Gerahead's 71 Dart
After stepping away for a couple of days, yesterday I looked over the exterior with a bright light, decided I got good coverage and pulled all the masking materials off the car. I grossly over-masked the car to make sure that I didn't end up with any "gold dust" where I didn't want it. I was largley successful. I didn't mask down to the floor so that I could move the car in the booth if needed. The top side of the K-frame ended up with a really light dusting on it. That will be an easy fix, so no real harm done. It is starting to look like a real car finally! I also thought that I'd share a few things garnered from the exercise that might be of value to those contemplating doing what I am doing, for what it's worth.
1. I wish I'd made the "booth" at least two feet longer. I did not have much room at either end of the car when I sprayed the paint. That made it difficult to really see what I was doing and to also keep up a good technique. I needed to have at least 3-4 feet of space between the car and the wall of the booth. When I measured for construction, I failed to consider the width of the car and just did the straight line length. Pass the Dufus award my way!
2. Between all the interior painting and the exterior, I used about 6 quarts of mixed product to apply three coats inside and four coats to the exterior.
3. When I painted the interior surfaces, I only used the exhaust fans to clear the overspray. It didn't work real well. When I painted the exterior, I put three more fans inside the booth to help push the overspray toward the exhaust. The two exhaust fan volume compared to the volume of the booth should have cycled about 1.3x the interior volume every minute. The extra fans helped move the air toward the exhaust end of the booth.
4. Have extra filters on hand! I did not change them out after doing the interior surfaces, they looked to be in pretty good shape. After doing the exterior, they are nearly solidly covered on the inner surfaces with pigment.
5. Have a spare respirator on hand. At the end of the exterior process, the inlet filters on my respirator became blocked to the point that I could hardly breathe at all. When combined with #4, I'm certain that the air was not being properly evacuated.
6. I did a dry run on my strategy for applying the paint. I made sure I could reach everything I needed and made sure my air hose would reach the furthest point from the compressor. This worked great until I actually started spraying the paint. I started by spraying around the rear window opening. As I came down the side from the top, I leaned over to get a better angle for the gun, lost my balance on the stool and ended up with a run down the back edge of the C-pillar. Insert face slap here!
I hope someone finds a little useful information from what I've done. L8r!
Jim
After stepping away for a couple of days, yesterday I looked over the exterior with a bright light, decided I got good coverage and pulled all the masking materials off the car. I grossly over-masked the car to make sure that I didn't end up with any "gold dust" where I didn't want it. I was largley successful. I didn't mask down to the floor so that I could move the car in the booth if needed. The top side of the K-frame ended up with a really light dusting on it. That will be an easy fix, so no real harm done. It is starting to look like a real car finally! I also thought that I'd share a few things garnered from the exercise that might be of value to those contemplating doing what I am doing, for what it's worth.
1. I wish I'd made the "booth" at least two feet longer. I did not have much room at either end of the car when I sprayed the paint. That made it difficult to really see what I was doing and to also keep up a good technique. I needed to have at least 3-4 feet of space between the car and the wall of the booth. When I measured for construction, I failed to consider the width of the car and just did the straight line length. Pass the Dufus award my way!
2. Between all the interior painting and the exterior, I used about 6 quarts of mixed product to apply three coats inside and four coats to the exterior.
3. When I painted the interior surfaces, I only used the exhaust fans to clear the overspray. It didn't work real well. When I painted the exterior, I put three more fans inside the booth to help push the overspray toward the exhaust. The two exhaust fan volume compared to the volume of the booth should have cycled about 1.3x the interior volume every minute. The extra fans helped move the air toward the exhaust end of the booth.
4. Have extra filters on hand! I did not change them out after doing the interior surfaces, they looked to be in pretty good shape. After doing the exterior, they are nearly solidly covered on the inner surfaces with pigment.
5. Have a spare respirator on hand. At the end of the exterior process, the inlet filters on my respirator became blocked to the point that I could hardly breathe at all. When combined with #4, I'm certain that the air was not being properly evacuated.
6. I did a dry run on my strategy for applying the paint. I made sure I could reach everything I needed and made sure my air hose would reach the furthest point from the compressor. This worked great until I actually started spraying the paint. I started by spraying around the rear window opening. As I came down the side from the top, I leaned over to get a better angle for the gun, lost my balance on the stool and ended up with a run down the back edge of the C-pillar. Insert face slap here!
I hope someone finds a little useful information from what I've done. L8r!
Jim
