Color-sand/Buff Acrylic Enamel

[Impalaguru]

I just got done doing a little paint work on my 63. I painted the portion below the trim. The car needs a complete paint job but this will make it look better for a while.

The question is, how long do I have to wait until I can start color sanding and buffing this fresh paint? I did a little of this last year when I fixed and painted the lower part of the front fenders. For those I had waited many months as I couldn't get to them for a while.

This is DuPont Centari with a hardener.

Any help would be great!!!

Ross

 

[Tom Kochtanek]

Check the label

Ross:

Check the label and/or read the literature that your supplier has on hand. I have found that each product has it's own "sheets" and I try to go by them. Good luck, this is the part that makes her shine (and takes out the imperfections)!!!

Best,
TomK

 

[LongIsland63SS409]

Tech sheets.

Click on Centari 500.

Color sanding per the spot repair procedure.

Mike


http://color.dupontrefinish.info/scripts/colorweb.dll/doctdsframe?dscountry=ANZ_E&dslanguage=Englanz

 

[DaveFoster]

I'm almost afraid to answer this thread because paint work is so tricky, so many things can go wrong and if it screws up on you I'll feel bad but here goes. Dupont Centari, Wow, I had the whole mixing system in my shop for years but the State of California deemed acrylic enamel a hazard to our health and took it away almost twenty years ago, but that was good paint. If you followed manufacturers instructions and mixed the paint properly, some painters use less than recommended amounts of hardener, some more, and you reduced the paint properly, and the temperature of your shop, booth, or garage was warm enough to dry the paint all the way through, heat lamps are a painters best friend, a couple days are all it takes, more in cold weather. Some added info would make this advice easier, like what color, metalic or solid, what reducer, what hardener, what is the average temperature in your area, did you use a blending agent, did you scuff up the old paint and clean the blending area, are you going to wet sand first before buffing? There are special products to acheive your goal, like Liquid Ebony to use in your final polishing, which I think has been discontinued but most polishing lines have a similar product. I had several blends which just didn't look stealthy absolutely dissapear with the right polishing products the next day, and Liquid Ebony did it almost every time with acrylic enamel and acrylic lacquer. A blending agent applied within seconds of your final coat makes blending so much easier, I use a rattlecan Five Star product for todays urethane clear and it usually does the complete blend, if you can barely notice the blend about twenty minutes later it will be all gone the next morning. I used to use Blend Ez on Centari, bought it in a gallon can and had it ready to spray on quickly in a seperate gun after the last coat of paint, have no idea if it's still in existance. I'm not an expert or paint instructor, just a guy who has made a living reconstructing wrecked cars and trucks for over fourty years. Paint work=atmospheric conditions, chemical reactions, product knowledge, painters talent, and sometimes trail and error or just plain luck.

 

[61belairbubbletop]

I LOVED Liquid Ebony ! Sure do miss it. Good stuff !

I always used a good gloss hardner. Warm climate, a couple days tops, ready
for wet / color sanding / buffing.

 

[bubbletop1961]

man,..... whats the hurry. My lazy a@@ has been waiting for at least a couple of years so far.

 

[bobs409]

I've already wetsanded and buffed 7 days after spraying and didn't notice any ill effects. I used a high gloss "wet look" hardner in mine too.

It would be better to wait longer than a week though if you can.

I imagine body shops do this even quicker but we can take more time than they do.


Bob

 

[DaveFoster]

Bob, you'd be surprised at the differences between repair times at various body shops, I do them one or two at a time and launch them an hour or two after spraying on most occasions with only the hard hit cars requiring a lot of put together an overnight dry. There are a lot of shops who tie up a two day job for three or four weeks, giving every stage of repair extra time to set up or dry including a day or two between primer and sanding primer, painting vehicle and wet sanding finished paint, then another day or two before buffing and yet another day or two before cleaning it up for delivery. Shops with a DRP contract must launch all repairs in ten days or less no exceptions or they lose that contract, car rentals are very expensive and can easily be the diff between totally a medium hit and repairing it, and the insurance companies hire the best bean counters available. Collision repair is a constantly changing business.

 

[Impalaguru]

WOW!!! This is what I was looking for!!

No need to worry about screwing up this paint job. The age of the paint on the car ranges from April of 1963 to October 2008!! Lots of chips and scratches throughout!

It's Centari Pitch Black. 99A, I think. It's pre-mixed. Ratio was 8-2-1. 8 parts paint, 2 parts reducer and 1 part hardener. When I've sprayed this stuff before I've always mixed according to the directions. I used a mid-temp reducer and "wet look" hardener. The reducer and hardener are generic, parts store brand (autobody master).

The area had been stripped to bare metal before. Etching primer over bare metal and then I used the PPG rollable primer surfacer! I was very impressed with that primer! A little hard to sand but VERY easy to apply! I then wet sanded the primer with 400 grit wet.

It was about 75-80 degrees. Low humidity, and no wind!! Couldn't have been any more perfect! It stayed fairly warm that night and it was warm (80 degrees) again today.

I sprayed it with my 50+ year old Campbell-Hausfield "Pressure Princess" air compressor and Sharpe 75 siphon suction gun, from the mid 1970's! Three coats total. First was about a medium coat and then followed with two wet coats.

There was an area above the trim at the rear-most part of the quarter that had rusted, that I fixed. I "blended" the paint by painting over an area that was sanded progressively finer as I got away from the repaired area. I layered my coats progressively larger as I went and will work it back as I sand. Probably won't be perfect but it will look good enough.

BTW...Is it just me or does anyone else like the smell of Centari? I love it!!!

Ross

 

[Tom Kochtanek]

Driveway paint job

Ross, I love it, a driveway paint job .

That's where I did my last two sealer/primer jobs, using an HVLP gun. The neighbors who passed by were amazed! One guy went around the block twice just to see my progress.

Last week I shot some fenders, doors and quarters in the driveway with the same stuff (Transtar 6161, a sealer and primer) and had a number of people make some comment as they passed by. Most of them were complimentary .

Hope yours turns out as good as you want it to be!

TomK

 

[DaveFoster]

Mid temp reducer was the right choice, wet look hardener is probably a slower drying hardener, slower meaning good for complete painting, so no dry spots will appear where you end each complete coat. Nothing wrong with what you used, just has a little slower kick, maybe by a day. Black however is unforgiving and even the best painters get dissapointing results blending black now and then, buff it too soon and you'll get a noticeable ring, Liquid Ebony was invented for black and did an outstanding job erasing those rings. Make sure it's totally dry first, waiting too long is not possible with that combo, then wet sand all rough areas with 1200 grit, the finer the better with black, 1200 takes longer to sand but will buff up with little or no effort, use a very unabrasive polishing process start with a medium/fine compound then switch to fine and finish it off with polish, no wax for thirty days. Your new paint will be shinnier than the old stuff, this will require a complete detail asap to make the repair as undetectable as possible. Black usually has an extra application of a super fine polishing agent in a top notched detail shop, which can get an added fee. And for your final comment, I can't smell the paint anymore, my customers sure can, but not me, guess the many years of sniffin this stuff has taken it's toll.

 

[bobs409]

Looks good to me Ross! I painted whole cars/trucks right in my front driveway before. (even in the back yard in the dirt/grass/under trees!)

After I did my black 66 Impala out in front, I had a NJ truck driver stop a week later and ask if I'd paint his car. He said he was driving by when I was spraying it and passed by again when I was wetsanding/buffing it.

The only thing I would like to mention is I see you wet the driveway down. I did that when I painted my 69 Chevy truck a medium blue and found that the mist settled on the water and when it dried, it left a light mist across the black top! :eek: I no longer do it that way. It's best to use a leaf blower the day before to remove all dirt/debris, wash it down and let dry for the next day or put down a layer of cardboard or plastic under the car before spraying.

Heres a before and after of the 66: