$50 paint job

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I saw the light! :eek:

The expensive Cyclo polisher (link below) is a twin-head machine, "to duplicate circulating hand movement".

http://www.cyclotoolmakers.com/products/prodcomp.html

Since that whole thread at the Moparts site (RickWrench's $50 paint job link.) is about experimentation, I said to myself, "Self!, why not see what you can do with that old Hoover twin-head floor polisher!"

I'll dig around for a rheostat (speed control) and I get still get the bonnets at my local Appliance repair shops. My mom had one brand with 3 heads, which I think was by Electrolux or Bissell.

These new car polishers got their roots from somewhere, and to me they lack the natural weight required to "Put the Stuff to it!", plus the big diameter machines don't have the amperage to deal with the pressure needed to handle the 'Orange Peel' issues that we'd get with this roller process. I remember waxing my mom's floors on my hands and knees, with my dad's old T-shirts, until we got the big polisher. Man, when you're 7 years old, those old farm kitchens look like a football field!

Anyway, the Hoover twin-head has 2 5-inch heads (lots of bonnets available, and they snap on and off (no wrenches required), :idea: plus when I'm done I can just reattach the long handle and use it elsewhere again.

I often go to the thrift stores looking for older woodworking tools, and there's always some of the old polishers and brushes around. The pads and bonnets and wool pad bonnet cleaning tools are available anywhere, and I'll bet a lighting rheostat would work just fine.
 
I found the old beast. It's a General Electric Model CS11 A. The 'discs' are made of 5/8 plywood. The snap on bracket has a central metal snap (like for jackets or motor-cycle side bags, and the snap bracket is about a 13/16" hex-nut sized bracket that slips over the hex-shaped 'nut mount' That bracket uses wood screws to mount on the plywood 5" diameter disc.

That means that I can fabricate my own discs to use any foam or wool pads, with or without velcro. And it weighs about 7 pounds! That Cyclo machine (not the gold-plated $375.00 (USD$) unit) costs about $600.00 here in Canada with duty, shipping and taxes. It will even clean hockey rink boards!

This GE unit is about 11" from Disc to Disc edge, and 12" full width. No matter which machine I buy I have to buy pads and bonnets.

The Cyclo runs at 220 watts (AKA 2 amps), and this old beast runs at 3 amps. (330 watts). :D
 
I have a question for all of the people here that have tryed this way of painting or have read deeply into the mopar forum. I have read almost up to page 55 but I forget if I read anything about tinting paint.

Do you think it would be possible to have home depot tint gloss white
rustoleum to be any color you wanted? and still have it turn out good.
 
Regarding hardware store paint tinting:

Paint is coloured from a "base" colour. For cours made off a white base, darker tints are from a "deep base" which has less opaquing white in to begin with. Pastels are tinted from "vivid white" which is quite a bright, solid white. There's often a medium base for inbetween hues.

Also some colours exist as bases otherwise - green and red are two common ones. They are "pure" in colour, being made with only one pigment. It's thus easier to steer them into a related colour.

An excess of tinter generally means the paint stays softer for longer - sometimes far too long.

Auto paint is much more convoluted!
 
Well basicly I am not going to mix the paint from several colors of rustoleum, not because I am lazy just because I am afraid that getting the exact color that I want in a large quantity would be way to hard to mix. I have posted on the mopar forum asking the same thing and they said that HomeDepot and Lowes stoped mixing rustoleum anyways. This is a big disapointment and now my car is problably going to be delayed more.
 
In the US? Any of your favourite home renovation stores. Lowes, HD, Ace, Kelly Moore. A lot of guys in California said that Kelly Moore was the place.
 
Pics of the Corvair's roll-on Rustoleum paint job after 4 months on the street, in the sun, rain, and getting crapped upon daily by birds. I washed the leaves, dirt, and scrubbed bird poop off this morning, drove it around most of the day, took some paint pics when I got home this evening.

4moslater1.jpg


4moslater2.jpg


I can't tell -any- difference between the paint's gloss today and 4 months ago. I still haven't gotten around to waxing it.

Rick(wrench)
 
Hey Rick,
nice work. I'm definitely looking at trying this method on my old Falcon, though I have to decide on the Australian version of Rustoleum, most likely a product called RustKill! (Brightside, although it can be sourced in Oz, isn't readily available to me) Just a quick couple of questions, how far did you go with the panel prep? The consensus of the mopar board seemed to be that prep was 80-90% of the results, and the paint took care of the rest. Did you bare metal many (any) of your panels and build up from there? Also, you said you rolled on primer first, though others on the mopar forum didn't think it necessary, but do you think it has helped achieve the results you've seen in your own car?

Regards,

Teddy :)
 
I rolled on a coat of primer after all the bodywork was done. Primer is the last step of the body work, filling scratches, tiny pits, etc. Then, like the skim coats on the patch panels, it is sanded mostly of it off. You could paint without a primer coat, but you'll then need a couple extra coats to fill any scratches or dings.
I went down to bare metal in a few spots (door dings), but for the most part I only went down to the original factory primer. Any bare metal was covered with primer though. Having the car one color, primer gray, helps with paint coverage too.
Rick(wrench)
 
You absolutely can tint rustoleum with typical enamel tints. I used to sell paint at a hardware store and did it all the time.

You just have to find a paint guy at a local place who is cool enough to do it for you.

This may be premature, because I have not read through the mopar thread - but... what is the opinion regarding spraying on thinned rustoleum? This might be the solution I am looking for.
 
I read all the first 43 and next 62 pages, and downloaded the entire thread and photos into over 95 megs of Word 2000. A few guys came into the thread with your approach and did OK, but the problem was pointed out that the Rattle Can approach contains more thinners (like 10 percent paint to 90 thinners. The guys who sprayed it were using more paint, but they adjusted it for their climate (temperature, humidity, etc.). Most commented that they got decent jobs but couldn't achieve the final mirror finish that the Roll-On guys were.

Hope that helps.
 
Ian, the HLVP guys just adjusted the mix accordingly (humidity. temperature). I think the roller mix was 30% thinners. IIRC the HLVP mix was 50-50, but some mixed in more thinners to lay the paint down flatter, more quickly. The dry time is about the same - 12 to 18 hours. The one problem was dealing with the bubbles if there wasn't enough thinners, but at 50-50 they should dissolve quickly. Usually the bubbles flatten out within 2 to 5 seconds, if the mixture is thin enough with a roller. The remaining ones were blown down with a quick puff of air (breath). With a spray gun, I'd guess that a thinner mixture would handle it.
 
I've been keeping up with that thread for almost a year, the sprayed results seemed more impressive than most rollers (exceptions of course). Have to take into account their prep work and availability of a place to shoot.
 
Ian, it took me about 4 days. My earlier posts my help you cut to the chase. The very first 10 pages have a lot of pro and con sidetracks on Spraying vs rollering, then it gets into a good technical dialogue on rollering. Later in the next section (page 44 and beyond) there's a less heated dialogue over spraying do's nad don'ts. As you get closer to page 59 in the second section, people are talking about polishers and buffing pastes and more shine and refining tips. Well worth the effort.

You say, "It took you 4 days?!" I read it between some of the ads during some good movies, but it reminds me of a joke:

A mother is writing to her son, soldiering on the front, and she says, "My Dear son, I'm writing slow, because I know you don't read too fast." Love Mom

Going through that thread can be gruesome at times, but the tips and counterpoints are great! 69Charger was awesome, tenacious, and persistent. A couple of others were loyal to the effort and went through their trials and tribulations, doubts and affirmations. Its a journey in human drama. I loved it. So many guys working so hard to prove an idea! Outstanding!
 
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