Well, I hesitate to give anyone advice but I will say a few things:
1- This ain't rocket science
2- It's hard to do anything that can't be redone
3- Paint is somewhat expensive depending on color. Hardened Enamel is my preference because of fewer coats. (It's a LOT of work to haul a paint gun around an Imperial. 3-4 coats for hardened Enamel vs 6-7 for base clear) My paint guy says that Hardened Enamel IS Urethane. It's just cheaper. Don't know about the California thing but if the paint is too thick, reduce it some more. If you are getting splatters Bill something is wrong with the gun or paint. Total materials for Elijahs dark metallic blue 71 was about 500 bucks and that was for a gallon and a half of paint and a gallon of hardened primer. 6000/500=12 times you could sand off and redo and still come out ahead.
4- Color sanding is the key to home paint jobs. Unless you have a booth, you WILL have crap in the paint and even if you do, you will probably have orange peel and drips. Given that, I PLAN on color sanding and spray an extra coat. Metallics present a problem because if you sand through one layer it MAY look different because the orientation of the metallic particles is different depending on the direction and angle of the gun to the surface. I'm going to respray Elijah's hood someday because there are a couple spots that you can see we went into the second coat. It bothers me more than Elijah and most people can't even see it so it's not really a big deal.
5- Tools are cheaper than OPL (other people's labor). A good 5hp compressor (smallest I'd recommend) can be had for 500 bucks. Straight line sander, DA, Jitterbug sanders another 200 maybe or less. I have no complaint about my Hong Kong Fooee sanders. If I used them all day, every day, I'd go for the good stuff. I have 6 or so and make sure to put a couple drops of oil in them each day. Think I've had two fail in my life
6- PATIENCE and DESIRE are MUCH more important to quality than skill IMHO. Just keep working and sanding until it meets your requirements
7- Having someone else shoot the color is not a bad idea if you are very uncomfortable with it. It should not be that expensive to find a good body guy who will spray the car on his day off. Guy I know paints in his BACKYARD on weekends and gets AMAZING results. During the week he sprays at the local Nissan dealer. Skill and know how does make things quicker. Where I may apply filler or primer 5-6 times and sand 90% off, he can do it once or twice and get it dead on.
8- Finally, a word of wisdom I picked up on the metalshapers list: "Spend what you have. If you have money, spend money. If you have time, spend time."
Kerryp
Imperial59crown@xxxxxxx wrote:
If I were you Steve, and I'm pretty much in the same situation you are, and even have the same car, I would go ahead with the Earl Sheib paint job now just to spruce it up a little, and then go ahead with a better paint job when money permits. My Imperial cookie jar has also dried up, and I have a compressor and auto paint spray gun which I am pretty good at, but I've never shot a whole car before, but I think I could do it with very good results, and I've been toying with the idea of doing my Imperial. After all, it's only paint, and can always be redone if you don't like it. My problem is the paint itself. They have outlawed the use of lacquer in California, so you can't buy it anywhere, and all you can get now is urethane, which is supposed to be better, but is a nightmare to work with, not to mention extremely expensive, and with the hardener can cost around $100.00 a quart! I tried spraying a friends ground effects pieces for his Supra with disastrous results. The urethane is very thick, and must be mixed with a hardener which makes for a lot of waste, since you can't save any left over. It also cannot be thinned like lacquer, so if you spray it on lightly you get a horrible speckled paint job, and if you spray it on thicker so it is smooth and shiny it begins to run something awful. I hated it so much that I sent my parents to the paint store where they live in Arizona to get me a quart of lacquer for the Imperial, and one for the Nissan. If anyone out there has any tips for using urethane I would appreciate them. My '59 must have been rear ended at one point in the drivers side rear, since I can tell it has been repaired, and the gap in the trunk seam is wider on that side. The repair job is fair, but not up to my exacting standards, so this is something I would also have to deal with. Someone backed into my Nissan in a parking lot a few years ago putting a small dent just below the tail li ght, I have sanded, refilled, and painted it about three times already, and I am still not satisfied with the way it looks, so I will keep doing it till I get it right. The Nissan is black which is probably the hardest color to disguise body work with. Sorry for rattling on, but I had to get that urethane thing off my chest! Bill '59 Crown
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