Hot Rod Restoration: Paint & Primer Products

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Joel Jones, I own Jonesy's Inc., a company that specializes in auto restoration and customization. We're one step closer to being able to spray primer on our Ford Fairlane project and I want to take this opportunity to walk you through some of the basic paint products that we've used up until this point, and what we're forecasting to be using after this point. You always want to start out your project with clean, bare steel that has been finished off with eighty grit, one-twenty grit sandpaper, and then you want to clean it very, very thoroughly with a wax and grease remover. Then you want to follow that up with your corrosion protection, which is easily done with an epoxy primer, the brands don't want any difference but when you commit to a brand, you want to follow that brand all the way through to the end with every single one of their products, so that you maintain compatibility. So, we've already treated our bare steel with epoxy primer, that's what you want to coat parts that are going to be sitting around for a long time. So, if you take something to the sandblaster, have it stripped, bring it back, you want to coat it in epoxy primer and then it's okay to leave it on the shelf for a while. When you're ready to go to the next step and do more body work, all you'll need to do is scuff that epoxy primer up and then clean it again with wax and grease remover, and then you're ready to spray what is called a primer surfacer, or a high build primer. Now, this primer is, whole purpose in life is to make your panels look good. The high build primer sprays out very thick, you usually put three coats on at a time, and then there are actually two or three different applications of those three coats. You must sand in between every single coat with various grits of sandpaper. Once you've got your car to where it is just arrow straight and the panels are incredibly smooth, you want to seal this high build primer with either a additional primer sealer, or some paint lines say that you can actually dilute down an epoxy primer, and then spray it as a sealer. The reason you want to put a sealer on top of all of your high build primers is so that you don't have any contamination or any bleed-through, from the substrates below, the high build migrating into your color to distort your color. So, once you've sprayed your primer sealer, you're ready to spray color. Now, the colors, you can do whatever you want with colors, but your primer sealer, the color of your primer sealer needs to be close to the color of your top coat. If you spray red over a black, it's going to make a darker red, if you spray it over a white primer sealer then you're going to have a much lighter color, so you need to keep that in mind. Dark colors cover better over darker primers, and vice versa, lighter colors cover better over lighter colors, so keep that in mind when you're choosing. All of the other colors below this don't really matter, other than it's a good indication of how much you have sanded, because if you sand through one coat, the next coat it going to show through and then you'll know that you've sanded too far. So, you've got your primer sealer, and you're ready to spray your color. Go ahead and spray your color, and the whole purpose of the color coat is just that color, it provides no protection whatsoever, to anything, so it's only there for cosmetics. And, then as soon as you're done spraying your color, you're going to want to coat it with your clear coat, if it is a two stage paint. If this is a single stage paint, then a clear coat is not required and your color is giving you your protection. I would not recommend spraying single stage paints. Two stage paints with clear coats are so durable they'll last forever, and you'll have a much nicer product and a longer lasting restoration. Now, when you're trying to determine a cost basis for all of this, anticipate your primer surfacer as being your highest volume of product used. You're going to have to go through gallons of this because you're applying three coats at a time, and three sets of those coats. And, don't forget to factor in the amount of hardeners. Hardeners mixed at a ratio. The epoxy primer mix is two to one with this hardener, the primer surfacer mix is five to one with this hardener. So, you're going to need a lot more epoxy primer hardener, than you are the primer surfacer. And, consequently your color has its reducer, and your clear coat has its hardener as well. Now, one thing about safety, go online to whatever paint manufacturers web site that you've decided to use, and print off the MSDS sheets for every single one of these products, and read those sheets. Those are going to give you all the information you need to protect yourself against any kind of chemicals, or anything else that's associated with it. In addition to that, print off all of the instructions and technical manuals for every single one of these products, and put them in a binder, so that you can have instant access to them when you're getting ready to actually mix your paint, spray your paint, or anything else. It'll tell you times between coats, dry times, and top coat preparation, and so on and so forth. Do your homework before you decide to do any painting at all, and ask for help, do research online, go to a body shop, ask your paint supplier for help."