Customs Weird paint techniques

I worked on an aircraft assy line after High School for awhile in the late 70's/early 80's. There were some old timers on the line that had been there since the War (building B-24's). I picked up a lot of shop tricks from them as they were the Great Depression/WW II find a way to make it happen with what you have on hand generation.

One trick was to touch up paint using an air nozzle while dripping paint into the air flow pattern. The paint shop bottled up the green aircraft primer and gloss white for us in small, 2 oz. plastic squeeze bottles with rcaps. Trigger the air nozzle about a foot away from the surface, then with your other hand, slowly drip a few drops of primer into the fan while you move the pattern around. It would atomize the primer and lay down a nice coat. Some of them had made portable "touch up guns" by cutting a 2" length of 1.5" aluminum channel. Drill a 1/2" hole in each side, then permanently fasten the tip of the nozzle through one hole and attach the paint bottle by pushing the bottle threads through the channel and fastening it by threading the cap on. You could then paint with one hand. Guys got really good with a double trigger gun method, by starting the air and then twisting their wrist to introduce or stop paint flow.

As a kid, my friend's Grandpa used to paint his 56 F 100 with house paint using a roller and brush. It actually came out great.

In High School, the district wouldn't let the shop have spray equipment, so my old timer teacher made a syphon style spray gun from a soda bottle. He also had an aluminum refillable spray paint can that you charged with compressed air after you added paint.

Then there's the "blow gun" as seen here doing auto paint in Romania;

 

We use to do all types of weird stuff in the 70's when I first started painting, lots of blank canvas to fill (vans!). Cobwebbing was popular, used that a lot since it was a fast process. Always wanted to find but never did a duel headed "veiling" gun.
I'd always send the customer to the fabric store so they could pick out their own pattern, actually it was I just hated hanging out looking at lace, the old lady clerks would look at you funny!
I'm sure the fire dept would loved to see me roll my welding outfit into the booth so I could "smoke" panels with acetylene.
Buying heater filters at the hardware store, cutting them up to make stencils to paint fish scales.
Throwing ball bearings into the paint cup so a quick flip of the wrist would keep the flake suspended in the clear.
Spending a LOT of money to buy a good duel action air brush when you finally decided those Binks single action air brushes the paint stores sold didn't work that well. Then taking care of it like it was the most important tool in your box.
Thinning the paint just right to get really good "freak drops" then using a business card to add a "starburst" to it.
Conning the guy at the meat market to cut a roll of masking tape on the meat slicer to get really thin (1/16") masking tape. Then having him pissed off when he realized the blades would be all gummy with adhesive and hard to clean.
I miss those days, it was a lot of fun.

 

I'd really like to see some of those techniques if you had any pictures for reference! Us youngsters weren't there


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I did some scallops once, and sprinkled some glitter I had heisted from my kid's craft box. I put it in a salt shaker, laid on a coat of gloss black, sprinkling as I went after a couple of passes, then sealed it off with some thinned out clear. This was on a roof, so it kinda went on evenly. It looked OK until the UV light got to it and it faded out.
I also sprayed a car when I was a lad with slow-drying enamel, it caught every bug within a 10 mile radius. Looked very eco-friendly.

 

Yes those were the days ....and alot of them paint ideas were started by guys that were not only experimenting with putting some wild paint jobs on cars body's but in there own body don't get me wrong I'm not judging just saying and not all were doing that... I am not complaining either because I love that type of paint jobs when I was a kid my uncle had a 67 Chevelle had a 427 4spd and a wild paint job it had them all freak drops ,lace , cob webbing, you name it was on it ...but you couldn't see it unless you where in the right lighting just looking at it it looked like a very nice dark purplish blue under the street lights at night WoW...that thing came alive...there was even a topless hula dancer on the trunk lid ...far out man..there are alot of good books out on the subject I own alot of them and for the ones that are afraid of books they have alot of it on line also and there are also several threads right here on the H.A.M.B.

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Wait! Do you mean a marble in the paint cup is unusual? I have used a marble in the cup on everything I have painted for the last 50 years

 

I painted a 70-72 Hurst Olds in the dirt alley with a vacuum cleaner. Turned out pretty good.

 

Metalflake tutorial

 

Back in the 60's I painted my '54 Dodge to look like a Shelby GT 350, green with whit stripes, with a vacuum cleaner spray attachment, in the backyard of course.

We also use rollers to paint several layers of thinned out White Tiger (bondo) on a friends car. There still could be a plastic '56 Ford body out there.

 

My first attempt at a lace paint job on a wooden surfboard I built. Came out nice.

 

My old 32 sedan, had Gold metalflake fenders with black cobwebbing, and gold lace on the gas tank.

Mick

 

Early Roll Royces were all brush paint jobs then color sand and buff!. The paint doesn't know how it got on the car.

 

I know the vehicle is OT, but the paint job is what we're talking about... Lace, stripes, fades,stencils, and bubbles...

 

I tried the lace once, turned out better than expected. photo does not do it justice.

 

I have 2 strange stories
an old painter told me him and his friend crushed beer bottles into powder and mixed it with paint and shot some fenders on a custom they built
he also said he was finishing a custom paint job and ran out of pearl to paint the dash with. He said he visited all the drug stores in his area and bought all the pearl white nail polish he could find. Thinned it and sprayed the dash with the nail polish........sounds like it would work

 

Years ago I worked at a poop plant ( waste water treatment) . a contractor put some bad ass epoxy paint on a wall with a with a gun that heated the paint.. It was tough stuff so he gave me some off white he had left . I heated it on a hotplate and used a roller to put it on with. This stuff was so tough I could hardly drill it . I seen the guy later and he just laughed. He said the brand name was Tnemec. Backwards spelling is Cement.

 

When I was in Jr. high I knew a guy that had a 56 nomad. He hand sanded, spray bomb primered, waited a couple weeks and sanded it then went to Gibson's (how many remember that store?) And bought a ton of black gloss lacquer in spray bombs. Painted the car where it looked like it was on the verge of running with the spray bombs then waited a month, sanded and buffed it out. It was a good looking 20 footer. I doubt there's enough pigment in paint today to pull it off now.

 

The Golden Sahara had pulverized fish scale paste mixed into the paint.
In person, the finish was a richer pearl than any other I've ever seen.

 

I paint with Valspar house paint...use the satin house paint...cut it 2 1/2 bottles of water to 1 bottle of Valspar..my buddy even cut it with beer one silly afternoon
kinda nice to paint in shorts and a t-shirt and clean up your gun in a 5 gal bucket of warm soapy water. Does take a "sun bake" to help harden up the Valspar but at 35 bucks a gal...

 

I use a few marbles in the binks 7, a "00"metal steely type small one to catch the corners of the cup , the regular size ones do the normal agitation.

 

That video is awesome! I am surprised it works as well as it does.


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That metalflake video shows just about everything you should NOT do when painting metalflake.

 

Just don't inhale by accident

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A complete waste of 3 minutes.

 

One thing I've always done a little different is I make my own sheen of flat paints. I buy the acrylic enamel kits sold through Martin Senour and buy quart of exterior flattener additive and cut the gloss to my choice of sheen. Kinda of hotrod flats look but you can really get a different look to it. Way more durable than most other flat paints I've tried. And you can flatten any color.
I've also used the mica pigment powder normally added during the mixture of factory colors to the clear for the ghosting effect. I just add it to the areas I want over the color in a midclear coat. Only seen under certain light.

 

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Is that the same guy that does his freak dots with a paintBALL gun...?

 

Bringing up an old one.
Saved much time not having to remove from bead or mask.