Episode 34

[maynza]

Great job with this one! It's got me motivated to give this a shot. I can't wait for next weeks show.

[kronos6948]

Good episode that covers the extreme basics of painting from spraycans.

One thing Patrick should note, and anyone who's spraying anything, a good coat of clear over top of anything you did gives a layer of protection to whatever artwork you decide to put on there. Just be sure that it's totally dry when you spray it.

There's a couple of types of clear that you can get, and their usage depends on what type of look you're going for.

If you want shiny, go for the regular clear coat. Too shiny for you? Go matte. If that's still too shiny for your taste (Matte would be the shinyness of the Enterprise-D in space-think of what it looks like with light reflected off of it), then you go Flat.

If you want a cool "ghost" type of effect that's easy, once you've painted and clear coated whatever it is you're working on, make a stencil of any design, and use a different degree of clear. It gives it a frosted or etched look.

I've noticed that if you have something with really cool raised and lowered patterns on it, that if you paint it flat, and it gets a lot of usage, the raised parts will eventually become shiny giving it more depth.

Another thing that should be mentioned if you're just starting out is that certain spray cans have different spray patterns. Some of them are adjustable (they have a little blue tab thingy on the front of the nozzle). Some of them have just a circular pattern, while others paint more like a very thin ellipse (these are the ones that are adjustable). When working with these, be sure that your motions are perpendicular to the spray. For instance, if your spray is longest from top to bottom, your movement should be left to right. Otherwise, you're going to paint a really heavy stripe. That's not good.

Also, don't ever get the idea to just go willy nilly with your spray patterns. Otherwise, the paint's not going to be even across the object, and you won't get an even color.

If you want a really smooth, level paint job, lightly sand with some fine grit sand paper in between coats.

Hopefully I've been helpful.

[triple110]

Oh, where to begin...

1. Paint selection. Rustoleum or Ace Hardware brand paint is not a good paint that needs to have a smooth surface. Those are great for general purpose uses, where quality is not a priority. Stick to automotive paints my preference is to use DuPont paints. They type of nozzle is very important. Most rattle cans use cheap round hole nozzles which have difficulty creating a fine mist. Look for nozzle hole that look like a cat's eye they are easily spotted from standard nozzles.

2. Primer color. If you want a bright finish, use a light primer, like a light gray or white. If you want deep rich colors, use a dark color, even a black. Using an orange primer with an orange paint will hurt the over all finish for 2 reasons: Harder to tell where you painted and will dull the "tone" the final paint.

3. Use space heaters to warm up the work area. Even though you may warm up the paint can, the surface and ambient air must also be warm for the paint to flow and dry correctly. Most the space heater near the painted surface to help with the drying process. Dehumidifiers also help by keep moisture out the air.

4. Lightly wet sand with a 400-600 before final coat if you want a high gloss and tough surface. Most people don't do this because it takes a lot of time and makes a mess. But a spray bottle with some water can make easy work of small areas. If you are painting a larger surface, use a water hose to push water across the surface. If using a spray bottle use warm water so it will keep the surface temperature stable.

5. Coating. There are lost of different ideas on the best approach. My personal technique is to do a light coat then wait 30sec-1 minute and do a medium coat (also know as a wet coat), this will help smooth out the paint by allowing the paint to "float" on the other paint.

5. Plastics. If you are painting a textured plastic surface use a plastic prep. Other wise you will get flaking and chipping. The reasoning for this is because you will not be able to sand in all the crevices.

Hope that helps...

Seppuku

[bani_banan]

This episode inspired me to paint the EEE PC.

One question though, why orange? I understand pink. I understand lime green. But orange? C'mon!

[shinmaryuu]

If this is the same Macbook Patrick was talking about on DL.TV then i think his idea was a bio hazard orange with some sort of logo. Kind of an industrial waste can sort of feel.

[shinhed]

Oh, where to begin...


2. Primer color. If you want a bright finish, use a light primer, like a light gray or white. If you want deep rich colors, use a dark color, even a black. Using an orange primer with an orange paint will hurt the over all finish for 2 reasons: Harder to tell where you painted and will dull the "tone" the final paint....

4. Lightly wet sand with a 400-600 before final coat if you want a high gloss and tough surface...

^This man knows what he's talking about:)

IMHO, Patrick was too concerned about orange peeling his shell that he wasn't spraying enough paint. Many light coats can also orange peel your project due to paint dust drying mid-air and landing on your project. Also, he didn't seem to properly overlap or have adequate lighting.

Usually, after the first few light coats (if you choose not to sand between), you wanna do a medium wet layer. Again, it's important to have adequate lighting to make sure it's evenly wet, so that the paint can level out, reducing the orange peel effect.

As 'triple110', stated earlier Ace paint and Rustoleum Professional primer are crap when it come to a high quality jobs. I mainly use Duplicolor and Krylon paint for my projects. Also, Rustoleum makes an awesome wet sandable automotive primer instead of the junk Pat used.

Hopefully, Patrick will take our advice and we'll see the results in the upcoming episode.

P.S.
Orange peel look more like...hmmm...an orange's peel than a golf ball;)

[triple110]

^This man knows what he's talking about:)
I mainly use Duplicolor and Krylon paint for my projects. Also, Rustoleum makes an awesome wet sandable automotive primer instead of the junk Pat used.



Thanks for the compliment...Duplicolor...I knew got the brand wrong...thanks for the correction.

Seppuku

[sphinxer]

An important note, in addition to covering up everything that you don't want paint on, in relation to things like a camera:
Taking pictures or a video of your creation can be nice (especially if you plan to use them for a how-to online and such), but the first time you leave your camera with the lens cap off while spraying paint around, you'll be crying and looking up camera prices on Newegg.
If you want to film or take pictures while spraying, then get a decent sized piece of glass or lexan and put the camera behind that. Do not make the mistake of underestimating how far the paint particles can travel, and once they're on the cameras lens you'll be hard pressed to ever get it clean again.

[fergus]

I really want to try this out now! But, alas, I have visions of it going horribly, horribly wrong...

[rumblestrip]

As I was watching and seeing the brown and orange primer, I kept thinking of how cool a rat rod paint job would look, but Rev3 or some other logo on it and fade it. I't would look great on the next Baja race!

http://picasaweb.google.com/rumblestripradio/DragWeek2007/photo#5111026547110059442

[kronos6948]

I really want to try this out now! But, alas, I have visions of it going horribly, horribly wrong...

Find something of yours that you were thinking of getting rid of and try it out on that. That way, you can get some practice in, and learn the ins and outs of it before you try it on something you want to keep. So, if you ruin it, it's no loss.

[mrlahey]

As a professional auto painter, this whole episode gave me the heebie-jeebies.

[commando]

Patrick is totally right about patience but double your sandpaper grit and cut out half the work.

- Sand with 600 grit to prep your project
- 2 coats of primer
- Sand with 600 grit
- 2 coats of color
- Wet Sand with 1000 grit, in one direction i.e. <-->
- 2 coats of clear
- Wet Sand with 1000 grit, then 1500, then 2000, in one direction i.e. <-->
- Then buff it out with 3M rubbing compound

That's it. Cut out all the extra work, you don't need it.

What's up with 8 coats and sand in between. Not needed for a wicked paint job. Way overkill.

I've done tons of these things.

www.AirbrushTricks.com