I am going to paint my 77 F150 before the end of summer and I am having trouble deciding what color to paint it. It came from the factory dark brown, but I am having trouble getting excited about repainting it the original color. I am leaning towards painting it "copper head" color, which is the color Stacy David painted his 68 Chevy on Trucks TV. This is going to be my first paint job and I'm a little Leary about painting a metallic paint for my first paint job. How difficult will it be for a first timer to paint using a metallic paint? I am going to be using a Sharpe HVLP gun when I paint my truck if it makes any difference. This will be a BC / CC paint job BTW. What do you folks think of this plan and do you have any pointers for me?

 

Not a piece of cake, but doable with base clear for a beginner. Not quite as bad as back in the days I started and still shot single stage metallics and had to keep both a good gloss and even metallic. Harder colors seem to be silvers and light blues. You may want to practice a little first keeping the metallic even. The gun does make a difference, I haven't used that gun, but gun I use now for base is so much easier spraying metallic even then the old sharpe conventional, one of the first guns I bought and started painting with. The base used does make a difference. Some brands are known for better metallic control, heard RM is one of the better, and cheap bases are normally going to give a bit more of a challenge in all areas, more coats to cover, longer flash times needed, not as good metallic control is typical. Colors with a lot of red and yellow in them are not known to be great coverers in the first place, so I would prime or seal whole thing the recommended shade they give for the color. Stir your paint well and if you happen to have more then one container of paint get another empty paint container and intermix them to insure you keep the same color. When you have paint reduced and poored in your gun, you may want to shake the gun occasionally in case metallic wants to settle. Metallics are best painted assembled or position they will be on the vehicle and at least the base shot same time under same conditons. Very possible to have a color difference if conditions or application and gun setup has changed. Metallic heavier and wetter, low pressure will be darker cause metallics settle farther and lay down flat, and sprayed dryer, high pressre they stand up and toward top so reflect more and lighter. You will want to have your gun setup and spraying well and be fairly good with you application keeping proper overlap and gun parallel to the surface. Use somewhere between a 50-75 percent of you prior pass when making your next one. You don't want to spray overly wet and heavy, cause it will be more prone to blotchiness, tiger stripping or mottling. But at the same time you don't want to spray the base too dry, cause it could contribute to delamination of clear later on. If a metallic is looking a bit blotchy or tiger stripping, Normally what is called a mist coat or drop coat is done to help even it out. Gun is backed off a bit and pressure normally bumped up a bit, and a dryer coat is shot at angles to even the metallic. This is best done as you go and but the prior application of base is still wet enough to accept the drop coat, this is how the old singlestages were sprayed. The trick was to jump back and forth between panels, so the paint would be dry enough that wouldn't contribute to the stripping or mottling, but still wet enough to accept it without leaving a dry rough surface. Base drys dull, and your attempting to spray for gloss, but still best if you have it somewhat smooth, and smooth willl also be quicker to cover the metallic base when it comes time to clear. Overreducing the base just a little may help as well if it happens to be giving you a struggle, but leave good flash times between coats. Choose the proper reducer for conditions, but a slower reducer is better then having one thats too fast. You will want to try to keep from stripping and mottling even in the first and second coats, even though if you have a little its not the end of the world, but if you build up tiger stripping or mottling, it will be that much harder to get covered on your final coats or coats. Hoods roof and trunks may be more of a challenge to spray for a beginner cause your reaching and trying to keep the gun parallel. You may try spraying one coat the length on these and the second widthwise on these. Avod stopping every pass of the gun in the same spot right at panel edges, both base and clear,cause could cause to be heavy there, When everything is even and covered, weather it be 2 or 6 coats, thats when you ready to let it sit and flash for good while (no sence to rush if you have time, most have 24 hour window from last coat of base to get clear on), and then clear. Some base colors for some reason seem to look just a little blochy, but then when you clear them the are fine. Its hard to tell sometimes when base is dry. Suppose you could check after base has had some time to dry by wetting a spot with some water and taking a look. Wax and grease remover will remove some basecoats like unactivated dbc, so you have to be carefull about using that. Normally I just tack off the base before clear.If you don't have much practice and time using your gun, I would defignatly practice on proper gun adjustment, stroke and overlap, and get a feel for it, even if its just primer which will be sanded anyways, descipline your self on how to start and stop each stroke, maintaining gun parallel, even distance, and setting up the gun so its spraying correctly. If you think you will have some extra paint to play with, practice shooting a test panel with your color to get a feel for it, or maybe spray the underneath the hood where won't be as noticable to practice, see how even its laying and what coverage is like. There is information to be found that you can read on all of it, evening metallic, setting up spraygun, proper spray stroke, pattern ect. Ask for the product sheets for the materials you use and read them. Tech sheets often confuse people cause they often say 10 psi pressure for hvlp guns. This is at the air cap for complience, and no way to measure. Most still require a fairly good pressure at the regulator going to the gun. You will have to find what your gun likes to sprays best at. Good luck.

 

Thanks Kenseth17 for your detailed reply. BTW The "Copperhead" metallic paint they used on Trucks TV was manufactured by PPG. I am planning to prime my panels with an epoxy primer after the body work is done to protect them until I am ready to paint them. I know I will need to scuff up the primer before I top coat the primer, but should I use another primer or sealer before I begin the BC/CC process? Will the tech sheet recommend the proper tint for the primer to use for my BC paint? Thanks again for your help.

 

It depends, usually need another primer over epoxy for the fill and sanding characteristics. Epoxy is a great primer, and your doing it right starting with epoxy but most don't have a real lot of fill or the easiest primer to sand. Takes a while to completely cure and normally wetsand better cause wants to ball up the sandpaper. So don't be too concerned if only after a day or so has gone by if you can scrape it with a fingernail and adhesion doesn't seem the best, it will get better and better as it has had more cure time. The slow cure times usually mean you have a pretty good sized window to use another primer or or to paint over it without having to be sanded, but you can if you wish. Most are at least a few days, should state in the product sheets for your epoxy. Once past the window, it must be scuffed up with some 180 before priming, filling or final sanded with the appropriate grit for your base before painting. I know its summer now, so not too much concern now, but epoxy is also fussy about minimum temp, metal temp should be above 60 and for a few hours after application, and some epoxys may go dormant and never cure, even if temps warm bacl up. All 2k products actually should be above 60, but epoxy is the fussiest. Epoxy is the only primer that isn't pourous and is a good direct to metal primer, sticks well, will provide good corrosion protection, ect. If I have bodywork areas to block samding and need the fill, I use a urethane filler primer over the epoxy for that. It really depends on what you are dealing with. If there are little bodywork areas and feather edges on the truck, would be perfectly fine to use only epoxy. Or you could just hit any bad areas, or bodywork areas with urethane filler primer, block, and when you are satisfied with the straighness, apply more epoxy. Many ways to go about it and how fussy you are, weather you want to use a filler primer and reblock out that whole older body, or just do hit bad bodywork areas. The best longterm results would be to hit any baremetal areas with epoxy first (I'd use epoxy on any baremetal you have or hit doing bodywork), seal up body filler areas with epoxy down first prior to using urethane filler primer, and use epoxy to seal all before paint, but also acceptable if you prime all over the sanded filler primer if you sprayed on whole truck, a final of epoxy just may add a little long term durability and little extra chip resistance and other benefits. So the short version of all this, depends on what you got, and how far you want to go. Any questions as you dig in, and sure someone here can help you. Epoxy primer makes a great sealer, it is normally reduced to use as a sealer, again info should be in your product sheets. The paint supplier who mixes up your paint should be able to tell you what shade primer for best coverage based on the color you are spraying when they look up the mixing forumula, At least better lines have a primer shading system and note on the mixing formula what shade for best coverage of that color. Dupont for example has what they call value shade and ppg similar. I'd try to stick somewhat close to the shade recommended weather you using there primers or another brand. I know bright reds normally use a white or bright primer, but not sure what ppg will recommends for the copperhead. Correction in above post, the basecoat you are NOT attempting to spray for gloss, looks like I missed typing the not.

 

Thanks again for the input Kenseth17, I really appreciate it your help. I will not be ready to paint for a while, I am just getting ready to do the needed body work and then I will protect the finished body work with epoxy until I have all the body work done. Thanks again.