The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop blotchy uneven paint

hello.
my truck looks bad. the PO painted it a very nice dark grey metallic but the coverage is horrible. blotchy and spotty. very uneven. and ideas on a quick fix rather than waiting for a complete strip and repaint? i do have about a half gallon of the paint the PO gave me with the truck...

first off what is the PO,you don't need to strip it,but you do have to repaint it.there are no such thing's as quick fixes in the paint world,just quick paint job's, that we seem to have lot's of time to fix the second time around!what kind of paint is it?and is the truck still masked,you can recoat within a certain time with out sanding.with heavy metallics you should mix half and half with clear on the final coat,turn up your gun presure and mist it on to get rid of the blotchy look

PO= previous owner

I've sprayed metallics in both base/clear and single stage, and single stage is really hard to get to look right. You can scuff the paint and re-shoot, and it should look better, but it probably won't be as good as you want it to. From the picture it looks like the primer coat is showing through. Part of the problem with single stage metallics is that the paint is partially transparent so the flakes show. The paint doesn't cover very well, and you have to be careful to coat the panels very evenly while you spray in order to get uniform appearance.

I'm not a pro, so I'm just taking a guess, but if it was me I would at least sand the darker areas of paint down until the color is even before I resprayed, or just go with new paint. You definately don't need to strip it down to bare.

thanks 4onthefloor. although the picture is showing reflections and is a crappy picture that is the problem. the paint is too thin in some spots and primer is peeking through. i like the color but have decided to sand it down and primer it flat black then have the top of the cab (from posts up) done in a nice gloss... maybe white, silver or red. now i need to search for some info on primering correctly...

If it were me, and I liked the color, and had half a gallon of paint, I'd give it one more shot and see how it turns out. It won't cost you anything but time. I'm assuming if you have two quarts of paint that it's acrylic enamel. Wet sand the entire truck with 400 grit paper, and clean it really well with soap and water, then wipe it down with wax and grease remover and give it one nice even coat. Then if you don't like it go with the black primer.

In the end it's your baby, do what you want, that's just what I would do.

id respray the bad parts then clear coat the whole truck if the finish looks good after spraying the bad areas

It will be difficult to achieve uniformity just spraying the bad areas, best to spray the whole thing. Two qt. of ac. enamel yields almost a gallon of sprayable material.

Don't bother re-priming! Just sand it smooth and repaint. If the paint is smooth but just to thin, wet sanding with 600 or 800 grit will do it. IMHO I think that old trucks look best with non-metalflake paint, the way they're supposed to be. I do not like that metallic green on that truck. Take this opportunity to paint it the original color.

Case in point. This is basically the same truck but painted the orig color, Glennwood Green.
[img]http://www.digiflux.biz/truck_web.jpg[/img]

Nice truck tab.

Thanks ScT. I did all the work in my front yard. No shelter. Still have some things to do but that's par for the Stovebolt course.