i have been trying to gather as much info as possible, as i am painting my 2002 f250 this weekend with a single stage paint. this will be my first time ever attempting this. i just had a few questions, the truck is originally silver and i purchased a close match silver in a single stage. i was told to use just a scotch bright pad to scuff up the old paint, and then hit it with sealer, and then the paint, is this correct? i am also confused about what pressure to run the gun at.any help would be greatly appreciated

 

Any reason to the single stage vs. base/clear? Single stage can be a bitch sometimes. But when you have the paint mixed they should give you a paper at which psi they reccomend. If not, ask. They can get it for you.

As for the scotch bright pad. Yes, you could do it that way. Would i reccomend it? No.

If youre going to lay down sealer too you should probably wetsand the enitre truck with 400 till it has a dull finish. Considering today is friday and you still havent started prep, I wouldnt expect to start painting this weekend unless you can have the entire truck sanded and taped tomorrow. After you spray the sealer you should prob wet sand the truck with 600 then wipe it down with wax and grease remover and a tack cloth. Then begin spraying your paint.

What kind of gun are you using? What size compressor? Do you have a hood or fender you can practice on?

 

the gun is from snap on i dont know exactly who their supplier is but thats where i got it, and the compressor is a 33 gallon 2 stage.we will be practicing on a hood and tailgate before we hit the truck.

 

i say you wash and degrease the car be4 doing any sanding at all.

 

ialready know to wash it down with wax, grease remover, just wanting to know some of the stuff i asked.

 

i just wouldn't recommend using single stage period. especially for a first time. if you do it wrong, that stuff gets nasty.

but for prepping, as long as you get it all washed, buzz the whole car down with 400grit and then use the scuff pad. cuz the scuff pad can get to places the sander wont reach.

 

cool ill keep that in mind theonly bad thing is we already bought the single stage, so we'll give it a try. any other info would be great.

 

Yeah def wash the car really well and then hit it good with wax and grease remover. Or you can use dish soap either strips wax pretty well.

What are you spraying the truck in? A garage? A booth? Your driveway? Either way I'd reccomend building a make shift booth. You can just get a roll of that clear plastic and build walls and just wet the floor to minimize junk in the paint. I'd also invest in at least one box fan to pump the fumes and overspray out of this "booth".

Its def a good call to practice on a hood or something to get a feel for the gun and how wet to lay paint etc.

 

nothing wrong with single stage paint..
We use it on a few colours at our toyota plant

i did my engine bay with a single stage, you just really have to know how to spray it thats all

 

^ that is in your bay tho. so it wont see direct contact with the sun as the car would. if its a shop truck gets beat up i would use single stage for that but if you want it to be good and last a long time you cant beat base coat clear coat.

also you can just scuff the car then seal it. to each his own on scuffing i have used maroon scuff pads on a car and have wet sanded with 400. i like wet sanding more then useing a scuffing pad (scuffing pad feels weird in my hands to me).

 

ok we got the truck all stripped apart and sanded down so we should be up early in the morning cleaning everything down ans spraying the sealer. and it is in a garage and we build plastic walls around it. we chose to use scotch brite pads the maroon ones i have actually use them before for minor stuff and like them. i think were going to try around 25 psi with the gun does anyone have suggestions about that, and after the sealer it should be fine the wet sand with the scotch brite grey pads correct?

 

I wouldn't recommend a single stage for a metalic or pearl paint job because it just doesn't lay out as fine as if you were going to do a b/c clear coat. But if you were to do a solid color it wold be coo, you would spray it like you were clearing the car.

 

I have sprayed for a few years now and the best thing to tell you about gun pressure is you just have to test out different settings. You want it high enough to properly atomize the paint (smooth finish without texture), but not so high that you have lots of dry spray (paint looks like fine sandpaper).

Do as many test shots as you need to on a piece of cardboard or something of that nature before you do the truck. Make sure your paint flow (**** behind the needle) and air flow **** are set such that even when you fully squeeze the trigger the paint is atomized well. That way if you start to go full-blast at spraying the gun won't let you get poorly atomized paint on your surface.

Definitely do a couple coats of sealer and wet sand it before painting.

Also, lay a chain from the body to the ground to prevent static from building up and make sure you have a good mask. You are going to make a TON of overspray shooting a whole truck....

 

thanks for the info Hawkze, we didnt get to much done this weekend, we spent a good amount of time taping everything off and cleaning it done. so were trying for the end of the week.

 

ive heard that hanging inflated balloons over the car will attract the static electricity to them and help minimize dust. now ive never tried it, but it makes sense lol

 

i dont know if ill try that, iknow grounding the chassis is the easiest and probably best way, thats what we are going to do.

 

well we got the truck sprayed and it didnt come out good at all, the sealer came out prfect and after wet sanding it we sprayed the paint,the lady at the store told us to mix 8oz. of paint with 1oz. reducer and 1oz. hardener, so thats what we did. the paint came out really thick with tons of orange peel, its almost looked like the paint was sweating on the truck, and it is a metallic silver but the color wasnt even throughout. does anyone have any suggestions on what could be the problem, were thinking the mix ratio is off.

 

ouch 8:1:1 doesnt seem right... what brand paint and type?

 

it was nason by dupont, a single stage silver metallic. it says industrial machinery and equiptment on the can, so im assuming thats just a longer name for a single stage. once we sprayed it and let it flash we didnt think the mixture was right. it had to have been drier to cause it looked thick and didnt run, like orange peel times a thousand. so we looked on the can and it said 8-2 for mixing reducer, but the lady at the store said we would be fine with 8-1-1. so i think we are going to sand it down and try 8-2, if we did that what would be the amount for hardner? thanks again guys for any help.

 

dude that paint isnt right. my basecoat was 1:1 and clear was 2:1. something about 8:2 which is really 4:1 doesnt seem right... what pressure were you spraying at? how wet did you lay it? do you have pics?

 

its a single stage paint so im sure the ratios are different than bc/cc, but it says on the can 8-2, and nothing about hardner, and the lady said 8-1-1.

 

it probably doesnt take hardener then? my basecoat didnt take hardener but my clear did. you might wanna go to the place you bought your supplies from and tell them they are ****ing stupid. then proceed to tell them you want a bc/cc lol

 

we have half a gallon of paint left so we got a lot of sanding to do but i think we are going to try 8-2-1 and hit a test panel and go from there.

 

Just did a car with Nason S/S.... 8-2-1

 

cool hopefully it turns out better with that ratio then the **** we got.