Painting donor parts
 

Anyone have any favourite paints for painting donor parts? I'm not a massive fan of smoothrite, as I find it a bit brittle, and would also prefer a satin black finish. Any suggestions welcome!

Cheers

Adrian

I've read this stuff is very good, if a little expensive

http://www.por15.com/?gclid=CMPUvPDG65ICFQW_1Aod8yng4A

http://www.frostmarine.co.uk/product...FQHD1AodwyiX4A

I'll be giving it a go when I comes round to painting my chassis

Ancient thread revivial warning!!!!

Chassis progress has stalled a bit - by brother-in-law is the welding man and he's busy at the moment...

So - i'm going to paint some donor parts: hubs / diff / gearbox / engine block / etc.

From a rusty lump dragged off a Sierra what's the process? I don't want to setup an electrolysis bath - and don't have ready access to a sandblaster - so will be going wirebrush / scotchbrite pads / wet'n'dry for the first stage.

But then what?

Some people mention cleaning down with thinners or petrol

Some people don't seem to use a primer, some use an etch primer, then another primer, then a top coat. And multiple coats of each step.

Some people go Hammerite on bare, or even rusty, metal?!

What do I need to do???!!!

I went at the parts with a wire brush attached to a drill and then ham merited all the parts.

David

I used the electrolysis method and a wire brush, don't know why you dont want to go down that route as it is the easiest by far

Arfon

So far I've just degreased, used a wire brush and/ or abrasives where appropriate and then primed and painted with enamel.

i would be very interested to find out what's needed to set up electrolysis though.

All you need is a bucket, an old battery charger, water, a piece of scrap metal and some crystals but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the crystal but you get them from Tesco or Sainsbury's, mix it all together and you get magic

Arfon

Just looked it up its washing crystals and attach the positive to the scap part and the negative to the part to be cleaned.

Arfon

it's soda crystals, you find them in the cleaning aisle. I may well give it a go, but some of my bits are already reconditioned with only light surface rust, so putting them through electrolysis seems like overkill...

edit. cross posting! the ones I got from tesco were called soda crystals. took some finding though!

It really does work well, I wish I had taken a photo of my front hubs before i did them you would have thought I had got them out of a field but they came up like new.

Arfon

I second Arfon on that.

Electrolyse is not difficult and very efficient. If it can help you, I made a post on my build blog about that.

http://vouchtroadster.blogspot.se/20...ectrolyse.html

See the pictures of the rear hubs at the end of the post, it is "miraculous".

Bye.

thay do satin black smoothrite i have some;)

I can recommend Bilt Hammer's Deox-c.

Seen a review in a mag ages ago which put me onto the stuff.

Just mix it with hot water 20:1 then leave the part in over night and it comes out perfect.

My favourite paint is Plasticote satin black, sprays on nice and has a very tough finish.

I used their Deox gel (same stuff, but it's a paste for big bits you can't submerge) and I found it really good.