Painting How To's

[Kevin in NJ]

I am poking around You tube in order to improve my spraying (I am horrible at spraying paint) and found this:

SATA Tutorials

SATA has put some tutorials on how to paint. What caught my eye was running the fan and material at wide open. Then you have to move the gun fast.

If anyone knows of more good videos of how to paint please post a link. The SATA ones are for BC/CC and I am curious if SS paints need to be handled much different then the top coat.

I have been correcting one issue I have had with not enough light to see the paint lay down.

 

[PetesPonies]

Kevin, SATA guns are fast painting guns. Most people run any spray gun wide open, but they don't paint as fast as a SATA. You also will need a bit more experience to take advantage of a SATA IMO.

 

[stainless steve]

once your air pressure is set correctly pull the trigger back and set your fluid knob(the big one)were you feel the trigger hitting it at wide open,give it one more turn in , now set your fan (smaller knob) to achive a 12 inch fan(now that fan has to be straight up and down no curveing )which would mean you have a dirty aircap this is how I set up my binks guns been painting over 30 years the rest is done with drying speed of solvents ,distance from work 10-12 inches and lots of practice.I like to paint fast with a medium speed solvent,but thats just me .

 

[Curt Campbell]

Painting is quite an art. Been painting cars since I was....well....VERY young. (50 yrs). After years of using Binks, Devillbis, SATA, Sharpe, and several others using compressed air I cannot recall the names of, I recently became interested in and bought a turbine HVLP system. I have to admit I was pretty apprehensive about it. (I kept all the boxes and packing expecting to perhaps return it within the 30 day trial period ) There is a learning curve to spraying with it...but I am very happy with it. It uses about 50% as much material and my overspray is reduced by probably 70 to 80%. Last week I bought a pint of red Dupont Chromabase...it was $104!!! For a small shop like mine, its perfect. It does an amazing job and I doubt I ever go back to what I used previously. The guns are very well made and it is all reasonably priced

So, its been a nice change and an experience to learn something totally new. There are lots of painting demos on YouTube...most of which are not very good. Mainly it takes PATIENCE, great lighting, and an understanding of all the different kinds of paint and their activator speeds, reducers, and etc. One might consider taking a few autobody classes at a local junior college....excellent way to get some experience and professional instruction.....and is usually very reasonable.

Good luck Kevin...I know you will do a bang up job considering how knowledgeable you are of other aspects of body work. Remember, the most important part of auto body painting is protecting your lungs and nervous system. Only use fresh air supplied respiration systems.

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

One or two other thoughts regarding the method by which the "Youtuber" sprayed. The two things I feel that gets most novice painters into trouble is;
a) nerves are running rampant -which IMO things need to be slow & calm,
b) moving a gun like that will cause the painter's arm to prematurely fatigue causing lack of gun control during the final coat application.

Secondly, it does not take a SATA (--or like) to paint a fine-point car in single-stage urethane. For all intents & purposes, someone can use a nylon bristle brush and achieve the same results. Where the difference will be found is the brush will use WAY more paint materials, and the color-sanding process will take WAY longer. In a shop environment where time is money, it is a value advantage to the customer's pocketbook if the shop uses high-end spray guns. Another thing to consider is the slower the solvents, the more flow-out that can happen. Slower solvents also cause runs, ...so positioning pieces where they can be sprayed flat allows for better flow-out which saves time in post-paint sanding. This is why I always recommend that a vehicle be sprayed over multiple days. Build a small plastic spray booth and then place the piece in the booth at night and wipe it down. The next morning when your physical body is it's freshest, your clothes are their cleanest, and all surroundings are the calmest, spray the piece before going to work/play. Start with smaller pieces each day to larger pieces and by the time the windshield frame, hood, tank, doors, rumble/deck lid, etc. are sprayed, then you are physically ready for the body shell.

 

[Ross/Kzoo]

Painting is quite an art. Been painting cars since I was....well....VERY young. (50 yrs). After years of using Binks, Devillbis, SATA, Sharpe, and several others using compressed air I cannot recall the names of, I recently became interested in and bought a turbine HVLP system. I have to admit I was pretty apprehensive about it. (I kept all the boxes and packing expecting to perhaps return it within the 30 day trial period ) There is a learning curve to spraying with it...but I am very happy with it. It uses about 50% as much material and my overspray is reduced by probably 70 to 80%. Last week I bought a pint of red Dupont Chromabase...it was $104!!! For a small shop like mine, its perfect. It does an amazing job and I doubt I ever go back to what I used previously. The guns are very well made and it is all reasonably priced

So, its been a nice change and an experience to learn something totally new. There are lots of painting demos on YouTube...most of which are not very good. Mainly it takes PATIENCE, great lighting, and an understanding of all the different kinds of paint and their activator speeds, reducers, and etc. One might consider taking a few autobody classes at a local junior college....excellent way to get some experience and professional instruction.....and is usually very reasonable.

Good luck Kevin...I know you will do a bang up job considering how knowledgeable you are of other aspects of body work. Remember, the most important part of auto body painting is protecting your lungs and nervous system. Only use fresh air supplied respiration systems.

Curt, how much do you have in the turbine HVLP system?

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

I also tried a turbine unit however unfortuantely my results were not as spectacular as Curt's. Mine was the TiP version.

I guess the main reason one should consider a turbine unit is the 'quantity & quality' of air. Where these turbine units shine is when the regular shop compressor is lacking in volume, or is contaminating the air supply.

 

[Kevin in NJ]

The realities of doing a restoration.

The tough part of painting is when you are limited in time.
My hobby time is secondary to family so the time I get is when the kids are in bed and I do not have other stuff to be done. Painting is also limited by conditions since temp is important. So the idea of being able to sequence the parts and move through painting a bunch of parts in a row just is not possible. Plus you run into the problem that you really can not have a part sanded ready to paint and put it in storage if you do not have that type of room. To many chances for the surface to be messed up. So you have to prep and paint. Not so easy. To be honest the best thing I have done was set up a powder coat system. That lets me do great coatings whenever I need.

I did my last big part, the top of my left fender. I did the painting in less than ideal temp conditions, it was 52 in my garage. I used 60 degree reducer with Concept paint. I know at 70 degrees the Concept gets hard as a rock in 24 hours or so. At 60 it takes 3 days. I will wait a bit longer for this paint to harden. This was likely to be my last day of over 50 in my garage for a couple of months so I painted with the hour of free time I had left for the day.

Previously I had been using my Devilbiss bumper gun. It turns out that I was having problems with to dry a paint from too much air along with the small (1mm) tip. That coupled with very dry air. I did not realize I need to turn down the pressure at the gun. I had it set at the recommended pressure. This time I used the Devilbiss Plus gun I bought used and cheap. I lucked out with a local kid at a body shop looking for cash to pay for the $500 gun he bought. The plus moves paint a lot faster. I did much better with some orange peel on the area heading down to the running board. I am going to color sand anyway as I have too much dirt in my garage.

The video I linked to for a few reasons. First off it is produced by the manufacturer. There are a bunch of homemade videos that have 'interesting' qualities. This was professionally made.
What I learned from the videos was about the painting process. I changed how much material I allow to come out of the gun, as I was not opening the needle enough. I also learned to overlap a lot more. That was what impressed me was the high rate of overlap. So I changed to moving faster, no not as fast as that guy, and doing more overlap. That really seemed to do the trick as I have much less orange peel now.
Last night I used the Plus gun for the first time. I was hesitant because the fender I thought was small and the bumper gun seemed more appropriate. I really liked how the gun put down the paint. Previously, my big gun was the first generation Devilbiss HVLP Finishline gun. It does good, but I could see a difference with the Plus gun. I can see how an experienced painter can make any gun work, but I also can see how a good gun makes the job easier.

The next big piece I need to paint is the radiator splash apron and that can not happen until spring. I need to spray epoxy and that must be done over 60 degrees.

With the fender out of the way I need to move onto stuff that needs money to move along. Stuff like glass, engine and interior. Anyone have an interior and top for a 68C that they will sell me cheap?

 

[Curt Campbell]

The entire system including a gravity feed gun with 1.0 tip and suction feed primer gun with 1.8 tip was $649 from TP Tools in Ohio. I have bought lots of stuff from them. Just ordered a big blast cabinet from them today.

 

[Curt Campbell]

After my first try at using the turbine system I wanted to pack it up and send it back. I was TOTALLY disappointed. I was mixing paint and spraying as I had with compressed air systems. It didnt work. The paint was terrible....in all ways. However, I contacted the company and a fellow who does show cars and only uses this system. Their help was great. What I learned is a system that uses clean, low pressure WARM air caused me to change all my traditional thinking about just about everything. I now use the hottest activators and reducers...sometimes mixed with mid-temp ones depending on the situation. Due to the warm air spray, I found that reducing the base and sealers by between 10 and 20% and using the hottest additives really did the trick....even in a 60-70 degree shop or an 85 degree shop. The base goes on perfectly smooth with absolutely no metallic moddeling (sp?) whatsoever....no matter how I sprayed it. I use both Dupont and Matrix clears. Using the hottest activator and urethane reducers in the clears worked like a charm. The paint flows out exceptionallly smooth before it sets up. I reduced the clear an additional 15-20% as well. The actual spraying has a learning curve...but with some practice it now works great. The base and clear initially stays a little wetter and flows out nicely but ends up flashing off in the same amount of time as traditional. I had similar experience with the different primers, my first try at those was bad too...until I mixed the paint correctly. The Matrix 42 clear seems to work the best but the Dupont ones are fine too.

I have had no problems with runs or sags despite using slower activators and reducers. The first coat is medium wet followed by wet coats with 15 minute flash times.

I use probably 50% of the paint I used to with the same amount of paint going on the car and not on the floor and out the exhaust fan. My shop is a small 28 x 30 with a clean room for my compressor, furnace and tools. I use a turbine fresh air supplied respirator system (full vinyl hood). I am able to run the turbines in the clean room with separate power switches in the shop. The air supply for the turbines and furnace are from the outside when painting, does not use shop air. Overspray is reduced incredibly. I can spray several panels or half the car (i seldom do total paint jobs) and only turn on my fan when done with each coat waiting for it to flash. There is virtually no overspray in the air.

This system is clearly not for everyone. For me it meets my needs perfectly and gives me what I expect:

1. Reduced material expense.
2. Low overspray, which is important in a do-it-all one room shop like mine.
3. Same show quality defect and orange peel free paint that I am known for.

Dont expect to take a system like this out of the box and get immediate results you like....it probably wont happen. There is a significant learning curve, especially for old fart painters like me. I can still use my original system if I wish or if the need arises. If I had a professional spray booth and etc. I may not have tried a different system. I dont have that luxury.

Here is an older Honda civic I just reworked for a good friend. I used the turbine system. I only had to lightly color sand the clear with 1500 DA and then 3000 soft pad.

PS: Protect your health.

 

[glenn in camino]

I like painting because it's soooo challenging. I'm better at fixing my mistakes than I am at spraying. I'm best at touchup, color sanding and buffing. Unbelieveably, I won the Ditzler best paint award many years ago,1978 at the MARC national in Dearborn. The car was my all black 29 coupe with no tire on a perfect spare wheel. I still have that coupe.

 

[Curt Campbell]

Thats cool Glenn!!

 

[tbirdtbird]

Yes you need a ton of light to paint, florescent preferably it shows what you are doing way better than incandescent. A fluid tip of 1.0 for color or clear is kinda small, you want 1.2 or 1.3. Primer, more like 1.6. Yes match your reducer temp to your conditions as best you can. If your ambient temp is under your reducer temp then allow more flash time. I can shoot at 40*F with 60* reducer but I double the flash time. Shooting SS is no different than shooting clear. Shoot base with 1.2-1.3 also. You can shoot at 40 or 60 but you will get very little crosslinking (curing) at those temps, you need at least 70 degrees for that chemical reaction to have a prayer. If you read the specs on SS and clear they call for baking at 140*. Well who has that unless you are a collision shop with a pro booth. I have an unheated booth. Usually no problem in Texas, but after a recent shoot at 40* ambient, after a sufficient flash of the final clear coat, I light off a propane heater for at least 12 hrs, get the booth to 80-90, and let the curing begin. And while some ppl are time limited, under no circumstances can painting be rushed. In fact as you all have found out it takes longer to paint any given job that you plan for.

If temps are a problem, get your parts and pieces into 2K primer at anything over 40 degrees and walk away from them. 2K flashes and cures more easily than color. Later in the spring when temps are higher you can color shoot.

Orange peel, while somewhat inevitable, can be lessened by : 1) increasing air pressure (I run 100 psi to the gun and adjust the gun from there). 2) making sure the paint is not too thick. 2K primer may not call for reducer but you can add as needed. It usually takes very little to get the paint more fluid. Same for clear. Basecoat is already 50% reducer so never a problem there and the stuff flashes fast no matter the temp. Remember if you base something your window to clearcoat is 24 hrs.

You don't always need full fan but you should usually try for 6-8 inches for smaller panels, full fan for larger panels. Overlap is standard at 50% always. Your gun should be 6-8 inches away from the panel to get a wet looking coat. In order to not run it, you move fast.

You keep your orange peel as little as possible, then the real results come from color sanding and buffing, a topic way too long for this thread.

 

[Curt Campbell]

Agree with you TBird for compressor fed painting. As a side note, I was in Colleyville for a wedding last June....at the Romanian Orthodox Church. A cool experience....

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Curt, let me say that I am happy you have found a system that works because confidence is key to being sucessful in anything we do. You have found a way to make that system work for you when I couldn't. In all fairness, I probably took the attitude that it was a fad because they were the only ones trying to market that type of system. Again, I'm glad it has worked well for you.

I am however intrigued by a couple of things that you said. I believe what you said was a system that used "clean, low pressure warm air ...." and this got me thinking in comparison to what we are using now vs. that type system. Both of our systems are creating clean air (mine was checked a few years ago by PPG and it was less than 3 PPM of contamination). Yours produces low pressure but uses a great volume of air. Our 'high-end' guns use high pressure as this is the method by which the paint is "busted up" (atomized) into much finer particles. Some might not see the value in this but it is like filling one 6" deep box full of golf balls, and one 6" deep box full of BBs. I think most of us would agree how the surface of the box of BBs will be much flatter. The same applies with paint application. We generally can apply less coats with paint that is finely atomized which saves on materials costs, ...and saves on color-sanding (labor) costs too. Therefore I guess what I am having difficulty understanding is what the low pressure or warm air is doing to actually create a benefit.

Let me start by saying we are a PPG certified shop and give lifetime warranties on our paint which PPG backs us on, ...so I guess you could say we have had many discussions with their reps & engineers over the years. One other thing that we have been instructed/cautioned about is rapid curing of paint. IMO based on what you say you are doing with using a hot weather activator is setting yourself up for problems down the road. If 2k paint is cured like you are saying, the rapid cure at the end of the cycle can actually make the paint more brittle, and it compromises the chemical bonding. As I think about this even more, you have warmed the paint by the tubine air to a temperature hotter than the surface (sheetmetal parts) that it will be attached to, and then when air is drawn over the surface to remove the solvents (in the spray booth), the paint is being cooled even more yet at the end when the paint temps rise during rapid catalyzation, isn't the paint trying to expand more than the sheetmetal?

Again, I am not saying your method is wrong, but it does go against advice we have received from PPG and from DuPont so this method kinda concerns me for us trying it.

 

[willobs]

I live in Florida very humid. I have used the turbin HVLP for years sure cut down on moisture in the finish

 

[PetesPonies]

I'm not a fan as well, turbines are not the "bomb" IMO. I wonder ,Curt, with all the guns you have used, if some high quality HVLP guns were used? I don't find that a turbine uses less materials than a quality HVLP. A HVLP uses a considerably less amount of materials than a conventional pressure gun. I also would not suggest someone go and pay $600 for a turbine setup. There is just too many other things a person should learn/deal with/get experience with, in regards to painting, that will have a more important effect on their painting and it will not cost $600 to do so.

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

One other thing that got me to thinking, it may be the different type products that makes the difference. It appears that the majority of what you are spraying is BC/CC where the majority (-but not all the time ) of what we are spraying is PPG single-stage urethane.

I also did see that you are using Matrix, and while we did test it a little when the rep from Ohio came to the shop, what we found is that it did not have the depth (pigment quality) nor did the surface "shell up" like DCC did. If this is the same with what you encounder, I can see where the 'rapid curing' could make the paint a little more brittle where this might seem like an advantage when it comes to color-sanding and buffing afterwards. Therefore it may be the product usage that each of us use that makes the difference between the turbine and the HVLP??

.

Ohh BTW, ...above I said the majority of the time we use single-stage urethane but not always, below are a few examples when we do use BC/CC because of the metallics in the paint yet we are still wanting to cut and buff it too. (Yeah I know this is a Model-A forum, and yes we are predominately known for Model-A's, however from time-to-time we do find ourselves restoring other marques of cars for customers who have Model-As too. )

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[PetesPonies]

however from time-to-time we do find ourselves restoring other marques of cars for customers

exactly how I found a '69 Firebird in my shop at this time

 

[Logan]

Pretty interesting videos. Not to sound cocky but yes i can paint, and im fairly decent at it. And i never ever took a class or even looked at instructions on how to paint when i first started. I think the best way for people to learn is by watching paint get sprayed in person. I worked at a body shop a year and a half ago for a summer helping restore a A400, and while i was there whenever peices got sprayed or we were working on another customers car i would occasionally step into the booth and just watch. Then when i went back to work there this past summer when i moved back to fort worth, the first day back on the job i walked in and my boss handed me a gun and said "go paint that infinity hood". I was kind of shocked but i went ahead and went in there and sprayed it.

I asked him later "why did you let me spray the infinity hood?" and his reply was "You're gonna have to learn how to do it sooner or later, and you just have to start figuring out what spraying techniques work for you how you want to spray".

I'm telling this story because in my opinion, theres no clear cut right and wrong way to lay down paint, as long as you get a even coat over the whole surface. most imperfections can be sanded and buffed out, if not the worst that happens is you fix that one little area. You can only learn so much from watching youtube videos, and online tutorials. If you want to paint, get out in the garage, put a mask on, and start spraying pieces.


This is my comment on SATA guns, theyre what I spray with at work and I do like them, theyre just incredibly expensive.