How long to paint your chassis?

[RAYLEE29]

just wondered how long you guys have been taking to paint your chassis and what colour and paint and application method? been doing mine satin black smooth hammerite with a paintbrush and its taking forever! Ray

[geeman]

It took me and a helper about 3-4 hours work in all to do 3 coats of hammerite. one thing i found helpful was a 2 in paint brush , but im not sure others will agree:o . I firstly cleaned off the chassis with petrol, and then qwith water and then painted it.

edit, should mention i mean 3-4 hours work excluding several days of drying.....

[HandyAndy]

:eek: this brings back memories :D

yes it took ages for mine too,
2 coats of primer then 2 coats of top coat,

tho even when its fully painted there has been a few scratches & my chassis needs a few touch ups.

to allow decent drying times between coats it took approx 10 days to complete the painting process .

cheers
andy

[AshG]

rubbed mine down and sprayed it in a day. did the second coat the following morning. it was hard work but everyone that has seen the car has commented on how good the paint finish is on the chassis.

[Talonmotorsport]

We used hammered effect hammerite on new bare steel a few weeks ago and it's like trying to pin water to the wall! In the end we degreased it with car painters pannel wipes and sprayed the whole thing with etch primer to give it a good base. If your doing large areas with hammerite ie 8x2 pannels etc try using a roller it gives a very neat finish, as for trying to spray with it good sodding luck!!!

[Bonzo]

Hi Ray

You may remember, my chassis had a light coat of rust !!??

This was all wire brushed using mainly a twisted wire wheel in the grinder, hand brush & production paper for the hard to get to areas.

I gave the chassis 2 coats of Galvafroid, this was put on with a small radiator roller & 1/2' brush.

Then applied a 3 light coats of smooth Hammerite by spray. I used a small touch up gun with a large fluid tip ( This will avoid paint wastage )
If Hammerite is thinned correctly, it will spray OK.


Went with Red, just to be different :eek: Although the more I look at it, the more I am not liking it :o :rolleyes:

It'll end up black or silver :D

[AshG]

i used epoxy mastic 121. hammerite is rubbish and takes ages to dry.

[Bonzo]

I must agree Ash

Hammerite is not the paint that it used to be :confused:

My goal was to be rid of the rust, with a view of a re-paint before final assembly. ;)

I have used some marine epoxy paints, as you say, they are good & dry rock hard. :cool:

Can I ask where you got your epoxy from ?:)

[NEroadster]

I have used metal ready to keep the rust at bay during the build and also once the chassis was finished. This worked brilliantly at preventing further rust and also removing existing rust. It also acts as an etch primer. Finally I am planning to use the POR 15 range I have already used it on the wishbones and front uprights and am very pleased with the result. All paint available from Frost auto restorations

[adrianreeve]

I'm totally chickening out here and getting the chassis and wishbones powdercoated in satin black. I used to work for a galvanisers / powdercoaters, and the finish is hard to beat IMHO.

Cheers

Adrian

[Rik178m]

Howmuch would it cost to powdercoat a chassis? Guessing it would need blasting first?

Hammerite is pants! Never used it before doing my gearbox but the finish was useless. After 2 coats I could still see the undercoat! Thought I was doing something wrong.

[DaddyA]

Hi,

took me a while as well.

Thorough clean up of all surface rust, then degreased.

Two tins of etch primer (light dusting), dried overnight, then a good coat of zinc primer - if using this I would definately ensure you have good ventilation. Not with just the garage door open - might start seeing things!!:D

Left that to dry for awhile, had to work and then 1 coat of chassis black. It does need a bit more black as there as been scratches along the way but looks ok.

[AshG]

ronnie i got my epoxy from rust.co.uk

[spud69]

I use a powder coater in Hartlepool, £100 for a full chassis and they have all the degreasing and cleaning tanks to. Was fun watching them fit a chassis through them though.

Chassis turned out really well but you must make sure you have completely finished on the chassis. The powder coating gets inside all the rails and coats all the unseen bits too. If worst happens and you need to re weld you can always touch it up with hammerite and you can hardly tell.

If you add up all the cost of your primer, hammerite, brushes, thinners it ain't cheap.

Just my thought......AndyH

[adrianreeve]

Mine's £160 for chassis, wishbones, uprights, rollbar, pedal box, all the little odds and sods you find that need doing, including engine pulleys etc. and that includes blasting them before coating. If you go for a common colour, such as satin black, most powder coaters will do the work on a time spent basis, so if they are doing some other work in the same colour, they'll put yours through at the same time. It saves them down time cleaning the gun and changing colours etc, and the saving will be passed onto you.

Like spud said, once you add the cost of good paint, prep etc, powdercoating becomes good value. If you get a good finish, it will outlast anything else. Be warned though, if your powdercoater doesnt prep properly, and the coating chips, rust will form under the coating ver quickly.

Hope that helps

Adrian