[showtime808]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and my name is Keoni. Thanks for supporting a place like this to help guys like me who have a question get help.

I am in the process of restoring a 56 chevy 2dr belair ht. I am doing some experimenting with some primer. Long story short I under activated a quart of auto shop jp205 polyester primer by about 50%. I am not sure if it will dry? Should I wait and hopefully it dries in 70 degree weather? Or should I just try wiping it off with acetone and starting over? Any suggestions will be helpfull

Thanks

[OneMoreTime]

We have all done that one time or another..If it has not set up by the next day just wipe it off and do a do over..

Sam

[cboy]

I just did something of the same sort...but with good (???????) reason.

To shoot polyester on some hard to get at places I used my detail gun...which has a .1 tip. Which just isn't going to let poly pass. So I had to thin the poly way down 1:2. But then I had to ask myself, do I add activator relative to the 2 portions of paint or do I add enough to harden a total of 3 parts (which would technically be adding hardener to thinner). Bottom line, I added the hardener in proportion to the paint only...not including the thinner. And by the next day it was still pretty tacky and could not be sanded without balling up and gumming the paper.

However, I let it set one more day and left the heat turned up overnight in the shop (it was about 15 below zero outside) and it then kicked and I was able to sand it properly. So my problem was probably a combination of too little heat AND too little hardener.

One little trick I used in areas that still gummed up the sandpaper a wee bit was to first spread some sanding "dust" over the area to be sanded. Basically, this is just primer from another area or piece of the car (I used the stuff I sanded off my fenders and spread it around on the roof of the car). Just be sure you are only getting paint and not picking up debris or dirt from the floor etc...that could result in some pretty deep scratching where you don't want it. I found the "dusting" sort of knocks down the tackiness just enough to allow you to start sanding. And once you've broken the surface well enough, it can be sanded as normal.

BTW, I've also made the mistake of using too little hardener with body filler. And one thing NOT to do is to try to spread pure hardener over the top of tacky body filler to try to get it to kick. Don't ask me how I know...but this makes a HUGE mess that you have to completely remove. What DOES work, however, is to apply a thin coat of properly proportioned filler and hardener over the top of the entire unkicked area. This seems to get everything to kick...or at least gives that appearance and allows you to sand as normal.

[NOTE:All of the above is out of the mouth of a novice shadetree painter...so take it with the appropriate grains of salt. Listen to the real experts on here if you want to do it right.]

[baddbob]

You guys really need to invest in an entry level heat lamp for curing. I know all about cold weather and difficulties maintaing shop temperatures. We just got through two weeks where it was -20F most mornings. I try to maintain a minimum of 60F in the shop at all times but on these cold stretches it'll sometimes creep down to 50F overnight now and then which is poor conditions for curring most products. Polyester products require good temperatures. I can get polyester primers to kick over and dry tack free and be sanding within 1/2hr of application if I throw a lamp on it. Also MEKP has a shelf life and gets weak with age, I had one application with some Clausen Poly primer that I had to wash off and I pray to God that that never happens again! Brian Martin had a good writeup on how to decipher Evercoats date code on their hardener tubes but I didn't memorize it. Brian if you read this and remember how to read those codes please give us a refresher.