Orange as hell. Not your fault man. Just know that color vision issues are common along males. So you and Charlie just drive your orange trucks around and deal with it.

Scroll up to my truck pic. That is red lol. Your trucks look awesome, I'm just playin but your truck is orangish red to my eyes. I would definitely use that color but it is getting close to the edge of too orange. There are popular reds that are much more orange than yours and still named red.

 

Nick

Don't mind it at all. I enjoy the subject very much. So much so that I am going to see about enrolling at the local CC in collision repair. A couple weeks of that and I'll be an authority. Expert posts everyday. That's what you have to look forward to.

I have painted about 20 vehicles. Some were awesome, some were embarrassing. IMO quality is about skill and practice. It's also a grand chemistry experiment and necessary equipment quality (price), is somewhat determined by what you are spraying. Heavy research to not make an extreme rookie error if you are trying to be on a budget.

I have seen the practice technique you describe. Many pros paint closer than 12" from surface. That requires a gun that will atomize properly close in. Right on the edge of a run is what many pros strive for. That's risky for a rookie. I have been practicing it. If I back off very far the orange peel sets in most every time and all the work that goes into fixing it. Having something to stand on for certain spots is important. If you can't get comfortable it's trouble. The curvy contours are definitely a challenge. No chance I could paint one of these trucks assembled. Painting it piece by piece has it's own issues if spraying anything but solid color. There are far easier vehicles to paint than an Effie.

Charlie

No argument at all with your points. My truck is way over a $15K investment with countless hours of my time. You are right it's absolutely worth great paint. A little too much personal info but I might as well say what is driving this as this thread may go on for a month or more and I don't want to justify it everyday. I am in the process of switching careers now for work that hopefully isn't at the mall. I have a 19YO daughter starting college that crashed both her parents daily drivers. Her timing is poor. My truck makes me happy so I'll somehow make it pretty again and hopefully for 10 years. Even if I have to hide it in the garage to save the red paint I know will be prone to sun fade. Enough of that but I can't spend grocery money on truck paint I'll likely screw up some anyway. I have to pinch a few pennies and find the paint quality line not to cross and I think I have. That is what is going on and I'll figure it out. Enough of that . My truck is worth $2k in paint stuff but I just can't do it.

 

Thats the one I was thinking

HOK also has a bc/cc "kandy" KBC that i've seen in person and it looks pretty close to a true kandy. Just doesn't have quite the depth

 

The colors on the link that I posted are all KBC colors. A couple extra coats of clear does wonders at adding depth. Another trick is to add an intensifier to the first couple of clear coats, this also adds depth.

 

This is very helpful.

Charlie, what to you recommend for body filler for skim coat purposes? Also let's say all the metal work is done, the parts have all been media blasted to bare metal. Would you epoxy prime, then skim coat and block sand or vice versa? If epoxy first would you then epoxy again over the filler? Assuming cost isn't issue.

Reps for your post.

 

Charlie

I know you really like the HOK Clear. Only used a few but I like HOK products when they have the color I want. What does it offer compared to other clears? I have only used Nason. It sprays easy and looks like you can dive into it and it's hardly a high end product. I don't even know what it costs but IIRC it's about half. What other brand clears have you used before and what was their shortcoming in comparison?

 

I use Evercoat Rage Ultra filler and Evercoat Metal Glaze Ultra...pricey but they have outstanding adhesion, no pin holes, and sand like a dream. Back in the days when bondo was "Bondo" or "Black Magic" some people believed that you MUST primer first, then fill. This was due mainly to the fact that the early fillers did not hold out moisture. Assuming that the filler got wet, there was a good chance that rust would form under the filler and would eventually cause the filler to lose adhesion. Given the number of sleds I have seen with chunks of filler falling off there may be some truth to this belief. I like to apply my filler to prepared steel, I like the idea that the filler is bonding directly to the metal. I have spoken with the Evercoat rep and they recommend this practice as well...however, they do say that their filler will bond to primer but it's adhesion is then based on how well the primer holds.
I am located in SoCal so the weather here is quite a bit different than NY. My Dad was born and raised in Buffalo and I grew up in Cincinnati so I know how crappy the weather can be in these places. I mention this to temper my comments about how I handle fresh metal. I can have a cab blasted, bring it to the shop, do the metalwork and skim coats without priming the cab. There is not enough moisture in the air to cause surface rusting here. If I do get some rust starting to form it is easily handled with a roloc disc or if needed a wash with Rust Blaster. So I hold off on priming until the surface is fairly well smoothed and ready for final prep.
As for primer, I like SEM SM110 Metalock but I have also used Advantage 325/326 primer with good success. Both these primers are what I call 2K products...I am not sure where pure epoxy primers and 2K primers meet but these are both DTM and are multi-purpose. By that I mean they can be used straight out of the can for high build, thinned by half for surfacing, or thinned at the max recommended level for sealing. They dry quickly for catalyzed primer and can be sanded dry or wet without loading the paper. I never have bleed through issues with these primers nor do I see scratch marks appear after the job is complete...that will make the Pope cuss.
Here is a pic that I posted recently on a thread about Altman latches. If you look at the feather edges of the filler you can see how this filler adheres. Anyone who has played with filler can appreciate how nice it is when filler holds when sanded until it is transparent.

 

^^ Thank You.

I hear you on the weather. I'm planning on doing all my metal work and rattle can any bare metal repairs as it might be a while before the actual paint portion of the project. Then wait for the media blasting until fully mocked up and ready for paint. So it won't be left bare for long. If that happens to fall in the dry months I think I'll do like you mentioned... skim then epoxy. Thanks again for the very useful real world info. This is a lot of information to take in. I'm sure I'll have more questions once I process all this.

That red is absolutely stunning!

Thanks again.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the tip on the red paint. If and when I paint my 70, I will pick something not too expensive, just something to look nice and to keep it from rusting away. It is my work truck, afterall.

 

I have used PPG Concept DCU2021 and it seemed to be a good clear but it may have been me but the clear failed after a few years. I mainly stick with HOK because I know that product line and trust it. Plus, the cost of PPG has gone up so much that it makes the HOK products seem like a bargain. In the HOK line I used to use UC-35 all the time. It is rated very high against contaminant damage, such as gasoline, brake fluid, etc. Great for motorcycle tanks. The only drawback I found was that it was a bear to colorsand, just very hard. This past year I have been using the new HOK clear, USC-01, with great results. The finish is smoother and the gloss higher than any other clear I have used to date. I have no firsthand experience with Nason but I understand that it is a good product as well. I have been offered other products to try but I feel that most of my labor goes into prep so following that work up with an untested clear is not a risk I am willing to take....and none of the paint reps are offering their ready-to-paint projects up as a test case.

 

Rich, that's a beautiful 56...I really like the color and the exhaust tips in the running boards. Here are a couple of pics of the same hood, one under fluorescent lighting and the other with natural light. It may be the camera but I was told that the lighting will change the color. Your truck is definitely red even with the fluorescent lighting.

 

The top picture actually demonstrates the extreme contrast with only a small part of it getting natural light and looking very red. I have never noticed paint changing that much.

 

The camera's white balance is driving the difference. Look outside. In the orange pic everything is blue outside. In the red pic, it's more natural looking. That shows a huge shift in the white balance...and thus the color temp. (Hey, that's my 800th post in 12 years...)

And now, back to your regularly scheduled paint thread...

 

If one didn't know that could be two different hoods, amazing what light can do.

 

I sold color printers and color matching software for a while (16 years). The hardest thing for some customers to understand about color is how your eyes perceive color and the relevance of the available lighting. In addition to that, all monitors, digital cameras, scanners, etc are RGB devices, and printers are CMYK devices, so they produce colors differently and what you see (on a monitor for example) is not what you'll get from your printer unless you manage the color output.