I've got a 55 buick in the shop doing a repaint. The car was repainted 10-15 years ago and paint still looks fair but has a ton of waves in it. Stripping it to bare metal and findind laq. primer and red nitrostand glaze so that tells me it was done some time ago. Is base clear with what looks like about 2 gallons of clear on it. The hood looked good so trying to just use Spi black epoxy and no 2-k to see how it works. Stripped the hood with 40 on 8" and 6" da, put down two coats of unreduced epoxy, let dry overnight sanded with 220 da. Put down two more coats of epoxy reduced 60%. Looks good I think I can wet sand with 400 and put down the base and clear. This is just a test to see if it works as good as I've been told. Also this is black with white two tone so a good test.
You'll like it...I went one step futher on a newer hood that I stripped to the metal ,only 2 coats of SPI epoxy reduced 50% and paint,but I didnt have any scratches or bodywork to fill... Back a few years ago I went all the way in the other direction and filled 36 grit scratches with 8 coats, unreduced just to see how well it filled ,it took a full week to cure but it filled and blocked out beautifully/no shrinkage later on....love that stuff..
Is that really a fair test though? I would think two coats unreduced epoxy would need more than overnight dry, that is what you would give the 2K for restoration work. Longer dry times and a little harder sanding, is what I thought were the disadvantages?
Two heavy coats with SPi epoxy, sometimes overnight is not enough cure timejust wait another day but you'll know if its ready as soon as you start sanding it because it'll start to ball up on the paper but in the summer time two coats isnt much of a problem as far as overnite cure time goes.
Two coats reduced at 50% will be ready to paint within an hour.
heavy building with more than two coats will take a lot more time to cure but on a resto time isnt as important as it is in production work where you can pile up the 2k then sand the next day no matter what..So thats about the only draw back with spi epoxy but its so much better than 2k (mainly its highly resistant to chipping) its a fair trade off ,SPI sands really nice, not like all the other epoxies I've tried. with a little guide coat you can do a super straight job without any 2K at all, just epoxy and paint.
The two coats of unreduced sanded the next day just fine and our temp at night here has been at best 50's. Sanded almost like 2-k once you broke the top film. This is going back black so I may just shoot the hood this weekend to see how it looks. The lid I had to put some 2-k on because of body work. I thought the reason behind all epoxy was that you ended up with a more durable paint not a time thing one way or the other.The body side panels need alot of body work so that will take most of this next week. It had a thin coat of old laq. primer on it and a ton of waves. My guess is it was caused from sripping the old factory paint. That old laq. paint use to get real hot when you tryed to strip it. That or they sand blasted it. Car should have had a skim coat of mud end to end. Thats what it will get now. You can see where they did multipal coats of mud on their body work and looks like it was sanded real fine. On restoration work with a lot of mud work that just causes undercutting. Finish it off with 80 and if you dont like to block 2-k put some sprayable polly on it. Will save a whole lot of time and be much straighter when done.
I've used SPI epoxy and I like it. On some parts that had EDP coating (black primer) I've scuffed them, shoot 2 coats of epoxy and then wetsanded them and painted them. Epoxy filled minor nicks/scratches that were in EDP from shipping. I know epoxy will protect steel better than EDP will.
I got the bodywork on the drivers side done today and put down a coat of epoxy. Just waiting for it to set then I'll put down three coats of 2-k on it. The 2-k that I've been using is Roblo from spain. If you use it as a super fill 4-1 with no reducer 3 coats are about the same as 2 coats of sprayable poly. It sands great after a overnight dry. You can reduce it to what ever thickness you want. 2 coats will fill 40 grit sanding marks. Hood and lid are ready to paint and Lt side is in primer and I've got right at 25 hrs. in it. While working on it today I found some spots on the glass where the sand from sand blasting etched the glass so all this damage was cause by some guy blasting it. THese things are thick to built like a tank. Its a shame because this was a pretty nice car from the looks of it. Only has 47,000 miles on it
I got the hood done and the trunk this week. The hood looks great so if the epoxy and no 2-k makes for a more durable paint I may start doing this on some jobs. Can't see any difference between the hood that is all epoxy and the trunk that is epoxy and 2-ked with a coat of epoxy sealer before paint. Both look good with no sand scratches. They are both shot with what ppg calls thier new and improved Omni black base. Two coats and after about 2hrs dry three coats of SPI production clear. Sanded with 1500 and buffed. The trunk needs a little more polishing but hood looks like a black mirror.
I got a awtia 400 a couple months ago for my clear coat gun LOVE IT. My base gun is a $100 cheapy from keystone. As far as buffing I use a air buffer with a wool pad and a rough cut from wizard and a fine cut from mequirers with a little bit of water.
Looks like you got the wave problem cured It looks great I think the owner will be very happy....I really love their Universal clear and I've used it for years and I wanted to try that production clear to shave some cost on my used cars but they were all out so I went with the SPI Euro clear and I love it 110.00 for the clear and the hardner 40.00 for the reducer so thats 150.00 for 8 sprayable gals at 4:1:3,enough for 2-3 cars.THATS a deal and it buffs like butter,you should try it sometime I think you'll really like it.
I still want to try the production clear it looks like it sprays pretty well .when I mixed the Euro clear at 4:1:3 and did a full paint job I got a couple runs but it layed out like glass.I dont think it buffed as ez as the Uni clear But I was rushing and nothing would have buffed fast enough so on my next job (tomorrow) I'll try it at 4:1:2 and see how it acts...
With the production clear theres no reduction is there? just 4:1?
I have reduced it 4-1-1. It goes on nice and is hard to run and I dont have any problems doing that.
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