Painting donor parts

[adrianreeve]

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

[jabs]

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

[jps]

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???!!!

[Davidbolam]

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

David

[TheArf]

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

[Not Anumber]

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.

[TheArf]

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

[TheArf]

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

[jps]

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!

[TheArf]

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