Painting with a spray gun...first time..

[electric]

Long day of painting. Finishing Primer, sanding, orange paint, inter coat clear, tape off, purple paint, tape off, black paint, clear paint. I will put how the day went tomorrow, just decided to post a few pics. When I get it in the sun light you will really see how it looks The orange metallic is really bright nice. Still may pinstripe it to give it some more pop.

Yep that table will still look like this picture in the morning. I was very neat up to the last few colors and the clear..chuckle..

The two things I enjoy most in the process is when you put that first layer of base coat down and see how nice the paint color looks. The second is when you finally get to the point to shoot the clear coat.

[brobinson]

Looking great

[electric]

Thanks Bill. So now that I had a nights sleep I will comment on yesterday's painting. Sorry for not taking many pictures, but once you start going with the paint there is very little time that you are not busy cleaning and mixing the next round of paint. I did have one thing go wrong yesterday, I painted the hatch with the base color (Orange) and then put in the clear Intercoat. At this point I had to tape off everything to apply the purple color. After putting down the purple and then the black I had to remove all the tape to put the clear down. As I did this there was one spot on the hatch where the clear came up (about the size of a nickle). The orange was still there, but very distorted(metal flakes bunched up). I sanded lightly with 1000 grit to smooth it and after some thought, I just touched it up the best I could with the orange paint and a small painters brush and went to the clear. Had that not happened it would have been a "perfect" job.

My question is why did that happen and is it common? I was using that blue 3m painters tape for the big areas where I needed to attach sheets of paper to mask everthing off. Wrong tape? The pinstriping tape I used to mark my edges off worked fine. I did have some others areas where the "shine" came up, but those just took a light scuff of 1000 grit and with the clear coat it all looks good.

The other thing of interest is my filters quit working toward the later part of the evening including my flaw. They became clogged later in the evening with all the painting I was doing. Not a terrible problem, but next time I will have some extra filters handy.

The other thing I will do different next time is set it up where I can paint with my larger spray guns, but easily switch to the airbrushes (different size fittings) to do the detail work as it was way overkill on the guns to put down the black and purple since I could not use the airbrushes easily.

I tried Mineral Spirits to clean the guns. Don't bother. Luckily, I still had some Acetone and that is the chemical to have. Also, wear GLOVES. Those cheap rubber surgical gloves make clean up one thousand percent easier.

The last think I learned is start early as you are in for a full day of painting. I did not start until noon. I worked pretty solid until around 6pm (my son had a school play) picked back up at about 8pm and then finshed around 9:30pm. Whould have been better if I had started fresh at 8am with this and been done earlier in the day.

That all said, I will get the boat off the hangers and take some more shots in the daylight later on to wrap this project up. That may be awhile as I am going to be traveling a lot over the next few weeks.

[Clueless1]

very,very nice!

Now clean up that mess!

[electric]

Had a moment to take a few pics before I headed out the door... The clear really puts an unbelievale shine on the paint job. Notice the level of the reflection off the boat in a shaded area and cloudy day. The orange is really much more "Orange" than the picture shows and the metallic in the purple and orange has a shimer to it. Maybe one last pic will be posted in the sun with the my Namba numbers on the sponsons etc. i read once that when you paint something take lots of pictures that first few days, because it will never look better than at that point in time!

[Richie the shipwright]

Looks tough!! nice colours.
You can buy little prefilters for some resperators. These go on over the top of your main filters, and are cheap enough to replace before each use.

[Cooper]

Thanks Bill. So now that I had a nights sleep I will comment on yesterday's painting. Sorry for not taking many pictures, but once you start going with the paint there is very little time that you are not busy cleaning and mixing the next round of paint. I did have one thing go wrong yesterday, I painted the hatch with the base color (Orange) and then put in the clear Intercoat. At this point I had to tape off everything to apply the purple color. After putting down the purple and then the black I had to remove all the tape to put the clear down. As I did this there was one spot on the hatch where the clear came up (about the size of a nickle). The orange was still there, but very distorted(metal flakes bunched up). I sanded lightly with 1000 grit to smooth it and after some thought, I just touched it up the best I could with the orange paint and a small painters brush and went to the clear. Had that not happened it would have been a "perfect" job.

My question is why did that happen and is it common? I was using that blue 3m painters tape for the big areas where I needed to attach sheets of paper to mask everthing off. Wrong tape? The pinstriping tape I used to mark my edges off worked fine. I did have some others areas where the "shine" came up, but those just took a light scuff of 1000 grit and with the clear coat it all looks good.

The other thing of interest is my filters quit working toward the later part of the evening including my flaw. They became clogged later in the evening with all the painting I was doing. Not a terrible problem, but next time I will have some extra filters handy.

The other thing I will do different next time is set it up where I can paint with my larger spray guns, but easily switch to the airbrushes (different size fittings) to do the detail work as it was way overkill on the guns to put down the black and purple since I could not use the airbrushes easily.

I tried Mineral Spirits to clean the guns. Don't bother. Luckily, I still had some Acetone and that is the chemical to have. Also, wear GLOVES. Those cheap rubber surgical gloves make clean up one thousand percent easier.

The last think I learned is start early as you are in for a full day of painting. I did not start until noon. I worked pretty solid until around 6pm (my son had a school play) picked back up at about 8pm and then finshed around 9:30pm. Whould have been better if I had started fresh at 8am with this and been done earlier in the day.

That all said, I will get the boat off the hangers and take some more shots in the daylight later on to wrap this project up. That may be awhile as I am going to be traveling a lot over the next few weeks.

Hey great job! Again, thanks for the thread! Used your trial and error to steepen my learning curve! I need to learn to be less old school (just do it and figure it out as you go) and become more new school (read and follow directions). As this has helped me, so thanks!!!!

[electric]

Looks tough!! nice colours.
You can buy little prefilters for some resperators. These go on over the top of your main filters, and are cheap enough to replace before each use.

Should have been more specific about the filters. I meant the Air conditioner filters I use for the intake and outake in my temp. paint room. The outbound filter got a layer of paint on it that reduced the airflow tremendously towards the end. Thanks for the info. on the resperators though because I was going to ask how long it takes before these should be replaced. Do paint guys use repirators a long time before they replace the filters or do they replace them all of the time??

[Chrisg81983]

Looks real good man .....really nice work.

[electric]

Looks real good man .....really nice work.

Thanks!

[Heaving Earth]

The paint mask should be stored in the plastic bag it came in, why? Because the main filters are charcoal, and as soon as you expose it to oxygen the charcoal is active, so after use it should be put in bag and sealed off to stop charcoal activity. When to replace? When you can smell the paint.
As for your clear intercoat problem, could be the time frames between painting or the tape used. Without being there to see what you're doing it's hard to pinpoint.