If all goes well I’ll be painting my 54‘ Chevy 3100 soon. I have the colors chosen and have begun to think about staging and procedures on painting the parts. I’ll be painting the interior of the cab in a single stage. The exterior I’m going base coat clear coat. I plan on painting the inner panels on the grille like they were originally. The main bars of the grille will match the color of the truck. I would also like to paint the letters on the tailgate different then the main body color. I do not not want to do the decals for the tailgate. What have you guys done to achieve the different colors? I’m leaning right now on shooting the bc/cc on the grille and tailgate and allow that to dry followed up with a scuff of the letters and panels and shoot those with a single stage. My grille is taken apart for when I repaired and cleaned it and for painting better. I was thinking about shooting the bc/cc on everything but timing and taping off areas to shoot the accent color sounds like trouble. I’m by no means an established painter. I’m sure it could be done that way. I’m just trying to figure out a somewhat fool proof way for me to do get the accent colors done and have it look good. The trucks not going to be a trophy truck. But I do want to have pride in my truck and the restoration I did on it. Thank you in advance for any thoughts on how you have done this.
Have a local graphic design/printer/sign making place print out stencils for the letters.
You can take close up photos of the letters, take measurements, and the printer can size them on the computer.
1950 Chevrolet 3100 (Ol' Roy) 1939 Packard Standard Eight Coupe (The Phantom) | 1956 Cadillac Coupe de Ville (The Bismarck) | 1956 Cadillac Sixty Special Fleetwood (The Godfather) | 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado (The Purple Knif) | 1966 Ford Mustang (Little Red) | 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 coupe | 1979 Ford F-100 | 1976 Ford F-150 (Big Red) | 1995 Ford F-150 (Newt)
I have already painted my rear grille bars and plan on painting the front bars separately also, then assembling the grille. I thought about masking after assembly, but that's going to be too much trouble, IMO. As far as painting the lettering on the tailgate, they were not painted at the factory. I don't plan on painting my tailgate lettering. One way of painting the lettering would be to paint the lettering color first, put vinyl letters on as masking (reverse of stencils), then spray your main color, then peel off the vinyl and spray your clear.
Kevin 1951 Chevy 3100 work truck Follow this saga in Project Journal Photos 1929 Ford pickup restored from the ground up. | 1929 Ford Special Coupe (First car) Busting rust since the mid-60's If you're smart enough to take it apart, you darn well better be smart enough to put it back together.
I have thought about making a stencil and/or using the decals as a stencil or pattern. I can see it potentially being helpful compared to just taping them off. With painting the letters first then placing the decals on, spraying the main color then clear. It’s my understanding that the base coat needs to be sprayed with the clear pretty quickly after so that’s where I’m hesitant with putting any type of a tape or stencil on freshly sprayed paint. I’ve seen a couple YouTube videos of guys doing just that but I’m not sure I would feel comfortable trying that. That’s why I was maybe leaning towards the single stage for the accent color after the bc/cc has fully cured. Thanks for the thoughts so far guys.
I’ve seen the experts using a sticky back paper to mask off areas and using a sharp blade to cut around what they want to leave. Presumably, the next coat or coats of paint is going to fill in the minute score line from the blade. Having a paper backed mask over your base/clear to shoot your single stage might be doable. I’m no hotshot painter either, but your tailgate is a relatively small area, and if it turns out like less than you want it to, isn’t going to take a lot of work to re-do.
Since you are going with base coat-clear coat you can use decals and no one will ever know. We first spray a light clear coat over the decal and then 3 or 4 heavy coats around but not on the decal. This is followed by a coat over the whole area. Wet sand the clear till decal cannot be felt when passing fingers over it. The decal will NEVER curl, bubble, or discolor as it it "decopaged" into the paint. 1957 tailgate done this way in 2016: [img]https://i.postimg.cc/vDY4RK0v/IMG-4161.jpg[/img]
Coilover, thats interesting about clearing over the decal. Can’t say I’ve thought about that. I guess my issue there would be I wasn’t planning on using the standard black or white. I did purchase some decals awhile ago to possibly use as a template. I wonder if I could take those to a print shop and they could recreate those in the color that I’d like to use. Probably have to be careful putting the clear to heavy around those letters to avoid runs. I’m sure the pros have no issues. I can just see possibly a lot of sanding in my future. Haha. Thanks
I found the chrome Tailgate letters to work the best as a stencil from Classic. Providing the paint is done correctly it should not peal when removing stickers. Spray the embossed area the color you want let dry a day and apply the stickers lay down the body color, remove stickers within an hour and it's ready for clear coat. Done...
Your tail gate turned out great! The thought of putting a sticker on fresh paint and pulling off sounds scary but it sounds like it works. I’ll really have to decide on my paint as I don’t think most single stage paints like clear over them and then I think I’ll really have to read the data sheet on the base coat and applying the clear coat window. Thanks for the suggestion.
