Paint Forum

[Danjo]

Anyone know a good paint forum?

[Danjo]

Anyone?

If you don’t know of a good forum, do you have experience with PPG Delfleet Essentials?

[ol trunt]

The light color on my bus is Del Fleet. I used both the catalyst and the hardener in a non metallic color and after 5 years I have no complaints. I have hedged my bets by giving my bus a wax job twice a year and keeping it in my "bus barn" as much as possible. The finish is quite hard and seems to resist damage short of that caused by tailgating a gravel truck.

I've painted for years and use a high dollar HVLP spray gun. That said, my Del Fleet finish is as smooth as that on most new cars though not "show" quality by my standards.

Although I've not shot any Del Fleet metallic colors, I'd have to give the product high marks.
Jack

[Danjo]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

The light color on my bus is Del Fleet. I used both the catalyst and the hardener in a non metallic color and after 5 years I have no complaints. I have hedged my bets by giving my bus a wax job twice a year and keeping it in my "bus barn" as much as possible. The finish is quite hard and seems to resist damage short of that caused by tailgating a gravel truck.

I've painted for years and use a high dollar HVLP spray gun. That said, my Del Fleet finish is as smooth as that on most new cars though not "show" quality by my standards.

Although I've not shot any Del Fleet metallic colors, I'd have to give the product high marks.
Jack

I’m renting a professional fleet sized spray booth. I’m looking to prime with epoxy primer and paint in the same session because I need to travel to the booth and I only want to remove parts once. .

Documentation says I can prime and paint in the s and session. PPG tech support says I can. I’m looking for input on this. I don’t want to have a mess.

[ol trunt]

You'll be good to go. Leave yourself enough time to block sand the primer before you shoot the Del Fleet. Since the primer is catalytic once it is dry it is ready to go. I'd be interested as to your background spraying automotive paint as it is easy to really mess up the first several times. The good news is that it can always be re-sanded and shot again. The bad news is that it is expensive to do so.
Jack

[Danjo]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

You'll be good to go. Leave yourself enough time to block sand the primer before you shoot the Del Fleet. Since the primer is catalytic once it is dry it is ready to go. I'd be interested as to your background spraying automotive paint as it is easy to really mess up the first several times. The good news is that it can always be re-sanded and shot again. The bad news is that it is expensive to do so.
Jack

Thanks for your reply. I have only run an airless a few times on residential construction. So I’m a little apprehensive because I know the potential for a huge mess botch job that will take forever to sand down.

Spending a lot of time on YouTube University. I suppose I’ll know how good I am after the primer. If I have too many problems I’ll stop and plan for a second session a week later.

I’m using a compatible primer that says it’s a non-sanding primer unless it sits for more than 4 days and then it must be sanded.

I’m going to start prepping the surface a few weeks prior. There’s very little imperfection in the surface now. A little surface rust behind a hinge, some scratches I made while working on it. A few paint chips.

I reserved the booth for six hours and I have the entire day prior for trim removal, final touch up sanding, cleaning and masking.

[PNW_Steve]

Danjo,

I am curious as to where you are and what the cost is to rent a paint booth that size?

I am dreading painting in my driveway. I have a dirt road 80' from where the bus is parked that generates lots of dust.

[Danjo]

Originally Posted by PNW_Steve

Danjo,

I am curious as to where you are and what the cost is to rent a paint booth that size?

I am dreading painting in my driveway. I have a dirt road 80' from where the bus is parked that generates lots of dust.

East L.A. the place is called OEM. The booth is 13’ 10” at the door and 35’ long. It’s $200 for a 3 hour window. Kind of pricey, but I want to try for the best paint I can do.

They are really nice and have taken a lot of time answering my questions.

https://oem-auto-paint-spray-booth-r....business.site

I thought about doing it in the driveway, but I’m trying to stay on the landlady’s good side.

[Danjo]

Originally Posted by PNW_Steve

Danjo,

I am curious as to where you are and what the cost is to rent a paint booth that size?

I am dreading painting in my driveway. I have a dirt road 80' from where the bus is parked that generates lots of dust.

I’d be watering that road. The docs for the Delfleet paint say it’s dust safe in an hour. While watching paint videos I came across one that talked about painting in hotter climates and mentioned painting in the middle of the night. There’s the added benefit of less bugs, maybe lighter wind (I’m guessing where you are is windy based on my experience with Ellensburg). If you could get good lighting maybe that’s an option.

[ol trunt]

What spray equipment do you plan to use?
Jack

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by Danjo

East L.A. the place is called OEM. The booth is 13’ 10” at the door and 35’ long. It’s $200 for a 3 hour window. Kind of pricey, but I want to try for the best paint I can do.

They are really nice and have taken a lot of time answering my questions.

https://oem-auto-paint-spray-booth-r....business.site

I thought about doing it in the driveway, but I’m trying to stay on the landlady’s good side.

The price sounds good. The location is a bit far but manageable. Unfortunately my bus is too long.....

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by Danjo

I’d be watering that road. The docs for the Delfleet paint say it’s dust safe in an hour. While watching paint videos I came across one that talked about painting in hotter climates and mentioned painting in the middle of the night. There’s the added benefit of less bugs, maybe lighter wind (I’m guessing where you are is windy based on my experience with Ellensburg). If you could get good lighting maybe that’s an option.

I have 200' of garden hose and a sprinkler ready for the job.

I figure that if I give it a good soaking early in the morning and start painting as soon as it gets light enough that I stand a fair chance of keeping most of the dust out of my paint.

Op: autobody101.com/forums/

[family wagon]

I'm just wrapping up a paint job using Sherwin Williams G2 automotive paint with an epoxy primer. I have a detached garage which the bus fits into, but it's arranged in such a way that I have room to access only about 2/3 of one side of the bus at a time. I've hung plastic sheeting from the roof deck to the floor to protect the tools/storage side of the room from overspray.


There are several colors in my paint job: metallic turquoise below the rub rail, metallic silver above the rub rail, white on the roof, and black accent on the rub rail and drip edge. (Mine is a Blue Bird commercial series and doesn't have 'eyebrows' over the windows; it has a separate extruded aluminum bit for drip edge instead.)


I back up the bus so it hangs halfway out of the shop, tack off the part that's in the painting zone, spray it, then move it fully into the shop and repeat to finish out that side. Usually it took most of two hours to do each coat on each quarter of the bus ('quarter' meaning full length and half height on one side).


Things I learned:

• Don't paint when the surface is warm. Even parked in the shade of the shop, when it's in the high 90's F outside the bus metal can easily be 95 F too. I couldn't paint in the morning because the shop door faces east and half an hour after dawn I'd have sun shining down on the bus. I couldn't paint in late morning through early evening because there's so much heat radiating down from the roof deck heat-soaking me and the bus (and because I have to go to work 5 days a week). Thus most painting sessions this summer happened between 7-11 pm.
• Painting around dusk was slightly problematic because of insects. Even when the bus was fully into the shop I'd leave the overhead door open for ventilation. Insects would fly in and, even though with an accelerator the paint could be hand slick in as little as 10 minutes, they'd sometimes land in a wet spot. There are a couple of 'organic inclusions,' ie insect feet, in my paint.

[Danjo]

Originally Posted by ol trunt

What spray equipment do you plan to use?
Jack

Im renting a spray gun from them. It’s a euro 5200 with a 1.4 tip.

[family wagon]

The side metal on my bus is all new, but I kept the original roof metal. Its paint was peeling something awful, though, so I knew I couldn't re-paint over the top. It had to be stripped to bare metal, and I chose to do that by media blasting. But the cost of media adds up if it's lost in the wind and I built an enclosure out on the driveway to contain the media so I could collect and re-use it.


The enclosure consisted of scaffolding on one side of the bus, a home-built 2x4 structure on the other side, and a curtain of tarps suspended from these. (Costco sells a 2-pack of nice 16x12 tarps; I think it was US$20.) I imagine a similar enclosure could work for painting a bus outdoors. Even if the entire bus doesn't fit, one could paint the bus in sections using body lines such as sheet metal joints to hide the boundaries in the paint.

[crazycal]

Originally Posted by family wagon

The side metal on my bus is all new, but I kept the original roof metal. Its paint was peeling something awful, though, so I knew I couldn't re-paint over the top. It had to be stripped to bare metal, and I chose to do that by media blasting. But the cost of media adds up if it's lost in the wind and I built an enclosure out on the driveway to contain the media so I could collect and re-use it.
Attachment 37616

The enclosure consisted of scaffolding on one side of the bus, a home-built 2x4 structure on the other side, and a curtain of tarps suspended from these. (Costco sells a 2-pack of nice 16x12 tarps; I think it was US$20.) I imagine a similar enclosure could work for painting a bus outdoors. Even if the entire bus doesn't fit, one could paint the bus in sections using body lines such as sheet metal joints to hide the boundaries in the paint.

I have questions about the media blasting. What kind of media did you use? How much material did you have to buy? Were you happy with the results? Did you take the paint all the way down to the bare metal?

[Sleddgracer]

Originally Posted by Danjo

Thanks for your reply. I have only run an airless a few times on residential construction. So I’m a little apprehensive because I know the potential for a huge mess botch job that will take forever to sand down.

Spending a lot of time on YouTube University. I suppose I’ll know how good I am after the primer. If I have too many problems I’ll stop and plan for a second session a week later.

I’m using a compatible primer that says it’s a non-sanding primer unless it sits for more than 4 days and then it must be sanded.

I’m going to start prepping the surface a few weeks prior. There’s very little imperfection in the surface now. A little surface rust behind a hinge, some scratches I made while working on it. A few paint chips.

I reserved the booth for six hours and I have the entire day prior for trim removal, final touch up sanding, cleaning and masking.

if you are looking for a good finish, I'd advise a carefully done light sanding of the primer and at least blow it off well before applying the finish coat - those little specs of dust that blew onto the primer become cloth grabbing needles when sprayed with the finish coat if they aren't sanded

[family wagon]

Originally Posted by crazycal

I have questions about the media blasting. What kind of media did you use? How much material did you have to buy? Were you happy with the results? Did you take the paint all the way down to the bare metal?

I started with Green Diamond 30/60. I went to buy more of it and mentioned to the guy at the shop that I wished I were getting less surface profile and faster production. He steered me to garnet, 80 grit or mesh or whatever. Said it cuts faster and lasts longer. It comes in 55 pound bags; one supplier charged me about US$18 and another charged US$23 per bag.

I bought three bags of garnet. I swept up the used media, sifted it through a mesh grinding face shield from Harbor Freight, and ran it through the blaster again. And again. I lost track -- I must have recycled that media 20 times to do about 34 feet of roof. I'm glad I didn't spend over $1000 to use the media just once or twice, but in hind sight maybe I should have bought at least one or two more bags! A couple times I poured the media in front of a fan to blow away the fines of paint dust and broken-down media. Now that it's all done I have probably 1/3 left of the media I began with.

Results are great; I felt like it gave a good profile for the paint to stick to but the paint easily smoothed the surface. I did go to bare metal. It was hard not to - the outermost coating peeled away slowly, but when it was gone the primer or whatever was behind it vanished almost instantly. Media blasting doesn't leave a feathered edge, either, so in the few spots where I blasted just part of a panel it took sanding, a couple coats of primer, and more sanding to make the transition disappear.

Blasting stripped the paint very nicely in the dimple around the rivets. Probably the relatively small size of the 80 garnet helped here.

One thing I wished I'd done was to retire sooner (or never buy) the Harbor Freight 110 pound blasting pot. The hose, the dead man valve, the nozzle... all very low-grade junk. The media literally ate a hole through the side of the media control valve and the fitting to the hose. It also ate a little hole through the end of the rubber hose every 15 minutes. I had used it a couple times previously but not much. I'll guess it survived a total of 10 hours of use, maybe? Probably less.

I was very pleased with a blast gun I got from my media supplier made by Trinco. It's just a suction gun, but it still outperformed the HF pressure pot. The gun body, air jet, and blast nozzle were sold separately but all together came to US$100 (yes, cheaper than the HF pot). I picked a nozzle and air jet for 45 CFM and ran it off a towable compressor. They also had options to as low as 12 CFM, I think. It ran a whole lot more than the HF equipment did and I can't even see any wear on the nozzle yet.

[crazycal]

Thank you family wagon your thorough reply. Do you know anything about Walnut media?

[family wagon]

No, I don't have any experience with walnut shell media.