Please help salvage a paint job.

[mikemo]

Hello and happy new year!
I'm hoping I can get some advice on a problem I'm having with a driveway paintjob that I just completed. Let me give you the details.

I painted the cab of a 1986 Toyota pickup. I used Nason Ful-thane 2k urethane single stage paint (solid medium blue) and Nason epoxy primer. I wiped down the entire cab with wax/silicone remover, sanded down the old paint but only went to the metal on the spots that were pitted. Then I taped and primed the truck with two medium coats of epoxy primer. I let it set up about two hours, then I sprayed the color coat, one medium wet coat, waited 20 minutes, then a full wet coat. I used a harbor freight HVLP gun with a 1.4 tip. I mixed the paint properly at 8:1:2 and used meduim reducer as the outside temps were right around 70F.

Apart from the imperfections due to my quick prep job, the paint had a nice shine with only moderate orange peel. I finished painting around 3pm. However, I left the truck outside overnight (no garage space for it). By 6pm, dew had formed on the top surfaces of the truck. I didn't think anything of it until the next morning when the dew burned off, the paint under it was "cloudy". It didn't have its nice shine.

I took a 6" DA and a polishing pad and tried to polish out the haze using 3M Perfect-it II rubbing compound. I was able to get an area nice and shiny, but it took a TREMENDOUS amount of buffing. I also tried to hit an area with 1000 sand paper before buffing, but it didn't seem to make much difference in the buff time.

I've given up for the evening, so I was hoping someone could give me some advice on how to recover this paint job. I was also considering spraying another coat of paint on it (earlier in the day) to correct the problem, but I am afraid that I will cause more problems spraying on top of already cured paint. Would I have to sand the entire truck down again before I sprayed another coat of color on it?

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Please let me know what you think, and thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
Best regards,
Mike M.
Palm Harbor, FL

[Len]

Hi Mike
I did the same thing a long time ago myself. In order to fix it I would sand the surface with some 1500 grit wet sandpaper then polish it. A DA is not the tool to buff down the surface and bring back the shine, it's ok for a little light polishing but not for buffing. You should use a rotary machine for that job. I sell a decent inexpensive one for $69.95 that will do the job.

You may be able to get away without sanding when you use the proper buffer so try just buffing first then switch to sanding first then buffing if the machine isn't cutting fast enough.


http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/atd10511b.jpg
Inexpensive Polisher Link (http://autobodystore.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=T2)

[mikemo]

Live and learn. That is exactly what I've been telling myself!

Thanks for the quick response. I'll get some 1500 paper and sand it down before polishing. I can see where a rotary polisher would be more effective than a DA.

Should I use the DA to sand with the 1500, or should I do it by hand?
Thanks again
Mike M.

[Len]

If I were doing the job here I'd try hitting it with the buffer first but if that didn't do it I'd probably take out the AirVantage and go over it lightly with some 1500 Finishing Film. However, if you don't have a good random orbital sander and Finishing Film I don't think it's necessary to purchase them for this job because you don't need to cut a lot of paint off to remove the haze. So try buffing and if that doesn't work use 1500 wet then buff.

[frostje]

Would like to enter in my 2 cents . You won't get a good consistent paint job with that hf gun. I had 3 of them all junk. They cost 60 so why not just buy old fl2 or fl3 off len for 120 and just get it right the first time. As I feel there are no shortcuts that ever work in painting. You would waste more material using bad gun and equipment than skimping to paint your truck. An fl3 is a good quality gun cheap which will give you near pro results. Just my 2 cents though:)

[mikemo]

Just thought I'd update the group in case anyone was interested.
I tried the buff only solution but it was too hard to buff out the "fog". Then I worked it with some 1500 wet paper, which cut the top layer off, but in the process found out that I had some spots where the paint was thin...

So, I wet sanded the entire cab with 800, wiped it down, taped it off, and shot another coat of color on top. This time I let it sit in my garage overnight to avoid the original problem. The paint now looks very good with a nice shine.

I do have some areas where it looks like the edge spray from the gun put some "mist" on the paint below that was already tacky. This left a few areas where the shine is not as nice as the rest. I'm going to try and buff those areas out, but I really don't want to go backwards and have to paint the truck AGAIN. Hopefully I have enought paint and small enough imperfections to buff the areas out.

Thanks again to the group for the assistance. I found that it was easier to paint the second time. I guess by the time I paint my 20th or 30th car I might start to get the hang of it.
Regards,
MIke M.