SherKem Help Needed!

[theresabusinouryard]

We are hoping to paint Monday. We have already sanded/scuffed and removed all stickers and residue. Today is rinse, TSP wash, then rinse again. Then we will tape off when dry. We already bought our SherKem paint. My questions are:

1. How much per gallon do I thin with acetone?
2. What spray gun worked best for you guys?
3. How much drying time should we expect?

Any other SherKem tips for us?

And as always, thank you so much for all of your advice!!

XO

Carrie

[ol trunt]

Which specific paint are you using? Is it a metallic or solid color? Will you be using a hardener? Have you checked the mfg spec sheets regarding thinning?

An HVLP spray gun will give you the best material transfer (least over spray) but will require a high volume of air but at a lower pressure than a standard gun. My professional HVLP requires 9 cfm air at 60# pressure as an example.

Thinning with acetone works but since acetone evaporates VERY quickly, it's use can result in a dry nearly sandy finishes it doesn't keep the finish open long enough for the paint to flow out. The addition of a reducer like PCL brand medium universal exempt reducer 8050 to your acetone at a rate of about 1 : 10 reducer : acetone will greatly improve the flow out though it is possible to over do on the reducer which will promote runs.

Don't paint on Monday. Spend the day fine tuning both your spray techniques and paint mixing skills. Mix up small batches of paint writing down exactly what you did and practice spraying it on a smooth non porous surface. Good luck!
Jack

[veglorde]

You’ve painted by now, but thought I’d add in my experience for future painters.

Maybe we did something wrong, but the air sprayer we used wasn’t powerful enough for SherKem. Bummer as I’d already bought the paint, taped/covered windows and such, and wasn’t really looking to invest in a higher powered sprayer at the moment. Went on okay for a moment, and then the sprayer clogged, and the rest went on with a roller.

Rolling worked pretty well, even though it’s not recommended with SherKem as the stuff gets tacky and “dry” pretty quickly. It’s not a perfect paint job, and for touch ups/details I’ll have to thin out the paint a bit (it’s 30-40 degrees most days now, not recommended temps for using SherKem, that’s why rolling was kind of a rush job as the 60-something days were dissipating) because it’s quite thick after sitting in cold garages. Get really nice rollers if you go this route, I do have quite a few places where fuzz is apparent, and as much as I want to sand them off, I can’t repaint for a few months now... you get the gist.

This all said, rolling used less than 2 gallons of paint for my whole ~24” bus. Roof was already white so we taped off and left it.

Happy painting!

[rossvtaylor]

How did it go? Can you share your experience, now that you're (most likely!) done painting? We want to see!