78 Malibu Paint

[Scoobum]

I'm liking it!

[bryes]

We kind of had a major setback last fall on this project. We got almost everything cleared and were in the process of water sanding and buffing it out. Everything looked great until we were in the final stages of buffing. Since we were in a darker garage everything looked fine. Then we opened the garage door so direct sunlight fell on the car and what we noticed was horrible... tiny specks in the clear. It wasn't contamination like one might think, but if you look up "solvent pop" on the net, that's our best guess as to what it was. Looking at it under a magnifying glass, it looks like little tiny voids in the clear coat. You won't even notice it until the light hits it just right and reflects back at tiny little points of light. I bet on a lighter color you'd never know it was there, but black.... ugh. 


Assuming the  solvent pop theory the solution is to allow more time between coats and spray at cooler temperatures to allow the solvents to completely evaporate. We sanded all of the clear off the car and re coated everything, this time waiting more that an hour between coats of clear when spraying. Yes it sucked and unfortunately it did the same thing....


So now we have to sand that stupid car down again. I'm convinced that the paint itself is bad. My uncle tried to get some satisfaction from summit Racing to no avail. Next time it will be sprayed with another brand of clear.


Kind of a bummer, but the car will be even straighter after all this sanding!





The picture below is the clear after being water sanded and partially buffed out. I was really pleased with how straight it looked. Very hard to find imperfections. You can't see the solvent pop in this picture but it's there.  I have some others someplace where you can, I'll try to find those some other time.

[daveismissing]

I'm not a painter but I understood Kirker to be a "economy" brand?
I could just be brainwashed by the intelligencia at hotrodders...

[Scoobum]

Sorry to hear...that sucks. Hang in in there.

[Robertsa]

I decided to paint it myself.  Probably not the quality of a professional but looks pretty nice for a rattle can job 
 
Does anyone have suggestions on what I can add next?

[howieyall]

Well done. 

[bryes]

Unfortunately, we had nothing but problems with the clear coat on this car. At the time we believed our problems were related to solvent pop by not allowing enough time before respraying the clear, so too much buildup etc. So, after sanding it all back down to the base coat and respraying to remove the "solvent pop spots", I resprayed the 3-4 layers of clear, except this time I waited far longer between coats (1- 2 hours).


Unfortunately, this strategy ended in a similar result (although it was better).... and also resulted in the same massive setback, sand down the entire body again.


After this, we finally solved the problem by changing 2 and only 2 things:
#1 the air hose
#2 the paint


This time instead of using summit clear we bought a $500 / gal can of PPG clear. The difference was of course worth the extra coin.


Because of these setbacks and me living in another state again (no jobs for me in Ohio), I can only work on this car during my "Vacation". So needless to say, it isn't going to get done quickly...


Attached is the car in it's current state. Only the hood needs to be sprayed still that i'm aware of. Other than that, it's mostly reassembly and buffing...

[Steve Wood]

Persistence pays off!  I am a terrible painter so I always like to see those that "can"

[TexasT]

I dig the centerlines. Paint I'm sure looks good too. Why not move your whole activity to where the work is? I was born in Ohio but haven't been back in well over forty yrs.
Keep moving forward. Sometimes things and decisions aren't based on things you can control but the decisions are definitely yours to make.

[bryes]

Thanks! Yeah I do like the rims. It would look a lot better assembled with new chrome to set things off.here


Believe me, I'd really like to find a way that I can somehow live in the same location as my workshop. In the last 12 years, I've moved from Ohio to CA to Ohio to GA to Ohio to NY to Ohio to GA, so moving my whole operation hasn't happened yet. I kind of have to  follow the work I guess.


I did take a "permanent" job in Ohio after CA that lasted less than three years, which is when I bought the house where I set up shop. I keep on hoping I can find a way to work remotely or have steady work somewhere, but it just hasn't materialized. I'm in GA now but will likely have to leave in March 2019 again.