I finally laid down the primer on the body. Prior to today I have sanded on the body for about three days straight. The first two days I sanded until my fingertips were raw. I then took a break for a day and then sanded another day. Fortunately, I was going up in grit so it got easier for my princess hands. I also did some lightweight body work, but it didn't need a terrible amount of work to begin with.
Spraying paint is not easy. You have to keep the gun perpendicular to the surface and about 8-10 inches from the surface at all times while moving at a fairly slow and steady speed for the duration of the pass. To make matters worse you have to flick your wrist as you start the paint and be spot on with the aforementioned parameters. Let us not forget that the whole assembly filled with paint weighs over 5 lb. As a result, fatigue starts to set in. Also you have to do air hose management keep your spray travels smart (wet edge, protect from overspray, top to bottom) and get yourself into weird positions for painting. Plus you are breathing through a respirator and wearing a chemical suit in a garage in Arizona in the summer hotter than hell. Luckily my dad, an experienced painter, was there to make a decent coach and assistant. For the beginner painter I will recommend at least having a buddy help you out with hose management, refills , ladders, moving stuff, finding areas you missed, coaching you on your speed, distance, and orthoganality to the painting surface.
The air compressor kept up with the Devillbiss FLG-647 HVLP gun. The gun first shot really crumby and wasn't getting enough air (test patterns with lacquer thinner). We then cranked the air at the compressor to like 90PSI, adjusted the at-gun regulator to 35ish psi with the trigger pulled, and then adjusted the gun fluid/air mixture. Things were much better after that.
Things that are of concern:
The primer is somewhat coarse and a lot of wet block sanding will have to be done. Hopefully the primer will scuff up nicely.
We did not have a reducer for the primer so last minute we used the acrylic enamel reducer in an activated primer. We decided to reduce it out after attempts to spray were made. It was coming out too coarse no matter how we adjusted the gun (1.5mm fluid tip). We made a test container with the enamel reducer and it didn't blow up, harden, or boil so we then went to town. From there on out the primer seemed to flow out nicely.
There are a few body repair areas I might have missed (sub-gain-of rice-sized nicks) . I am wondering if I should spray a guide coat and block out the body to 400 and then primer again. It is important to keep things in perspective--this is my first paint job and it is also a jeep. Some people paint old jeeps with paint rollers. On the other hand, the quality of the paint will reflect the quality of my craftsmanship. So do I move ahead working towards real results, missing things that people will not see even under intense scrutiny (but my optimistic perfectionist mind will know where every single one it) or do I go back to delay schedule (I have to have it painted before the 25th of July for various reasons) and possibly cause a more serious problem while trying to remedy a minor problem?
There was a bit of overspray onto the gator guard and some other areas, I suppose I'll have some touch-up painting to do here and there when all is said and done.
Anyways we will see how I answer the million dollar engineering question above, but for now I shall give you a guided tour through some of the primering process photos:
Here you can see some little boxes I drew around trouble areas (places that get bondo and spot putty):
A nick in the hood, that's weird.
There were quite a bit of minor imperfections, you have to find them by spraying guide coats and block sanding, feeling the surface, and looking at the surface.
Here is an action shot of my dad and me. He made this a very smooth process. Arizona John will be making another cameo come the color coat and clear coat.
Mancave inhabitants
I am pretty sure I was out of paint here.
Primered jeep. Most jeep people stop here.
The funny thing is, getting here is the worst part of the whole affair.
Levitating windshield frame. You now know how to take your windshield out yourself!
Full shot. I also positioned all the jeep parts in a fashion so that I could spray all the different edges since I am doing a complete color change.
Gettin up in ma grill. It kinda looks like an Ionic capital.
The gun apparatus
Test patterns
See that smiley face down there? That is a furnace blower which does about 3 air changes to the garage every 5 minutes. Gotta keep fresh air in there.
