Painting step by step...

[Arthurdaily]

Now I have two bits to paint on a traveller...

The top and the bottom!

The bottom is easy - now I know there are a million 'right' ways here, but I'm going to wire know on an angle grinder and a drill the whole bottom, vactan the whole thing twice and then when dry paint the whole lot with... I think... rust bullet, or maybe epoxy mastic, or kbs rust seal... well one of them anyway: fancying epoxy mastic at the moment as they do it in loads of colours... thought it might be nice to have a silver bottom so as to be able to more easily see when dirty / rust pushing through (it is bound to no matter what you use at some stage!)

But, what about all the 'bits' on the top.. including a whole front panel I'm replacing. All areas to be painted have some rust, so I thought:

1. sand off as much rust as possible - hopefully all - then vactan so as to kill any pin hole rust, then gently sand vactan residue off.
2. Then etch prime - as some areas will be bare steel - two coast
3. Then filler prime - 1 semi coat for adhesion, followed by 2 further coats
4. 4 top coats of cellulose then
5. Finally 3 coats of laquer on top

Obviously gently sanding as and when. How does that sound? Should there be any sort of zinc priming during any of these stages?

Thanks! Arthur

[kennatt]

if you are using celly absolutly no need to use lacquer,in fact it spoils the look of celly,and if you need to flat an area on the celly when you put the laquer on ,that area is very likely to show up underneath spoiling the whole,the only time laquer is needed is if you use a clear over base paint where the base paint is designed not to shine,unless thats what you intend to use of course.

[MGs]

I agree. I've never found the need to lacquer cellulose. Using 1200 grit wet and dry and G3 rubbing paste has always given me a good finish. Don't forget, our cars were never given a mega shiny finish in the factory.

[bmcecosse]

Definitely DO NOT lacquer on top of celly. Where did you get that idea??

[dunketh]

What harm would it do?
I only ask as I know metallic paint requires laquer and that comes as celly.
Wont more laquer simply be the equivalent of varnishing a coach-paint job? Not needed but offering a bit more toughness and shine?

[bmcecosse]

Very artificial shine I think (almost like ghastly 2pak 'shine') - and more difficult for future repairs/touch up work. I haven't seen 'metallic' paint in cellulose....

[dunketh]

Might be getting confused, always assumed the rattle cans in halfwits and the like were celly but maybe not?

I once used about 5 of them to respray a bonnet matisse blue (ford metallic) before laquering...many years ago.

[kennatt]

there are several metalic celly paints silver ,bronze etc,none of which require laquer,the only celly paint that requires it, is if you use a clear over base paint(There are several of those) used them many times before 2k paint came on the scene.In this system the base coat is designed NOT to shine when dry its just a flat dull colour It was used to reduce the number of coats of paint required to get a shine,ie cheaper ,and to reduce the time of a paint job you just point the gun at the panel and as long as you don't get runs it make no odds if the paint cover is uneven or dry dusted because the top coats of laquer smooth everything out(Simplified ,not quite as easy as that but easier than proper celly spraying)if you put laquer on top of celly,apart from the very synthetic looking high shine, if you get a small chip or blister,and require to touch it up then you need to strip off the laquer to get at the paint ,then you are left with a high ridge that is difficult to flat out(Laquer is very hard) so you see the ring of the repair every time unless you take all of the laquer off the panel. Or if you are skilful enough use blend and clear to flow out the edges.All time and money consuming,with celly only sometimes you can just polish out a slight mark.If you don't prepare the surface properly the laquer also has a tendency to flake ,I'm sure you have seen the odd silver or red car with patches of laquer missing,lancias in the early 80s were all done clear over base and they all show signs of flaking, I believe that rattle cans are acrylic based including the primer thats why rattle can primer takes about 5 hours to dry before you can flat it whereas celly primer can be flatted after 30 min .But each to his own of course ,if you want it to shine like the proverbial s..house door then fine go for it.

[Arthurdaily]

lol - right, laquer no then chaps, thanks for the advice - are the other steps okay though, and number of coats?

[bmcecosse]

Great explanation there kennatt - thanks for that! Advantage for me with my 'celly' OEW Trav is that any small marks/chips are just gently sanded using a flexible block - and then a quick swing over with a rattle can. and the car looks like new (well - almost..) again.