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MG MGB Technical - Paint problem

Today I had a day off work so I decided to spray the colour coat in my boot. That worked great. I then went to top it off with a few coats of clearcoat and things went wrong. For some reason in places the clear went all white and fluffy! It was like spray snow in the boot. I am guessing I had something set up wrong on the gun since I am hardly an expert painter. Only other thing I have ever painted was the engine bay but that was with 2 pack paint. This time I used Dulon paint.

I put a picture of the disaster up here at the bottom of the page:

http://www.asciimation.co.nz/pics/page7.html

Truth be told I am not too worried since I want to stick on sound deadening pads over a lot of the areas that went white. Then the whole boot will be carpeted anyway. It's mainly there for rust protection rather than looks.

But can anyone tell me 1) what I did wrong and 2) what I could maybe do to fix it?

I was using a reasonably good gravity type HVLP gun. Makes me feel better about the decision I made ages ago to get the outside buits of the car sprayed professionally when the time comes!

Simon
Simon Jansen

Simon,
Don't have experience with paint to help on this one but I would like to say again how impressed I am with the work you are doing and the results being achieved. Especially as you have battled with garaging issues in various forms.

I will really enjoy seeing the end result.

Regards
Roger
Roger T

Simon, Like Roger, I don't have enough painting experience to answer your question. I would like to thank you for sharing your restoration experiences with us and linking your work to detialed photos. I'm sure your site will get lots of hits from others doing their restoration. It takes lots of patience to stop work to take time for a photo, it seems you have the patience to do it right. We are all looking forward to the day you have completed your restoration.

Regards, Clifton


Clifton Gordon

you shot it to dry,also make sure your bleed hole in the cap is open.mix a little bit of clear in a cup of color blender that is right for your type of paint. shoot it wet over the grainy spots several coats ,it will melt your clear and make it lay down.dont soak it or you will blister the base coat.
w c wolcott

Thanks for your comments guys! The web page is a bit of a mess really but I guess better there than not. One day I might get around to making a pretty site from it. Hopefully it is useful for people or at least encouraging. Believe me if I can get this far anyone can. You just tackle each little thing and learn as you go and just have to not be afraid to jump in and try things. Even when they do go wrong!

And W C thanks for the tip. I did have to stop between the base and clear coats to clean the gun. I very likely forgot to clean the breather cap. Ah well, we live and learn. I need to get some more thinners tonight then I can see what happens when I try spraying over it. Thanks!

If I am really lucky today I should have a large pile of new parts waiting for me at work. Still loads of work to do!

Simon
Simon Jansen

Hi Simon,
Auckland has a humidity problem which is my guess as to what has gone wrong. You can't spray Dulon with humidity over 70% without the risk of that happening.
Progress is looking great.
Garth.
Garth Bagnall

Simon a great site for the restoration project. Im really happy to see you used the 69 tail lights to replace your standard ones. I did too, after putting chrome bumpers on my 78 those tail lights just didnt seem to fit with the retro look. Good work!!!

Chuck
CW Strong

Hi Garth, I hope you're feeling better! I went and talked to my paint guys and they suggested spraying a fine coat of just thinners over the lot to soften it. That helped a bit. I then sprayed another cleat coat which helped more but didn't completely fix the problem. In the end I sprayed another quick coat of colour over that just to get everything one consistent colour. It came out OK in the end. But I know now to be careful when I spray the cockpit interior later on. Oh, after you showed me your racing syle fuel cap I had to get one too. eBay came to the rescue there after a little bit of looking and waiting.

Chuck, I prefer the earlier style lights over the later ones too and I think the smooth curves will work a lot better with the Sebring rear valence. I need to get new chrome surrounds for the ones I have though at some point.

Simon

Simon Jansen

Simon, if it was hot and humid the day you painted the paint may be drying before it gets to the surface. If it is a 2 part urathane they cure by moisture.
John H

It's an acrylic laquer apparently. The other thing I found I had done wrong was I wasn't thinning the paint enough. I was using 1:1 thinners to paint when I should have been using more like 2:1.
Simon Jansen

Acrylic laquer will dry before it hits the panel on very humid days. Dupont used to make a laquer retarder for just this problem, you should also use a high temp thinner as it flashes slower. Be carefull how much paint you put on when using laquer, if you get a thick build it will crack in a couple of years, been there, done that.
John H

This thread was discussed between 12/12/2005 and 14/12/2005

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.