Painter dudes... Can you flatten clearcoat? Can it be used over old paint and primer to save the patina and look that's taken years to appear, without it allowing it to rust further? I'm not a painter, but I LOVE the look of this truck (the old battered soldier thing)... and would like to save it. After a little bodywork, how can this be done? Or do i have to continually monitor further surface rust and rot? Kinda looking for a new home for a certain 454 I got.... whatta ya think?
PPG makes a flattened urethane clear DCU 2060. You can use it full strength to get a satin (almost flat) finish or mix it with regular urethane clear to get a little more gloss. I have tried mixing flattener with gloss urethane clear and you need a lot of it to flatten it down and it seems to give you a uneven finish, but that may be a good thing in this case.
If you put clear on it, no matter how flat the clear is, it won't be the same. I think it would screw it up. What would a master cabinet maker tell you if you said you had a unique piece of hardwood that you loved the patina of, and you wanted to coat it with clear to preserve it? It is what it is, and it's what it is that makes it appealing. Since you love the look of the truck the way it is, just leave it alone. Dave http://www.roadsters.com/
Exactly! Putting clear over it is a bad idea IMHO. Might as well paint it up nice with a lot of painted fake rust. Want to stop the rust? Oil or wax. regards, DJ
Yeah... in Kansas if it's bare metal it's rusty within the hour. If clear is a bad idea, that's what I needed to find out. Surface rust would turn into rot within a few years... maybe a partial spraying of light army green in spots would make me happy. Fade the new into the old... hmmm???
you preserve it by parking it inside somewhere! that's a killer suburban....why can't I find stuff like that? my suburbans were all trashed when I got them btw, if you get that thing and need some inner window parts and stuff, I have some parts...
well spraying over the surface rust won't stop it or slow it down much. you could sand off all that though and just spray those areas with new flatened paint, close to the color of the car or not. that would still give you the patched old car look, but not the same. i hear you though, looks neat now, but what happens when the panels rot through, then you got the ugly cancer holes everywhere. maybe just do the areas that will rot the most. like around the wheel wells and such. then leave the big top panels like the hood alone. those will probably take forever to rust through. just a thought. gary.
Spray this on the rusted areas: http://www.roadsters.com/gibbs/ and follow the "how to apply..." directions on that page. When it no longer feels wet, it's time to put more on. Dave http://www.roadsters.com/
To preserve the car, you should put a good wax on the paint, and oil on the bare metal spots (Gibbs or something similar), and keep the whole package clean. You'll probably have to wax and oil the car at least a couple times a year, but if you keep it up, you'll never lose the finish it has now. Spraying clear over it is going to ruin it, plus you run the risk of lifting the paint or the clear not sticking because the surface wasn't prepped, and if you painted over some of the spots it has now, then you may as well fake the whole paint. Do it right and it'll last a hell of a long time. Look how long it lasted already without any help? Another good idea to keep it nice is to thoroughly clean out the insides of the doors and the spaces down deep in the quarters, then spray it with Seal-Out or a similar product. The idea is that if there's dirt or old leaves or anything in the truck, they will eventually trap moisture and rust out the insides of the doors. If you take some good precautionary steps, you should be able to preserve this indefinitely.
I agree with cleaning it, but not with applying clear, oil, or anything else that will change the way it looks. Just keep it as dry as possible, and it should last a long time. maybe I'm spoiled living AZ, though
any clear will most likely darken it. in order for your clear to stick well you'd need to prep the body... which would change it. rust emits gasses as it goes along. these gasses cause bubbles in paint as the gas has nowhere to go. one more vote for no clear. as for the rust becoming holes... most rust holes come from the inside out.. where water drain holes in the bottoms of doors and such have become clogged, or where other debris has been allowed to accumulate on the insides thereby holding moisture for longer periods rather than having it evaporate after a day or so....so I wouldn't worry about rust holes from the surface rust. I say get it sitting right. make it run, put some glass in it and leave the body alone. only time can make a patina like that. to preseve it keep it inside in the winter as much as possible
Look for pics of chopped bad-a '38 pontiac with big block from HAMB drags. Bare metal with clear coat. Bitchin' ride. With paint, I'd leave it the way it is. No clear.
what are you protecting the patina from? if you leave it out, will it turn into a nice paintjob? surface rust like that usually doesn't get much worse than it already is. you ever see a car sitting in texas with topside surface rust that rusted through? rust through comes from dirt and shit collecting on areas of metal, the dirt holds moisture so the rust keeps going, but out in the open and fairly clean, it's not going to get much worse, or is it better?
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