[Sample]

Hey all,

I just finished painting my '83 K5 Blazer bright red. I used an acrylic enamel. The color looks great, but I have several runs around the tail/sidemarker/turn signal lights and several places where there is quite a bit of orange peel.

This was my first time painting a vehicle. I have used all my paint, how can I fix these blemishes? The final coat was applied about 5 hours ago. I have yet to hit it with the clear coat.

Thanks,
Chris

[TurboS10]

If the color does not have any metallic, you can sand and buff the areas you mentioned. If so you cant because it will disturb the pattern.

Clear coat?? Acrylic enamel is single stage I thought.

chris

[Sample]

That is what I thought about the acrylic enamel too, but the guy I bought my paint from said that he suggests putting a couple of coats of clear over the top. I don't know, it looks really good (besides my mess-ups) without the clear coat.

What is the proper way to buff after wetsanding, to get rid of the swirls and sctratches of the sanding?

[willys36@aol.com]

If you used hardner in the paint you can do the repairs you suggest then polish it to a great finish. If you didn't use hardner, you can't really repair the paint 'cause enamel never really hardens beneath the surface and doesn't polish well after the hard outer skin is broken. In the latter case, fix the bad spots then clear coat w/ catalyzed urethane. Then that can be sanded and polished.

[Kevin45]

They make a tool with a series of small razor blades in it to shave down runs. Check with Eastwoods.

Kevin

[willys36@aol.com]

Yes, I have seen those little shavers at my paint supplier. Haven't been able to work up the guts to try one. I envision myself doing more damage with one than the mess I start out with. Anyone used them? HK?

[4 Jaw Chuck]

Too late now but when I was spray painting the trick was to use a strip of masking tape and just touch the run on the high side and pull off the run. A little air from the gun and some dusting usually got you a surface where only metallics would show there was any problem and if you had leftover you could just dust it in more.

Lesson number one...don't use all the paint, leave a half pint for touch ups and blow-ins.

[rdzat]

I too just did some painting for the first time with the b/c c/c dupont paint everthing went well except for the last clearcoat i got what i would call a pretty big sag, Eastwood sells a run razor that has a razor blade in it and its ajustable like a wood plane and also they have these little run blockers, so i ordered a set i should get them by the end of the week, i will let you know how they work i also noticed they have these little nib files for doing hardened paint but they are pretty expensive so today i made my own i used a vixen file and cut a few pieces off with my radiac glued them to a piece of wood they look just like the one that Eastwood is selling for 15 bucks,

[Halloweenking]

4Jaw is right about the tape repair while the paints still wet. I do that method myself. As for those little scrapers they work pretty good, I used to have one and with one or two passes over the top your ready to buff without all the wet sanding. I like them, they work pretty good for others things too.

HK

[collins motors co.]

I would take some fine wet or dry sandpaper 800 or 1000 grit and sand the skin off the paint around and over the runs and let and let it dry for a few days so the runs are dry inside beforeyou try and eliminate them.