Morris Minor Owners Club

I was hoping to get my Traveller's shell ready for painting before summer finally died, but didn't quite make it. So some advice would be valuable, please. I'm working in a dry single garage, only heated while I'm working, and will be painting with the door open. I'd like to get the underside fully painted before I take it off my rollover jig (aka scaffold pole & trestles..) and refit the suspension and steering. I'm using Brantho Korrux 3 in 1, then stone chip then body colour. I'd also like to get the engine bay painted during winter.

I'm going to leave all the outer panels until the weather gets warmer in spring, but am I likely to encounter paint problems because of the cold weather if I carry on with the underside and engine bay during November or December?

Mark

what i did was to warm the underside panels with a hair drier or fan heater to remove any condensation from your breath etc and then brush on a coat of zinc primmer, then seal all panel joints, next day warm it again and then spray stone chip all over, next day warm up again and spray body colour.
It is better to carry out this work on a warm day as the compresser is also sucking in cold damp air, hope this info helps Graham

forgot to mention,health and safety dont use lpg gas heating or parafin stove as they produce alot of condensation and also naked flame can ignite the strong solvents in the air when spraying and may blow the garage roof off.now i must do something more importance and find my ball !!

just go to machine mart and buy an infrared heater,leave it on as long as you want its what the pro shops use.Then you can use it in the garage whenever you want to work in there. If you are going to spray regardless of when or how warm it is,its essential that you fit a combined filter and water trap to the outlet side so that you always get dry air to the gun .If you don't you WILL get moisture into the paint and micro blisters on the surface.

This rather depends on what you're painting it with. If the shell is.primed and had been for a while I would heat the area you're painting in and keep it warm for a good while before applying top coats. The reason for this being most automotive primers are hydroscopic ( suck in moisture ) with the weather having taken a turn for the worse the primer will be merrily absorbing moisture from the atmosphere this really needs to be dried out before top coating or you may well find your lovely looking paintwork microblisters when the weather warms up again. A good warm environment will also stop cellulose paint from blooming personally of your painting the car to use it and you're not aiming for concourse I would ditch celluslose invest in a respirator and paint it in 2k solid which is considerably more durable.

another note in the days before I had a large industrial unit I had to store whatever I was working on outside and I can highly recommended zinc 182 as a primer that will keep the moisture problem and the rot away.

Thanks for sound advice from both of you. Underneath I'm using Brantho Korrux 3 in 1 as a primer and undercoat with a stonechip surface and a celly top coat. It will be all bare metal, so sounds like a final clean up, get the garage nice and warm and leave plenty of drying time between coats. I'm quite fussy about the finish in the engine bay and might do the interior at the same time, so might use the Zinc 182 and a high build undercoat there. I will be using celly on the outer panels but will leave these until April or May when it will hopefully be warmer.

Think you're right. Leave the fancy stuff until next Spring/early summer. Just got the paint job on my Beetle finished before the weather turned but I almost postponed it until next year.

Just as a matter of interest as someone who worked in automotive paint supply for ten years why are you and anyone else that cares to comment using cellulose paint ?

Using cellulose as I'm a novice, and the advice I've picked up on here and elsewhere is that while celly is clearly less durable, it is far more forgiving in allowing mistakes to be corrected. Also safer - its not really feasible for me to buy an airfed mask and separate compressor for what will be a one off job.

With respect that advice is utter rot lol a 3M disposable respirator mask ( not air fed ) is under £20 celly isn't easier in fact its possibly the worst paint to achieve a reasonable quality of finish with. To refinish a car in celly you might be looking at up to ten coats with rubbing down ( flatting) in-between coats its brittle it blooms especially these days as quality thinner is hard to obtain.

I generally reckon on 2 coats of 2k paint you'll use a hell of a lot less paint its incredibly forgiving stuff I never ever measure the paint thinner and hardener and I've never had any bother at all. For years I'd sworn by cellulose until my father in law started me on 2k and now I wont use anything else.

I'm not a professional painter bit I've done some pretty darn good resprays using 2k it just seems to be vilified by dare I say it the older mob who seem to be terrified of it it's really really not scary and the modern paints quality of finish is as good if not better than cellulose for a lot less work.

Part number 3M 06941 if memory serves correctly.

Haven't bought the paint yet, so still open to advice. I've just done a quick Google, though, and 3M don't recommend this mask for isocyanate 2k. Has anyone used the non-isocyanate 2k from Jawel?

I've used both the hard stuff is slightly better if im honest 06941 is what the trade use round these parts.