The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Tractor Paint - not half bad!

I am currently painting a 1974 John Deere 830 tractor and have been pretty impressed with the enamel I am using on the thing. Its called BPS or Best Paint Sold for farm implements and is like $20 for a gallon. You can add hardner and thin with a bit of Naptha.

Now I am SERIOUSLY considering painting my 72 C10 with the stuff. I am not keen on JD green, but I think I am going to go down to Tractor Supply and see what colors are available.

Paint is really hard and with the hardener in it comes out pretty shiny.

Then again, maybe not. It got some mediocre reviews on the antique tractor site. Oh well. We'll see how it holds up on this machine. It were way ugly. I'll post some links after we get it together.

That is the same paint I used on my 18ft trailer. I was impressed also. Their color selection was limited to red, green, blue and silver when I was buying it. They may have had black also. It does not have the depth that normal automotive finishes have but thena gain the price is not at that level either.

Houston, did you use the hardener? It added a LOT of shine to the final product. I hear it also helps reduce fade.

Sure did! Once I got the paint thinned correctly it flowed very well. There was no set ratio provided so I used the drip/dribble test to determine if the vicosity would work well with the 1.4 tip I was using. There are pics on the link of the trailer if you have not already seen them. If I were painting a truck/car I would probably have been a bit more scientific with the mixture to ensure it all was the same but I have no color distortion on the trailer that I can tell. No problem with orange peel at all.

If I could get the shade of blue I want I would not hesitate using this paint on the 59 that is out in the field. Perfectly acceptable for driver type trucks IMO.

I used John Deere Blitz black when I sprayed my truck. I am a guy who likes the hot rod primer look and this paint was nine bucks a quart. It has a semi gloss look to it and will not absorb moisture like primer will. It cost me less money to spray it than rattle cans and offers me some protection from the elements. I tried the JD thinner but it actually flowed better with nothing at all. For thirty bucks I'm satisfied..............Dale

I know a guy that paints lots of cars with Van Sickle tractor paint, it's very durable and about $20/gallon.

Can this tractor paint be used instead of primer to protect the metal until you are ready for a real primer and paint job? Also how will it sand off when you get around to the body work?
Thanks

The paint used a primer for best results, but I only primed bare metal. Its probably not a problem to sand off, its not imron or some other kind of epoxy. We just got the thing bolted back together and fired up this evening. I hope to have some links of before and after tomorrow.

Some of the paint I thought i had on there nice, but it sagged later. I could stone it and polish it but its a tractor so its more than good enough. At 15 ft it looks as good as any other.

My last experiment with paint was Zero Rust with the crystal clear coat. I had problems with their clear. Perhaps a better clear would have worked mucy better. This was on my 59 which I later scuffed (as ZR is an excellent primer - no rust throughs) and shot PPG DAR (Acrylic Enamel) red on it later on.

So its been kind of a debate whether I would stray from standard paint or not.

As promised here are the pictures of the tractor so you can see how the paint went on (and what I have been up to):

Before Picture

After Picture

And my friend and the tractor\'s new owner - Stacey putting it through its paces

I painted the sheet metal on my '49 8N with
BPS paint with hardener and was very impressed
with the results. It has a nice shine and is
hard as a rock. I wouldn't hesitate to use it
on a driver type work truck at all.

That turned out very well! Good work!

I painted my ole coupe with Van Sickle white and a paint roller (fine nap) Ya can look at it in the Alternative Gallery
Al Falke
resto44

i was thinkin about the bps paint also, i'm wantin to go flat black. how much does the hardner "enhance " the shine ? wonder what it would do to flat black? our local tsc store is limited in colors as far as the black goes .they had gloss and low gloss but no flat.i bought a spray can of their low gloss to do some small parts but it was a litt shiny for my taste. now as far as the hardner goes it said on the can for oil base enamels wonder if this stuff would work with rustoleum? ........dave

I didn't use it without the hardner so I don't know how unshiny it would be. Say Ghost, how long has that paint been on the tractor (and funny you should mention it - my brother has an 8N and saw the Deere and is now buggin me to paint his tractor! ) and how well is it holding up?

(Thanks houston)

nice job arnswine.

fumblin46 painted his '46 half ton using the tractor/industrial paint made by these folks:

http://www.agspecialty.com/

he went with the JD green and black on the fenders, the last I heard he was pretty happy with it.

here is his thread on the whoel deal, with pictures linked in his posts... it seems the images are still up on his end.

http://www.stovebolt.com/bboard/cgibin//ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=22;t=003308;p=1#000000

anyhoo, check it out if ya haven't seen it already.

-W

arnswine... nice job on that lil "trakter"

check your inbox for some off topic stuff...

arnswine,
The paint has been on the 8N about 2 years now,
and is holding up great! I removed all the sheet metal and was particular in the preparation before painting. The parts also sat in my heated garage for about 2 months before I got to putting them back together...maybe that helped in the curing...I don't know.

The tractor hauls
a lot of firewood out of the woods and constantly scrapes on tree branches, bushes, etc.
and I have yet to get a scratch on it I can catch with my fingernail.

I did paint it Massey Ferg. gray rather than the Ford gray, 'cause I like that color better.
(a little darker) I painted it with an HVLP touch up gun through a regular compressor.
I think BPS has a semi gloss black, that I am seriously considering painting my 52 3600 fenders with. Your bro's tractor should look pretty good when you guys get it done...considering how your JD came out!

By the way...the 8n is a great little tractor for a Ford...

Yeah, I have driven the 8n about - its a great tractor, but I b spoilt now. That JD had power steering like a 60's mopar and really good brakes! Ghosty, Is your 8n stored in the barn or in the weather?

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I got some sags in there, but so did the factory for that matter. And at 10 feet it looks like new.

The graphics were stuff from a sign shop - vynil letters as the JD stuff was like $150. The sign shop - $40 - including the name "Ulysess" And their replacement lift arm didn't even come in JD green - more like an olive green (for $264!!!) and one exhaust clamp was packed in the bag with wet paint - still wet when I removed it. Very sloppy. Exhaust system was scuffed up so I repainted that too. Again very sloppy for the cost. Oh well.

Its purdy now! We're ready for some croppin cuzin!

Yea, I painted it in the fall with a brush, didn't use anywhere near a gallon of paint to do the whole thing.. the truck has been out in the -50 wind chill weather, blowing snow, blowing sand in 50mph winds and been totally covered in snow more than once.

The results? Just as glossy and shiny as it was before the paint dried. My 'prep' work involved running over most of the truck to knock any loose surface rust/dirt/mud off the truck, then I painted it.. from 30 feet away it looks like a 100 point show truck.

That paint 'leveled' itself quite well.. you really have to get up real close to see any brush marks, and there aren't alot of them.. biggest flaws in the paintjob are the occasional brush brisle that got left behind, or the occasional bug that got painted over.

With a proper prep job, and spraying it on instead of using a brush, I have no doubt you'd get a real nice driver paintjob with that paint.. but you're limited to their color selections, which since the paint is targeted twards painting farm machinery, is limited to traditional 'farm implement' colors.

This is a link to the specific type paint I used

I'm highly tempted to paint my ''63 Galaxie with that stuff (with a sprayer, not a brush).. next time i'm in that store i'll have to see if there is a color that I like, and do the trunk lid or something and see how it comes out.

Here\'s the \'before\' shot..
And here\'s the \'after\' shot
And here\'s one of the tail end The AD tailgate was cut down to fit the '46's narrower box.. the Chevrolet was painted in with a smaller brush using the same black paint I used for the fenders.

minnie moline gold great color. been lookin at it at tsc want to put it on my pick up with red steelies and chrome caps errrrrrrh!!!!!!!!!

That looks purdy durn good. I might go for that gloss white and be done with it. Fumbles, did you get the paint on line or from a local dealer?

Check with your local Case/IH/New Holland dealer they should carry several colors in acrylic enamal. These are factory type paints with prices slightly higher than the farm stores but the color is more consistant.

arnswine.. I bought the paint from a local farm store, that has a wide selection of colors available.

The truck had clearly been painted for many years with a brush.. the multiple coats of various color paints were probably one of the reasons it kept in such good condition over the years.. looks like they painted the truck whatever color the barn was that year!

I just thought i'd carry on the tradition!

Here\'s a high res closeup pic I took today of the truck while I was hauling a load of hay to the ring feeder.

Now keep in mind that I didn't wash the truck, or do jack squat with it before I took that picture.. that paint had about a day and a half to dry before the rain/snow/cold weather came around.. and while we've had a mild winter in general, there have been several weeks of sub 0 temps, and up here on the hill, the wind blows a good 20mph just about every day, rain, snow, or shine.. and that truck sits right out in the elements, without so much as a windbreak.

That picture was taken at about 5 feet away from the truck.. not too bad at all for about $30 worth of paint and a $5 paintbrush.. and it clearly holds up pretty well.

I think start to finish I had the fenders painted in about an hour in one shot.. the cab took all of about 30 minutes, then I ran out of paint, and had to paint the bed the following day.. that took about 30 minutes.. total paint time right at two hours.. would have gone much faster had I masked anything off.. I painted that truck just like you'd paint the outside of a house.

She's still bright and shiny.. you can even see the reflection of the windshield chrome center strip in the hood! The truck had been a little dusty, and had the typical cat foot prints all over it.. but we had some rain the other night that appears to have washed away the dust and mud.

Not sure you'd ever get that super high deep gloss shine out of this paint without spraying it with some sort of clear coat or something, but man, it sure is good paint, levels itself real well when applied with a brush, and it holds up to the elements well.

Tractor Paint. I always liked the dull black paint jobs on some of the hot rods I've seen.

I did a little search looking for an example of the low gloss Black and found a VW Bug at:

http://volksrods.com/forums/index.php?s=eaa20e9321141bc44854b5ddad4e604c&showtopic=9657

QUESTION: Did you guys use the BPS primer too or did any primer (in a rattle can) work for you?

I used their red oxide primer on my trailer.

Thanks fumbles. I just bought a gallon of gloss white today and with everything it was less than $50. I am going to give it a shot. I will probably stuff the driveline in first and then go for it. Should have results in a week or two. I have a bit of work to clear off first.

Hey all,

I have been away working hard on my truck. I hope to post pics soon. I am using Internation Harvester Red along with the same brand primer. I bought it at our local Farm Supplier, Fleet Farm. I have about $100 invested in paint. The bed has one coat on it so far and looks pretty good for a daily driver. My plan is to put the bed back together with all the correct bolts and shoot the last coat. My project ran over budget and professional paint and body work is a couple of years off now. It will work for me and get me back on the road.

Like I said, pics to follow in the next day or so..

OK, here is my attempt at using Restoration Series tractor paint from Fleet Farm. It is not show quality of course, but since I am building a driver and my pro paint job had to be put on hold, it is getting the job done....

box shot


The cab side of the box

Another coat will be applied soon, but I need to prime a pile of other parts before I break out the red again.