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Rustoleum Paint Job with $75 Harbor Freight HVLP Turbine Gun

Well, it is always more than what ya think. But the turbine sprayer outfit was $59.99 after the harbor freight 20% off coupon you can find almost in every car/truck magazine.

Assuming you have nothing
1 Electric Turbine HVLP Sprayer (no compressor needed) $59.99
2 quarts of Rustoleum "Gloss Regal Red" $18
1 quart fo Rustoleum "rusty metal primer" $9
1 300 grit sanding sponge $6
3 sheets of 600-1000 grit waterproof sandpaper $2
2 rolls of 3M green painting tape $12
1 Gallon Mineral Spirits $8?
1 two-cartridge respirator $24
6 Tack cloths $12
1 log of masking paper from local paint shop $19

Might as well round up to $200 for miscelaneous stuff you don' think of. But $200 includes my gun and turbine!

Time, keep in mind this was just a partial paint job it would obviously take longer for some of these steps if you were doing the whole truck.

10 minutes washed the truck with Tri Sodium Phosphate
30 minutes wetsanded the original paint with the 300 grit sanding sponge
30 minutes masking (but I should've taken more time)
20 minutes painting (5 minutes for each coat. 1 primer and 3 color coats = 4 total)
120 hours anxiously wondernig how it will turn out!

So only a couple hours invested might as well double that to account for getting things out and putting things away, but all of the painting was done over a 5 day period. I waited 24 hours between each coat. I would just clean the gun by running some mineral spirits through it. Then the next night I'd come home from work, change my clothes, mix some paint, dump it in the cup, spray a coat, clean up the gun and shut the garage. Repeat the next day. No sanding between coats like the guys who roll it on. I'd get home at 5:30 and have sprayed a coat by 5:45 and be cleaning the gun. I sprayed primer Saturday afternoon and then took the tape off last night (wednesday night).
 
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That looks SHWEET!!!!

Do a thinner, yellow stripe.
About half the width of the dark gray line.
(Where the red and gray meet.)

jmo.
but, I think that would be a killer addition! :D

Great job!
 
That looks SHWEET!!!!

Do a thinner, yellow stripe.
About half the width of the dark gray line.
(Where the red and gray meet.)

jmo.
but, I think that would be a killer addition! :D

Great job!

Thanks Beast! :woot:

Yeah...to keep with the theme of "oh what the heck...I'll try it" I really do want to do something with a yellow stipe...the tape was actually that lime green color...

Maybe it is time to try my hand at pinstriping with rustoleum! they make a yellow!....then rustoleum flames!...and maybe a big scene of some bonzai trees on a cliff over looking the ocean with a sunset...

o.k. maybe just a thin yellow line.
 
4 month update
Just wanted to post some pics of the how the paint is holding up. Overall I"m super happy, I lost a little gloss in the first few weeks as the rustoleum fully cured. But I never polished it. Been sitting outside every day since I finished painting 4 months ago. So this is simply how it loooks with out any work after laying the paint down. My understanding is that the enamel polishes up really nicely from others who've done it. And there is a pretty ready supply of cheap touch-up in this color if I need to! :)

I'm driving the truck every snow storm through slush and whatever. The first time was hard, I kept picturing salt flinging up into the crevises of the truck. But after I did it once, I was free from the bonds of worry and now I just drive the snot out of it anytime there is more than a few inches on the road.
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How'd the texture come out? Smooth or slightly orange peelish? I'm honestly fine with orange peelish so long as it's not like the surface of a golf ball.


Although...there was that episode of Mythbusters...
 
Well, I'm not a paint expert but from my untrained eye I actually don't see any orange peel. When I would put a coat down with the spayer and the paint was wet it would look orange peely, but in a few hours it would level out. the surface is perfectly smooth. The pics I just posted are without any sanding or anything after the final coat. Just the way the paint is after it dried.

Here I'm holding a piece of paper to show a shadow. You can see the shadow is crisper on the OEM grey, but it isn't too much worse on the red that I sprayed.
394999704.jpg


Here I'm set the camera on the truck and took a picture looking down the fender. The paint nearest the camera is not in focus and there is a good salt film that gets picked up in this angle...but you can hopefully see surface condition.
394999706.jpg
 
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Looks good to me. Hell, looks better than a lot of those $500 spray jobs. Nice work man. You have my buddy and I talking and eyeing our vehicles.



Did you remove any of the body parts and spray them separately? Hood, jams, doors, cowl, fenders, etc?
 
Did you remove any of the body parts and spray them separately? Hood, jams, doors, cowl, fenders, etc?

Thanks AJ! I'm happy. No I didn't remove any body parts (too much work for me) other than the covers over the base of the mirrors, I just taped off right along the OEM two-tone paint border.

Things I would do different is better taping/masking since I ended up getting a good red dusting on my hood. A few more minutes of masking would've prevented that. And I would've spend a few more minuts sanding before paint, some places on weld-seems etc I didn't scuff very well and they are peeling. But this is in a few very small places.
 
Mine's got the typical late 80's early 90's peeling paint with a very poor repaint sometime in the 90's going on. Lots of surface rust, peeling paint, clearcoat is about gone, etc. I figure sand the hell out of it, get rid of the surface rust, and repaint it all. Definitely thinking about removing some of my panels and parts as the cowl, for example, has peeling paint all over it.
 
Very Nice... Its good to know that there are options for the low-budget guys like myself.

Did you get all those patch panels from Rock Auto?
 
Very Nice... Its good to know that there are options for the low-budget guys like myself.

Did you get all those patch panels from Rock Auto?

Thanks Mr. W! I did get the back two quarter panels and inner wheel wells from Rock auto..everything else, were small pieces and I fabed up myself. That made it fun, I've never "fabed" anything before, my welding was pretty much limited to wedling a bolt onto another broken bolt to get it out once, and a couple odd things like that. What I learned was take a full flat sheet of metal, and only cut one end of it to match where you need to weld, but leave the rest really long, tack in the top part and then use the extra metal to bend it along the curve of your truck and tack it as you go, then cut off the excess when you get to the bottom. That probably makes no sense I might have to try an draw a picture.
 
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So here is an illustration of what I'm talking about. You can see a real pic of where I did this in picture #3 on the first page of this trhea.

In the first drawing below, you cut away the rust to a nice square area. Now don't try to cut and form a special panel to match, just simply take a bigger piece of sheet metal than you need, but so that it fits up into your cut out and tack at the top where the blue dots are in illustraion 2. Then you have this nice large piece to hold and bend it push it so that if follows the contour of the rest of the panel around it and tac (the red dots in drawing 3) as you are bending the metal to match the rest of the panel. All my welds were lap joint so they overlapped the surrounding metal.

Then when you're done, cut off the extra where the dotted line is. It works great and leaving that extra metal gives you the leverage you need to push on the piece to get it to follows the natural contour of the truck. It obviously wouldn't work on a major compound shape, but I used this method for almost all of the rust spots on the bottom of my burb.
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Thats not a bad idea with the patch panels... What I'm going to have to do is mainly in the rear floor and tail pan... I'm pretty sure my tail pan is about rusted in two, and the floor is withering away above it... haha.

As for the spray guns... buy them both :haha:
If you do end up buying them, let us know how they work, (me in particular because I'll probably be using them for my paint job)

One positive I've heard for actually having two guns is one for clear, one for paint... get less contamination that way... but I've had no experience with it yet. (That doesn't mean you have to have two different models though...)

So...convincing myself to tackle the paint job on my burb eventually.

Which sprayer would you guys reccomend, as i have a compressor.

http://www.harborfreight.com/professional-automotive-hvlp-spray-gun-kit-94572.html

http://www.harborfreight.com/professional-hvlp-spray-gun-kit-93305.html

Obviously, i'd buy an air dryer.....need anything else?
 
just a couple points... if your gonna spray rusto thru those guns... use the larger "primer" gun with the 1.8 tip... the smaller 1.4 is more for base, lacquer and even clear.. really it's based on viscosity more than anything. but 1.8 is usually preferable for urethanes, epoxys, etc, and in your case rusto...

also be VERY aware that a pressure fed system sprays VASTLY different than a gravity or syphon gun...


oh, and be VERY careful cleaning HF guns, many of the parts are plastic and don't react well with thinner...
 
just a couple points... if your gonna spray rusto thru those guns... use the larger "primer" gun with the 1.8 tip... the smaller 1.4 is more for base, lacquer and even clear.. really it's based on viscosity more than anything. but 1.8 is usually preferable for urethanes, epoxys, etc, and in your case rusto...

also be VERY aware that a pressure fed system sprays VASTLY different than a gravity or syphon gun...


oh, and be VERY careful cleaning HF guns, many of the parts are plastic and don't react well with thinner...


Ok, so 1.8 tips. No thinner.

If you were buying a cheapo gun for a project like this, which style would you go with? You say they spray way different...which is better for this application?
 
I didn't say no thinner... it'll look like an rolling orange without thinner... spraying, tip size, etc is a function of viscosity as well as type of paint...... what spray techniques are going to be used also comes into play..

but generally an enamel will like about a 6 or 7 count on the poorman's 's viscosity test, thru a 1.8 tip at about 35, 40 lb's... iirc, rusto like mineral spirits as a reducer..


I wouldn't suggest a pressurized system for noobs.... tho you guys are talking about shooting a large area, and that's the type of job pressurized system's shine at, a gravity fed is FAR easier and safer to achieve quality work...

I shot my frame, undercarriage, interior black with the pressure pot.. perfect job for that... hose fed guns can be shot at any angle, tons of angles, good coverage needed, etc...

outside of a car? i use gravity feeds 95% of the time.. if your not familiar with the adjustments and quantity of material put out with a pressure fed system, you could have a Niagra Falls nightmare....


the HF guns will spray ok for ya, ya just have to be very careful and thorough cleaning it out.. or you wont get more than a couple uses out of em...

for a name brand beginner gun, i like devilbiss's starting line series... VERY economical at about $100 to 125 for the 2 gun kit..

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/DVR-802342

dvr-802342_w.jpg


$130 thru Summit..


Astro Pneumatics makes a surprisingly decent beginner gravity feed for like 75 to 100 too...
 

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