$50 paintjob- you gotta see this!

Rolled on house paint might have some adhesion issues if used on metal. You'd definately want to use a primer under it to give it a chance.
I wouldn't do it, Rustoleum I would do! It's a good inexpensive alternative to $200 a gallon paint. It is more labor intensive, much more if you wet-sand between coats as this artical suggests.
It's a matter of what you can afford and how much elbow grease you are willing to apply. In todays economy, it's really something to think about.

Dan Stevens
dba, Steelsmith

 

I can't help but agree with this, it seems that far too many have bought into the idea that the only 'right' paint job for their so called 'traditional style' ride, is a BC/CC that would put to shame anything that Bailon, Barris, or Watson ever actually did back in the day.
I say get real. 95% of the rods and customs built back in the 50s and '60s were painted under less than ideal conditions, in home garages, in carports, and driveways, or if the guy was well connected, in some small local body shop, almost always using 1k materials.
Most of these paint jobs didn't run over $600 total, for paint, materials, and labor, and weren't being paid for by well heeled gold-chainers, or by greybeard 401k loans, but by young and average working class guys making $3-$5 an hour.
It was expected that the owners of most 'quality' rods would want a repaint within a few years, not that they would be locking their cars away in climate-controlled storage garages, to only bring them out if they thought there was a shot at winning some coveted national award, so they could then be trucked off to Barret-Jackson.
Yep, I for one walk right on by all those $30k mile-deep paint job rich-boy toys, barely sparing 'em as much as a glance, to get down to where the real builders and rodders are displaying their handiwork, something that I can relate to and admire.
Same thing happens at the Drags, I don't give a hoot about wasting any precious time viewing the latest and hottest multi-million dollar Fuel/Flopper/Funny, but will bust my ass in getting over to check out every old time old Gasser, 'Stocker' or SS car.

 

were can i buy the roll on Rustoleum i see the rattle can spray stuff at the auto parts store but were is the roll on type? what should i use to thin just reg paint thinner?

 

This is a good way to do it if you have more time than money,My last paint job done at a shop just the materials were 2k It did come out way sweet though
Me I would work overtime or pick up side work to pay a pro if the car was worth it

 

GRAVEROBBER...what are you people doing? trying to put the KING OF CHEAP out of business. i'am talking about EARL SCHIBE. actualy that would be a GOOD THING...POP.

 

Finally maybe now people will paint there cars the traditional way. I am sick of "traditional" rods with $20,000 paint jobs.

 

Here is is another for what it is worth. I don't know anything about rolling the paint on, as I have always sprayed.

Some guys like one thing more than the other, so while some enjoy tearing the engines apart, and some like the sheet metal work, some guys like doing their own paint, and it is not just about saving money, nice as that always is. I lean towards the paint and bodywork as being the most enjoyable part to me personally. I have used in the past most of the same automobile paints that the average do-it-yourselfer has, I suppose, Nason, Martin Senour, Dupont, Sherwin Williams ect.

Recently I have restored a 1949 Dodge pickup, and I wanted to do John Deere Green, John Deere yellow, and John Deere Gloss Black, all common colors at Atwoods (a local farm and ranch supplier, in their Van Sickle line of farm implement/industrial paint. I had a Nason paint sample mixed, and didn't like their John Deere Green, so I went to Martin Senour and got a sample ounce, and it was not a good match either. Both of those paints were in the $150.00 - 180.00 a gallon range. I figured what the hell, and went back to Atwoods and got their Van Sickle paint at 25 bucks a gallon. It is good paint to work with for someone doing their own, and they have a UV protection clear coat. It sprays nice and shiny, and is not bad to run or sag, or orange peel, at all. I used very typical preparation, 2 coats rustoleum rusty metal primer, 2 coats 2k filler primer, and 2 coats VanSickle paint, (which has to be thinned more than the amount that is listed on the can), and I used a generic gloss hardner. My running boards and back fenders carry the gloss black. I still have my bedsides to do, but I figure the paint and related items will still be in the $200.00 range, total, so it's not bad that way.

I am not trying to talk anyone in to doing what I have done, and everyone has to figure what is best for themself, but for guys that want to do it theirselves fairly inexpensively, this does show there are different ways. I guess it also depends on what you are looking for in the end. Joel

This is that truck. It has a reflection of clouds, and the setting sun on the hood, as it was a late evening picture, but it is a very shiny paint.

 

Well, they sure don't make me sick.
I can appreciate any aspect of a car builders work. Whether he has bucks or no bucks..

We are, in the end, all rodders rescuing shit from restorers...

 

Yea, and enamel lasts way longer than laquer too! So this is the old way of doing it with better results.

 

The crap you DON'T want to use is JD blitz Black. i've tried to paint over it a year later on a frame and it lifted the acrylic enamel that went over it;ended up with a gooey mess. This was directly from JD.

 

Yes this can happen with a lot of enamel paints not just the cheep paints. I found when reducing the paint use a reducer and not a Thinners.Thinners tend to bit everything under it and causing it to lift.You seen this a lot with old enamel paint.Before painting over enamel you should seal it with a sealer.

 

the way people run down earl scheib cracks me up. when was the last time you had a car painted by him? he has several different types of paint you know! also in varying prices.
you also have to remember his paint has to please the epa too, so it's not junk paint.
now i have a henry j street gasser and did all the prep work on it, bodywork, rustoleum primer, and sanded that down smooth. took it to earl on a trailer without anything in it, no seats, motor/trans, chrome, nothing but the bare shell.
they painted it with a single stage enamel, with a clear coat mixed in, and i can tell you they did a great job!
i have never sanded it down, polished it or even waxed it and still shines just like the day it was painted! no, it's not a garage queen. it has never been in a garage, it has always stayed outside in the weather for over ten years now. i also live in the desert, so it gets a lot of crappy weather too. the wind has blown so hard with flying sand the windshields are sandblasted, yet the paint still looks great!
all this cost was 150 bucks, when they had a sale.
i am finishing another "j" right now and am thing about doing it again.
save yourself all the sanding and just take it to earl scheib.
on another note. my brother had his '47 ply painted at One day, then took it to a detail shop and had it color sanded. let me tell you, that thing was smooth. you could throw a towel on it anywhere and it would just slide right off. he won several best paint awards with that car too.
now this is not to run down rustoleum paint, as i have been painting most of my cars with it for 15 years, so i know of where i speak.
another thing, if you want it to be hard, just get something called japan dyer and put it in before spraying.

 

Maaco painted a 53 olds I had,I did all the prep work and had all the trim off and they did a decent job. I am thinking about using the tractor paint Tractor Supply sells to paint my 66 F250,Ford blue is close to the original color and it was around 30 dollars a gallon the last time I checked.

 

Good thread. A lot of ways to skin a cat.

 

I did the underside of my bed and my whole engine bay in satin tractor paint i bought from tsc. Cost me $8 and I have left overs. I was worried after we sprayed it because it had a terrible orange peel and took 3 days to dry. But once it got hard it leveled right out and looked great. My buddy who has been painting for 10 years didnt even believe me. He is still amazed at it, and has recommended it to people on budget builds. The stuff is rock hard also. I accidentally hit it several times on the firewall when dropping the motor and hit it with very sharp corners and not so much as a scratch. Since then we used a gallon that cost $25 to do the whole exterior of my buddies truck. We used a hardener in it and it dried alot faster. It looked amazing and he got alot of compliments and alot of jaw drops when he explained how he painted it. If anybody is interested I can post pictures

 

michigan post some pics
thanks

 

50 bucks? I got that beat. My cutlas was 35 bucks. 10 dollars for primer and 25 for a gallon of walmart paint. I painted it about 2 years ago and rust is just starting to come thru. But its a northern car and my first paint job.

 

Sounds good. Hope the Rodent Rodders pick up on this, just might help them turn their pellet boxes into something more reasonable lookiing. Gary

 

I would like to know how you can wet sand tremclad after a days drying time. That stuff takes at least a week of drying before you can sand it.

 

I sold high end paint for 30 years and 90% of any paint job is prep. If you don't want paint to stick don't sand what ever your putting it over. Maaco and ES painters paint 8-10 cars a day and have learned to be pretty good sprayers, have the booth to do it in and if you prep it right you will get a good job with alot less mess in your garage. the choice is yours.
Don

 

When we painted a jeep at the motorpool the trick was to add a dollup of
black to the OD paint then thin it with white gas and spray. Gas made it dry
really fast and it turned out real shiney also.
Bill.

 

$50 paint job?

 

There is more cost to a "paint job" than just the cost of the paint..think about it.
a paint job starts with the body work being done right, and taking off trim etc.. than all the cleaning supplies, tape..tarps. brushes, thinners..etc.. the list is longer than a can of paint and a few brushes.
Sorry i call Bull Shit on the 50$ spent

 

I'm painting the chopped top '46 with Rustoleum "Satin". It can be sanded in less than 24 hours. If it's tacky you can wet sand it. When you knock off the top it'll dry faster. I found the best way to get it blocked straight is to wet sand with 80 grit. It still clogs the paper though. Then paint another coat and so on. The last coat will be sprayed with thinned down Rustoleum/Mineral spirits and left to dry several days.

 

I rebuilt a late 70s camper over the summer. I live in the city and there's no way I could get away with spraying - not only is it illegal, I couldn't justify to myslef the isocyanates I'd be spraying into my neighbors' kids lungs.

I used a mid-quality marine paint. It's enamel and designed to be brushed or sprayed so you don't have to worry about the solvent trapping you'd get if you tried to brush a paint designed for spray only.

I didn't like using a foam brush - I opted for a high quality badger hair brush.

The stuff flows out quite nicely. The camper was way too big to try sanding it all out, but I think you could get a quality finish with a bit more time. Some things aren't worth hours of work though.



If you google up Interlux Brightside, that is what I used.

Interlux Perfection is their top-of-the line two-part polyurethane. If I were doing a car, I would probably step up to that.


There is also at least one marine paint company that has a clear designed to go over their "base", although not required.


Of course, there's no way you could do a metallic, and the colors available are limited (although you can mix and you can order custom shades).


Personally, I don't think it's all that much more work than spraying. If you're like me, where you can't spray, no matter how much money you throw at equipment, it's your only option if you want to do it yourself. Far less masking is required and you don't have to worry about throwing particulates up from the floor or from the air.

If you're new to spraying, well, you're probaly going to screw up enough that you're going to be sanding out runs, or redoing panels.


Now, if I had the space, and the equipment, you can't beat a quality BC/CC automotive system for longevity and quality and, with an experienced applier, the results are the absolute best.

You can get close to the finish quality, and you can get close to the longevity with Interlux, but it will be more work. With that work, though, you can get amazing results - far better than what's coming out of the OEMs, although that's a pretty low bar. Better than a lot of first or second try spray jobs.

Having done both, I see advantages to both.

There's a certain amount of stress, IMHO, to spraying if you're doing it in a small, general use shop. You have to do a lot of environmental prep before spraying, then you have recoat windows, and when you're done, there's a fair amount of cleanup. A minor screwup can mean redoing the whole panel, and then you can have issues with obvious color mismatches. You need a lot of specialized equipment.

Brush painting is less finicky. You can fix things easier. You don't have to get it all done right now and the pre and post work is less. Far less equipment required and you can do it at 3 in the morning without waking the neighbors. If you're doing one car in your small garage or shop, it's worth considering.

 

I sprayed mine but i thinned the rustoleum 50 50 with acetone.
2 quarts of royal blue and a gallon of acetone. it cost me like 45 bucks.
Ive scratched it a few times putting the interior back in and touched it up with royal blue rustoleum spray paint.

 

My girl friend many yr ago,painted her vw bug with wal-mart spray can white at $1.00 a can and took 12 cans.Looked.................o.........k 1/4 mile AWAY but she was proud...........Needed 24 more cans.lol..........YG

 

Great job!!!
I've been painting cars with rollers for years now. It's a great way to make a shitty car look fine again. Here are pics of my 56 chevy truck done with rustoleum, (yard art) and my 59 chevy done with laytex.($10-Housepaint-Magenta)

 

when i was a kid,,,, earl shieb painted it for $19.95.... any car any color....then he bumped it all the way up to $29.95.....of course if you didn't do prep- sanding yourself,,, guaranteed to peel in first year or so....