are are plenty of products with full instructions that will not only do the same thing but then they will also leave a phosphoric acid coating to protect it unlike the molasses which leaves no protection and the metal begins to rust as you pull it out of the bucket.

I am not that hell bent on molasses, that is pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.
What I am more refering to is the "junior chemists" who mix different products, make their own "rules" if you will.

I have to repeat, if you follow the manufactures recommendations, the ODDS are you will have a better end product. PERIOD.

Tim, that is my point, let me get this straight, you need to know HOW your molasses was produced to know if it is sulphured or not??? :confused:

Just buy the product that says on the can "TREATS RUST" at the paint store. I think that is pretty clear. :p

Ok, I have never used molasses either. But I have read some websites where they restored some Model A's. They would start with panels from different cars that would be in horrible shape. You could hardly touch some of them or they would fall apart. Any standard way of stripping the rust would have done more damage to the remaining metal.

So, they use the molasses because it is so mild. The body pieces are soaked for months. I have seen pictures of pieces that went in and then came out. They looked pretty amazing. After joining those crummy pieces they build whole cars.

Anyway, I would like to see a product available in the paint store that would do that. I don't know of any.

Nope, I never claimed molassas to be the best process for removing rust. In fact it has to be the slowest way I've ever seen. Also it will not remove paint, only surface rust. But it does have it's place, at least for me. My favorite is sandblasting. Fast and does a nice job. But as Tony M. mentioned, there are times that blasting would do more damage to your panel than good. Or places that you can't get to with a blaster. For those, I use to use our local Redi-Strip place. Then about 15 years ago they went out of business, leaving us with the nearest Redi-Strip being around 300 miles away. (Madison or Milwaukee) So that's when I started using molasses. Has really saved my butt many times, I just hate waiting for a couple weeks for it to do it's thing. If I lived somewhere commercial stripping was available I would much rather have that done. Way faster and less work for me!

I saw a show once where they dipped a whole car in bifucated double surphated mollases. The car was so rusty you could throw a cat through it . . . anyways, 3 months later they pulled it out and it looked BRAND SPANKING NEW!!!

This has never worked for me though. :p

couldn't help myself . .

OK, I've heard enough. I'll be waiting until I buy a HVPL turbine & gun before I clean up anymore parts. Now I'm just not sure what to do with the parts I have with a coat of zero rust on. My plan from the start was to clean most of the parts to the bare metal via sand blasting or chemical dipping. With that said what paint system/brand do you recommend (i.e.; what is the best if cost was no problem)? I want to keep it the original colors (brewster green and black). In the end the truck will not be a daily driver but I will drive it to car shows (Jefferson-1.5 hour drive, Iola-2 hour drive, local shows, etc..).

Thanks for all the info....you may have saved me a ton of trouble down the road.

Tim, what brands do you have access to? And more importantly, does the store have good service, do they treat you right?

I live near Milwaukee, WI and I am will to drive within reason to get the best. I had a good paint supplier in my home town (Janesville) which is about 1.5 hours away. Last time I was in there (@10 yrs ago), they were extremely helpful. I would assume there are some good suppliers in the Milwaukee area. I'll just need to find them. Any guideance is greatly appreciated.

Good point about the shop,Martinsr. I live within 20 miles of 3 dealers for the brand I use(PPG).The one I will always use treats me the same as they would a large volume shop. Always ask if I'd like a soda or coffee while I'm waiting for paint to be mixed. Have ALL the tech sheets right at the counter where you can grab what you need. Always throw in extras,lots of mixing sticks and filters without asking,and generally go out of there way to answer any questions.They have earned a loyal customer.

Right on MARTINSR!

I'm new to the auto restoration game but have spent many an hour restoring our floating bretheren. It has been confusing reading many of the "home remedy" ideas regarding rust(kinda rare on fiberglass) when I knew there had to be many "engineered" products to use. To me it is almost more a matter of which product has the best tech data. If I learned anything restoring boats it was read, read, read and follow instructions to the letter (MSDS too) There is nothing quite as aggravating as sanding the $1,200 top coat off a 50' hull when all you had to do was pay attention to the tech data and not believe yopu knew it all.