Paint help!!!!

[acasteel]

This is my first time painting with a gun so i need some help. I am painting my tractor just so i can get proficiency awards for scholarship money through the F.F.A.

I bought 3 cans of rust-oleum and i was told to use reducer and hardener. So i went to the auto body paint store and told the man what i was doing....Which is painting my cub cadet and asked about the hardener and reducer and he told me he would not sell me any of it because he did not know how it would react with the paint and did not want to be held responsible for destroying my gun.

After i left i called another auto body paint store and told them i have synthetic enamel and they said that is is universal and can use it on any paint and it will act the same.

So i cant go back to the paint store because they are closed and i would like to get up at the crack of dawn to start primering but my big qustion is the can suggest to thin the primer and paint out with mineral spirits or acetone but does not say anything about useing a hardener at all.

So should i just thin the paint with what it recomends or go and buy the reducer and hardener.

Now this is by no means a show tractor and i will be working it so that is why i did not spend 30 dollars on I.H. paint but insted 30 bucks on one gallon of rust destroyer, quart of yellow and a pint of almond so thats the differance.

Thanks

Anthony C.

 

[kweaver]

Anthony - Ya don't use hardner in household paint, just automotive paint.

 

[acasteel]

i dont think its household, I believe its industurial but either way

 

[kweaver]

I used Rustoleum paint on the trailers that I use to build. It scratches easy even with a good primer base. It will get somewhat harder with age but it's still not like automotive paint. An automotive clear topcoat would protect it but it's expensive and I don't think you want to try it this early in your learning curve.

 

[acasteel]

So here is another problem i came across

I bought a air filter and my shop isnt set up so i just have my small compressor

This is it

And this is what the directions say to do

so i dont plan on doing that anytime soon so can i just run it right out of the compressor?

 

[lbaker]

Ken- Have you tried the Rustoleum Appliance epoxy paint? I used it (almond) on my 100. For a rattle can, sprays great and I like the color, giving a nice shine. Harder than regular paint. Don't know if available in other colors.

 

[kweaver]

Anthony - You need a water trap on your line or it'll screw up your efforts. So if this ...
<font color="0000ff">so i dont plan on doing that anytime soon so can i just run it right out of the compressor?</font> ... means can you run the hose from the compressor without a trap, you'll wish you installed it. I just used a long 1.5" pipe nipple with a drain valve on the bottom and fittings at the top and made my own trap. It's a lot cheaper A friend of mine made a trap with a roll of TP inside the standing pipe to catch the moisture.

Lyle - That's what's on my 122 hood Personally I like 2 part epoxy paint.

 

[kweaver]

Here's my water trap ... and mess

 

[tcbusch]

Ken,
I hope those rags don't have any linseed oil on them.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Terry, good point, but I think it would have gone

a long time ago if they did have linseed oil on them. I believe that photo is several years old.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Dang, I should have used this

 

[dfrisk]

Anthony - Those filters & dryers are sure a lot fancier than what I have....mine are a little fancier than Ken's but I bet they don't work any better. I have a Porter-Cable filter/dryer/regulator that's on the end of about 35-40 ft of 1/2" hose running from the top of My 80 gal. compressor tank....and then I run 3/8" hose to the spray gun with one of those cheap disposable plastic dessicant cartridges screwed into the inlet of the gun with the quick connect screwed into it. The idea is to have the compressed air cool as much as possible before it gets to the last filter...to drop it's humidity and the chances of getting water thru Your spray gun. I use this same system on My powder coat gun and plasma cutter also which both are more prone to problems from moisture than a liquid spray gun.
Far as paint, thinner/reducer, and hardener, Best advice I can give is use a single manufacturer's entire system to ensure compatability. BTW, the paint job on My 72 which still looks O-K from five feet was done in the winter of 1980/1981 with spray cans.

KRAIG, TERRY - I think that "Spontainious Combustion" thing is terribly over-rated Myself. Sometimes I've tried to burn up combustable things like the kerosene from My parts washer with all the grease & dirt in it....and I had to mix it 50-50 with gasoline.....it wouldn't even smoke with the flame of a propane torch held to it.

 

[kweaver]

Kraig - Yer wrong again , that pic was hot off the 1 gig SD card

The old towel only has grease and oil and gas and sweat on it. It's sitting on a bag of refractory ... something else California doesn't like

So what's wrong with linseed oil ?

Nobody noticed the cub tractor part or the 80lbs of lead in the pic ... you guys are slippin!!!

 

[kmcconaughey]

KENtucky, I seem to recall that you posted a pic of that setup years ago... I'm to busy today to go looking through my archives.

 

[kweaver]

Nope, never did. You might be thinking of a pic I may have sent you when you were talking (emails) about getting a regulator or water trap a couple years ago. I looked through my camera pics and didn't see it.

Let's give this back to little Ant since it was his help thread

 

[kmcconaughey]

KENtucky, found it! Possibily from around June 2004, and I believe you were, <font size="-2">darn, darn, darn</font>, um, correct it was from an email exchange.

 

[kweaver]

Anthony how's it going ?

 

[bnolte]

Valspar makes enamels that use a hardener, and the local TSC has them both. Being a farm store, they sell it in shades suitable for tractors. Their Transport Yellow closely matches Cub Cadet Yellow, and their IH White and Gloss White will match many of the variants of white used on Cubs. You will also need to get some Naptha for thinning purposes. The paints run about $9 a quart or so, the hardener about $7 for 8 ounces, and a quart of Naptha is about $5 or so. It won't get as hard as modern Epoxies or Polyurethanes, but after sufficient drying time it will give you something similar to the original finish.

One word of advice: Do not use the spray bombs to touch up anything recently painted using the enamel in the quart cans, unless you want a wrinkle finish on what you are painting.

 

[kide]

Ken:I wuz distracted by the Miller emblem....
Anthony: Some interesting things if you do get the opportunity to permanently plumb air stations..
1: One of the reasons for the use of the metal pipe in the "conpressor" (those wacky Chinese..) directions is to cool the air down before your first moisture trap -to help the water condense from the air. When I did mine (see below), I didn't use the "alley oop" up and over, nor did I put the trap at the end of the line as shown (I was working from my "common sense"

- didn't have the instructions then.....). As a result, the moisture that condenses out runs down the branch to the first station. You can tell the difference in the four traps in the second picture - the left one is the closest to the compressor and the right one the furthest away - I can't remember the last time I had to drain that one - and it gets used the most- feeds my plasma cutter.
2: Use black iron -not galvanized - pipe for your plumbing. The flakes of galvanized that stay in the cut threads almost guarantee that you'll never get the joints to seal at 150 PSI..
3: In those direction, they should show a flexible "whip" between the compressor and the piping to take care of the vibration - otherwise you'll shake stuff like regulators apart eventually.
4: To cool the air in your temporary setup (before a separator/water trap) so that the water condenses out, put another length of air hose in line, coil it in a wash tub and fill the tub with cold water.. Remember that a smaller compressor, working harder is gonna get hotter and put more moisture in the compressed air. Like already has been said, drain the tank every day..

 

[kweaver]

That's the 460 amp Tig 300 amp Arc 105 amp input @ 220v.