I've got a tatty rear hatch to practice on before embarking on the real thing. So far I've welded it up, filled, primered with high build and sanded. This has been several weeks of experimentation and I thought I was now ready to top coat it, but the panel is still very wavy and has lots of little nicks and scratches in it. It had previously been damaged and repaired, quite well I thought, though the filler was 1/8" tick over half the lower panel. I took this off and attempted to redo it just for the practice. After endless attempts to fill and sand and knife stopper it still looks terrible. I was expecting the cellulose high build primer would take care of the last imperfections. I think I can make a reasonable job of minor dents but how do I go about smoothing off largish areas? Nobody would ever do this for a living if it got results like mine and took so long. Incidentally what product do folks use for high build when spraying cellulose?
That might explain one thing then. I asked for high build but I got given some very thick grey cellulose primer. It's probably just regular primer. I gave it 5 coats though.
you can get celly high build the stuff i've used before is "gypgloss"? on a spot repair like a arch i would usually 4" roller prime as it you dont get overspray it's faster and it puts on a thicker layer of paint as you dont need to thin like when spraying
for large areas use a large block to get a flat panel, i hate doing filler repairs you seem to put it in then rub it all back out again but generally the more skims the better. i use upol easy sand filler and it generally doesnt need alot of stopping up pinhole wise but dolphin glaze is the nuts stopper wise it's self leveling and comes in a bag with a cap and it pours out
Be careful when applying the paint (I'm just having a go with my tailgate but in 2pack) what I've found with regard to waviness it that its actually the paint I'm applying, (with the tailgate laying flat) I was putting the paint on to thick it doesn't run it lightly pools. I'm just flatting it back with a wet n dry wrapped tightly round a piece of 2"x1" for larger still areas I'd just use a bigger piece of wood, for really flatting it without making deep scratches use something like 400 wet n dry then go up the scale to about 1200 until its nice and smooth. On filler i'd use some P120 to get it flat then go up to finer paper. This is only what I've picked on tinterweb and from playing
i would start off with 80 grit for shaping filler then gradually change up to 240 grit for removing scratch marks before hi-build primer then i would flat the primer with 400 or a little smoother before applying 2k paint
4" roller is the way to go no need to thin at all, i used to work in a massive body shop that employed 1000 people over 5 branches and they used to prime small repairs on brand new cars with the roller to save bagging up and having to put the car in the booth
Some great ideas in here. I'm keen to try rollering on the primer. Also I need a longer sanding block. Do you have any suggestions without breaking the bank Zed? Can you make your own?
