Technical TECH WEEK - Rattle Can Lacquer Paint Job

I am going to check on it periodically this week and see how it is holding up. I do not expect any change unless it's from the foundation up though, as the white lacquer was set up and smooth as porcelain the last time I handled it Sunday evening. It looked fine this morning too and we had cool temps with condensation.

 

It seems to have rained a little last night. GOOD NEWS, THE PAINT DIDN'T WASH OFF!



The water is beading up and dripping off, as I would expect. It is also beading and pooling on the frame where I hit it with the DC rust converter.

Also, I had mentioned Eastwood's Rust Converter previously. Today they published a tech article on it and their encapsulator products HERE.

 

Not so much lacquer as it is solids by volume. If you have a 50% solids product by volume that means it will lose 50 % of the body going from wet to dry. I tried reading the Dupli Color msds sheet, and it looks like it's about 27% solids. So that's exactly what you are seeing. 2-3 coats looks like you are filling up small rust pits, scratches etc and looks great then next day it looks like a gravel road that's due to 73% of that product is lost due to evaporation. But a smooth foundation doesn't require high solids.
Some Paint companies do smoke and mirrors and give solids percent by weight. Which basically means if a full cup of paint wet weighs 100 grams, then completely cured, weight is 50 grams its 50% solids by weight. That is true but means nothing, because certain solvents weigh more than others, and if you use all lighter weight solvents it makes the product seem higher in solids.

 

Paint Guru sounds like a paint guru

 

The weather turned favorable Sunday, so, with my neighbor's help, I got the DB rolling and was able to continue.

I laid some Eastwood Rust Converter on the car. I went over the car with a wire brush, as per the instructions on the bottle and swept all the loose stuff off with a bench brush.

I then laid the rust converter on with a pump spray bottle then worked it with a plastic bristle scrubbing brush from the dollar store. This spread the product around and got it into the metal better. I really think this is a good plan with this product because otherwise, you'll get some streaking and thin spots as far as coverage.

Wet and freshly sprayed on:



After going around with the scrub brush several times:



You can see the brush strokes here, but as long as you don't keep brushing on it into when it is starting to set and dry, they will flatten out along with any bubbles. It's very forgiving stuff (and not a topcoat anyway, so it doesn't matter a whole lot).



Eastwood rust converter is my favorite. It costs twice as much as that rattle can stuff, but IT WORKS, and it is nowhere near as nasty to work with. Spend the money and get this stuff if you're going to use a rust converter on something. It's also fun to watch a rust bucket turn into a blueberry as it slowly turns black.

Here is what it looks like about a quarter way into the 48 hr curing cycle:

 

^To add to above, I used one quart of the Eastwood Rust Converter on the body. That's about as far as it goes with a sprayer and brush. Using a HVLP or a brush may yield different results in one way or the other. To do a whole car inside and out I would say takes at least two quarts. At that point, unless it's on super two for one sale, I'm going to recommend you just shell out the money for a whole gallon and go from there. Though if you need that much of the stuff on one car, it may be time to revisit other options for rust removal over treatment.

For my needs and situation on this particular car, it was the way to go and provides us with a large canvas to observe the results.

I forgot to mention previously also, that I sprayed it onto the cowl as well. There is some rust through going on there as you can see. I went over it with the wire brush in the bad spots, gave it a bit of spray with the RC, and spread it around with the brush the same as I did the rest of the body. You can see in the pictures, that it seems to have penetrated well and converted the rust while seemingly leaving the old primer alone.

*EDIT: I would have done well were I able to roll the car indoors at this stage. Moisture and condensation is VERY BAD for this rust converter and will ruin it.

 

This is an interesting test, and one that I get asked about all the time. I know that not everyone is a body man and has all the "correct" tools, so many people pick my brain on how to paint a car on the cheap. I always try and tell them to not waste their time and money on quickie work, but I also know not all have the ability, both physically, or money wise to shell out big bucks for ultimate repair and repaint. I will be interested to see the results both short term and long . Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks! Yeah, the idea here is to see, test, and demonstrate what can be done with the most base materials sourced as locally as possible and applied in the least favorable circumstances (outside). On the plus side, I'm not dealing with huge clouds of overspray and toxic vapors, on the down side, I'm dealing with wind, dust, bugs, and small clouds of overspray and toxic vapors. BUT, I haven't used any special tools, just a spray can handle, a wire brush, sandpaper, a spray bottle, and a scrub brush.

So far, I've been pleased with the results honestly. I'm getting pretty close to a 20 foot paint job I think, which is really the most reasonable expectation. Getting a better finish is certainly possible with more primer, filler, block and color sanding though.

Even with the $30 bottle of Eastwood Rust Converter, I'm still nowhere near $100, probably more like $60. I will probably be close to or a little over $100 in product to paint the rest of the body exterior.

 

Pat, could you do me a favor in the interest of science? Now that the converter is curing, can you hit a dime-sized section with some sandpaper and see what it looks like? I have an oxidized/patina'd body that I have been thinking about hitting with converter, like you have. But, like I mentioned, I always wonder what's going on beneath the surface of the converter. If the converter works through the layer of oxidization, I'm all in.

 

Sure. I've got pieces that are a year + old already too. Would you rather see that?

The T cowl in my build thread got coated last September and sat outside all Winter uncovered. The rust converter is not meant to be any kind of sealer, so that has had some rust start to come back in a few spots, mainly the top. By contrast, the rear quarters show no difference from the day they finished curing, since they lived inside last Winter.

 

Sure. Whatever works for you. I'm not interested in it as a sealer but I am curious to see the depth of the cured penetration. If you sand a bit and it's raw steel, I'm won over. I don't have blistered rust on my T, just oxidized steel.

 

Plan for the week is to get the rest of the paint and focus on getting at least one side done for the sake of Tech Week, and the fact that this car's getting used as Halloween Yard art this year and she's facing the street with the driver's side.

I have to make a quick door skin, which I will provide the opportunity to test the rattle can self etching primer available at the Auto Part Store.

I'm looking at about another $100 and trips to both NAPA and AAP to secure enough(hopefully) black and white lacquer paint and primer to do the whole car. I will tally up what I spent and what I actually used at the end.

 

Subscribed

 

That would be interesting

 

After cleaning out the local AAP and NAPA stores of all their Lacquer primers and paint, I laid some high build primer last night as it was getting dark, with a security light and a Halloween EFX light to work with. I'm starting to think this was not a good idea, even though I managed to achieve pretty even coverage. I do not think it had enough time at a good, warmer temperature to cure as nicely as it would have had I done it during the dwindling daylight hours.


(The red and dark spots are from the lighting)


This morning I made some interesting discoveries. Right now on my property in New England, we've been getting low dips in temperature at night and warm days. This has been making for A LOT of condensation on the car every morning. I'm starting to get a little concerned that this might be resulting in tiny amounts of new oxidation underneath the rust converter. I will see what's going on when I sand through as @-Brent- has asked. I've got a piece that has never been exposed to moisture and a weathered piece for comparison.

I think though, what this is telling me is that Fall is not the ideal time of year to do this. Best case would be fairly even temps, moderate to low humidity, and a gentle breeze. The breeze is important because I have discovered that the Duplicolor Filler Primer is pretty nasty and the smell lingers for at least an hour in still air, which we had last night. I will be using a fan next round.

The first oddity I discovered was this orange-brown residue around the condensation. It wipes away, but I don't know for sure what it is. It could be oxidation of the metal being pulled up through the primer, a reaction between the dewdrops and the primer, or just airborne dust that the dew captured.




The second oddity I found was the streaking rust converter on the cowl. It would appear that the Eastwood product requires exposure to oxidized metal to fully cure. Product that is sitting on old primer seems to reactivate when exposed to water (dewdrops). I'm not upset about this one, because on the plus side, the reaction has been able to spread out into areas of the cowl it had not previously penetrated by following the moisture.

EDIT, this has to be sanded down. Moisture will cause flash rusting under this rust converter.

 

Here is better detail of the brown spotting where the condensation was. I am leaning towards thinking it's a reaction between the primer and the water. Anybody seen this before?

 

I was interested in this thread, before it was apparent that it is a "lets spray some stuff over some rusty old stuff and see what happens."
So much for serious tech

 

Hate to say that I agree. I think if you have it blasted, do some decent bodywork and then go at it with the rattle cans you can get a respectable result. Painting over that surface is never going to be anything decent.

No offense.

 

Yep that's moisture that was present to start with and it got trapped. Prime examples of lacquers and rust converters. They have fast solvents and will cap off fast trapping anything underneath.
For better results, You have to have air flow and at least a 20 min solvent which will have a slower evaporation rate than water. So even though you can buy all this stuff from local parts stores , having a little expert advise would have saved you doing it another time.
You can also buy certain epoxy primers that have moisture scavengers that will pull moisture off by helping with the cross linking of the product. This is good for people who don't have the greatest water traps on their airlines.
Now if you would have just bought a epoxy primer, you could have eliminated a need for the rust converter with about 3-4 hours elbow grease with a cheap sander. You can brush, spray or roll epoxy as well. And the small area you did, would have took only a 1 quart of epoxy about $50.
Great thread though. Alot of people wouldn't have known about this otherwise!

 

Blasting and starting over is well beyond the scope of this project. I am going to sand down and investigate further though.

Blasting is an option down the line and was always meant to be. This car needs some metalwork, I'm just not going to get around to it for some time to come, at which point the plan was to blast the car or at least where I needed to do work.

I posted the pictures elsewhere and a friend of mine said he had seen it before and it was a surface level reaction between the primer and the condensation. It wipes off with a wet rag and a little elbow grease.

This weekend, the plan is to do some sanding and see what is going on underneath the surface level, the primer, the rust converter (down to metal), and what an overcoat of primer does. I will go from there.

 

I have spot sanded the car as well as the other pieces with rust converter on them and I am not happy with what I'm finding. I also knocked a headlight over and broke aint 36 lens.

I hit each piece with 120 and each piece belched out brown orange rust once I got through the black.

At this point, painting the whole car is a dubious endeavor. However, I can continue with the project, as I had intended to fabricate a simple door out of fresh sheet which I will hit with self etch, sealer, and paint to conclude the test.

EDIT: UPDATE, after talking to Eastwood, they say this is because of moisture getting on the piece before it was topcoated. This means that using this stuff on a piece that's outside for any period of time or overnight is a no-go.

 

I've sent an inquiry off to Eastwood to see what they have to say about the rust converter failure. I would like to know what went wrong and how.

EDIT: UPDATE, after talking to Eastwood, they say this is because of moisture getting on the piece before it was top-coated. This means that using this stuff on a piece that's outside for any period of time or overnight is a no-go. So, I and the weather screwed this up. I'll test it some other time in the shop and topcoat it.

Moving on to things I can get done; I made a crude door out of fresh metal to see how things go with a clean surface. I laid a base of Dupli Color self-etching primer, let is sit overnight, then came in with some high build and sandable primers. I didn't get to sanding and sealer yesterday because the warm temperatures roused swarms of flying insects and they were EVERYWHERE.



OBSERVATION: These cans get a little cagey around the last 5% or so and will spit. Probably not as bad as old style tips, but once they get real light, best to set them aside to use on something that's not sheet metal or pitch them. This spatter of high build will be a thing to block sand even.



I meant to grab a close up picture of the tool marks like I had taken with it in just the self etch. The high build actually did fill some of the tool marks but not all of them. I didn't expect it to; it filled more than I thought it would.

 

If it was going to sit anyway, why not coat it with old 90w gear oil and later blast and epoxy primer?

 

Because then I would not have a test bed for this project to see what works, what fails, and what happens. The idea here has always been to see what happens when trying to do a rattle can lacquer paint job, in the back yard, be it success or failure, and why it was either. I can always blast off what I have done and had planned to at least spot blast or sand it when it was time to do metalwork anyway.

At this stage, I have concluded that use of rust converter on a piece that's not stored indoors is a failure point and I've captured pictures of the results.

The grand idea, had the RC base not become an issue, was to let the paint job sit outdoors over-winter, and see how it held up in the Spring. At this point, I still have the grill shell and the crude door panel I made with which to test this.

90w gear oil isn't something I have buckets of sitting around nor is it something I really want seeping into my lawn or having neighbors getting nosy about unfortunately or I would have gone that route before this. Blasting and epoxy primer, though now likely the best remaining option, goes a step past the initial scope of the project, which, again, was to do with what I could get at the local auto part stores, with rattle cans, out in the open.

 

Patmanta, I appreciate your testing the available off the shelf products.

Im using DP90 on an OT car. I welded in a new patch panel, ground off the black e coat that it came with, wiped with shopline degreaser, shot it with napa self etching primer, figured it would protect it until I shot the area with more DP90LF

The Napa self etch failed, 6 months later I had rust bleed thru, the part was stored indoors shot on clean never rusty metal.

I had to strip, wire wheel the rust spots, acid etch the rust spots, neutralize the acid with baking soda water, wipe with panel degreaser, and shoot DP90LF back onto the patch.

Keep the testing coming, its interesting. I understand the intent and I'm not knocking the approach, there's many that aren't comfortable with a paint gun and can't do it where they are located.

if I were to do an ultra cheap paint job, I'd use rustolem or valspar rusty metal primer, shot from a gun, reduced with acetone, then an industrial enamel with hardener shot from a gun. I've used this combo on trailers and equipment, it fades, but protects. Ive shot a lot of industrial enamel, it holds up but doesn't hold shine for very long. A little more dough and you can get budget automotive paint.

 

Ok, so the moisture trapped underneath caused the brown spots.
Now, would this be the same for the brownish tint from the other type of 'rust coverter'?
I wonder.
If it is, that would suck because I have had the same thing happen to me and to clean it off is going to take a very long time. Seemed hard as rock, though.

 

I have said this before. I'm not an experienced spray painter. But every time I shoot paint from a gun ,amazed on how well it goes compared to rattle cans. The only downside is gun cleaning.

 

I'm actually not 100% convinced that the brown spots are coming from underneath the primer yet. I haven't sanded the primer down yet, just sanded through the whole thing in one go with 120 grit. There is still a good chance that this is a separate reaction at the surface level, which is scary because if that is the case it would mean that the ruined rust converter application would not give an outward sign immediately.

On the older pieces with RC coatings on them, only the one that was left outside for a season gave an outward appearance of corrosion breaking through. The piece that was stored indoors still looked good to go. I'd like to get a hold of some more of this stuff and test it again, doing everything right and in the shop, then topcoat it, paint it, etc. and finally sand the piece back down to see what's what.

 

Patmanta, let's see if you get any issues from the rust converters. I redid a car years ago, used an auto store rust converter. DA'd to bare metal, wire wheeled and rust converter'd any spot rust. Primed, blocked with dupont auto primer don't remember the paint codes now. Shot with dupont single stage enamel.

About a year later I started seeing hazy areas where I used the rust converter that turned into halo circle. The car has been painted/garaged, driven rarely for 20 years. The paint never failed but I feel like the acid or whatever from the rust converter bled thru very good automotive paint (good technology at the time). I think if that car was daily driven and in the sun, the paint would have failed.

 

I'm not a painter but have talked and gotten advice from a lot of painters and body guys over the years and they have NEVER given me any advice that recommended any rust converters. It has always been sand, wire wheel, sandblast, or cut out any rust.

Honestly, would you trust your car to any shop that wouldn't remove any traces of rust before going to paint?

I know budgets can be tight but I don't think this would be a place to skimp. For the most part I think it would mostly save you labor and not any real cash. Sandblasters and powered sanders usually won't break the bank.

Don't mean to start any arguments but these "encapsulators" go against anything I have heard or read in preparation before paint.