The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop paint gloss

ok last week we painted a truck with cheap enamel off ebay looked like good paint any way we mixed it with reducer and hardner as instructed temp was 65 as it dryed the surface came out not orange peel but more a little grainy looking we could probly wet sand it and get it smooth but iv used a better grade of urethane enamel thats came out glassy smooth im going to paint my 52 soon and dont want the grainy surface but i already have the enamel how can i get a glosserer surface i have some clear from the same company but this paint is not urathane its just emamel i have sprayed enamel before with better resalts what did i do wrong i put 4 coats on was that to many for enamel

Grainy, you mean a little rough. Rough means that you applied the enamel too dry. you needed to open your fluid control a little more. The paint didn't go on thick enough, didn't flow out, and dried too fast.

And Yes you can apply clear over enamel but sure you are within the recoat window. I wouldn't wait until the next to apply the clear.

Frank

thanks Frank i had the gun opened all the way up i may of had the paint a little thick it was a little on the cold side think if i add more reduser next time it would help i just thinned it enuff to ware it started coming out of the gun good i was short on reducer i had this happen unce before but it was because the paint got reduce twice by mistake so it was to thin this time i have plenty of reducer and will mix the whole gallon at once so its all the same thanks for the help

Getting a smooth finish with enamel requires the correct combination of air pressure, paint viscosity and technique. You may want to make sure you are using slow dry reducer or try adding more reducer to your final coat. It's just a balancing act between getting orange peel at one extreme or runs at the other. The paint has to go down wet enough to "flow out" but not so wet that it runs.

My STRONG suggestion is to work all these things out on test parts before you go wading in with no experience. A finish product is no place for experimentation.

Enamel cures, it doesn't dry. If you are going to paint over it wait for it to cure completely, wet sand with like 400 and do your next coat. A fresh coat over an unsanded base will not adhere well because the new coat does not rewet the underlying paint. Applying another coat over partially cured enamel will not adhere well either because the initial coat is still out gassing.

One way to tell if the enamel is cured is to smell it. If you smell paint, it ain't cured. I would wait at least a month... in the summer. Impatience here will only bite you later.

Back in the day, a painter who could properly paint enamel was a valued commodity (not unlike the chef in a fine restaurant) in any auto body shop because if the paint was glossy with no runs the time saved was worth big money. If you screwed up an enamel job the consequences were a nightmare because you'd have to literally wash the paint off with reducer and do it again. Of course, you could try to convince the customer to bring it back in a month so you could sand out the run and repaint, but you can imagine how often that worked.

A properly applied enamel job is a thing of beauty, but a difficult learned skill.

I agree with Woody on what he says, like practice on something to see how the paint is laying down before going at your truck.
I also find its very helpful to provide enough light to see what your doing. Lights overhead do not always give you enough. I always put some light down low to reflect back and let me see how the paint is going on. I have lights mounted on the walls to help me see the sides of car or truck. It needs to go on wet, the hard part is seeing when its enough so curtains don't start showing up.

Glasman is right about the light... you can't have too much when you're painting.

sorry guys but I'm going to have to disagree with you. Enamel DRIES not CURES. Any paint that you don't have to add an ACTIVATOR to, DRIES. Epoxies, polyesters and eurathanes CURE. You must add an activator to get them to "set up". You don't have to add anything to enamel for it to DRY.

AND..... if you recoat it with in the recoat window, the eurathane clear will leach the solvent out of it. Just like clear coating a base coat. The adhesion is accomplished by a chemical bond.

Frank

Anything that was liquid and becomes a solid is said to be dry. You're splitting hairs over semantics.

Cure may not be the correct modern scientific term (excuuuuuse me) but enamel does not harden like lacquer or acrylic. If you leave enamel in an open can for a length of time it forms a skin as a result of a reaction to the atmosphere. That skin will gradually thicken and slow the hardening of the remaining liquid.

If it dried same as lacquer or acrylic. It would turn into a solid lump relatively fast.

Even in a layer as thin as a sprayed coat of paint this skinning occurs and therein lies the issue with applying additional coats over partially hardened enamel.

I'm not a scientist or a chemist and It's been 30 years since I painted a car so a lot may have changed, but enamel is still enamel and there may be a "recoat window" but the entire reason for painting with enamels is to apply it wet so it flows out to a smooth finish so you can get on with more important things like drinking beer and picking up chicks.

Either that or, if you lack the proper skills, put it on dry, let it harden, wetsand and polish.

It's paint, not rocket science.

mayby thats it i used an thinner thats an actvater i need to find the right thinner for this paint the stuff i used may have kicked the paint off to fast i will have to take the paint and mix with some defferent thinners to see if i can get one that works one time i used some laqure thinner and it smothed a paint job out that was going on grainy on an outboard cover thakes for the help ill do some testing befor it hits my truck i may just go get a gallon of omni iv hade good luck with that paint its a urethane real thin one part paint you have to put many coats on but it has a nice shine to it i want this truck to come out nice thanks guys!!!!!

Sounds like you need a little warmer temp to paint. Applying paint in too cold of a temp will do strange things. I have had good results by reducing the enamel more than recommended on the final coat.

Are you sure that the reducer and hardner are compatible with each other. In the past if in doubt I always spray and paint some type of test panel. I have found that not all hardners work well with all paaints. I have found that if they work against each other a grainy type effect will result.
I have always made it a practice to by all the paint, reducers, and hardners from the same source. The same name brand elimates risk of a less diserable finish and problems.
Also I have run into a problem when not using the right primer which tends to react to the paint.