On going anomaly...?

[The Z'eer]

mostly plastic parts ...it can happen ive heard of painters using ground straps to help

wait till you a fly land in it lol

I experienced an insect when I painted in the garden, yeah makes a real mess doesn't it.

 

[steveo3002]

STAR FINISH ANTI STATIC GUN

Introducing the Star Finish Anti Stat Gun – the ultimate tool to eliminate static electricity and achieve flawless paint jobs. Dont battle dust, get an Anti Static Gun!

www.basicwelding.co.uk

cant find the one we had...had a radioactive logo on the box so guessing it was banned , did make a difference though

 

[The Z'eer]

STAR FINISH ANTI STATIC GUN

Introducing the Star Finish Anti Stat Gun – the ultimate tool to eliminate static electricity and achieve flawless paint jobs. Dont battle dust, get an Anti Static Gun!

www.basicwelding.co.uk

cant find the one we had...had a radioactive logo on the box so guessing it was banned , did make a difference though

Thanks I might get one of those. Do you use an anti static gun albeit not the one above?

 

[steveo3002]

i no longer work at a bodyshop...if i did and the boss was paying i would use one

are you doing the repair /filler work in same area

 

[The Z'eer]

i no longer work at a bodyshop...if i did and the boss was paying i would use one

are you doing the repair /filler work in same area

I'm using the booth for painting only. I figured everything else is best done in the workshop or outside of it

 

[MetalMonkey]

As said, I never used to encounter any dust when spraying via aerosol at all, and the same environments were used. I grant you it could be dust but where on earth is it coming from??

Spray cans are low pressure and dry quickly and you tend to only be working a small area. When you are spraying entire panels it will stay wetter for longer over a larger area. More dust gets stirred up, more air moves about. 2k loves dust - no matter how diligent your cleaning and how many precautions you take you will always get some.

The first full respray I did, I had loads of dust specs - drove me mad and I reworked the panels several times trying to get rid of it in an attempt to get a perfect gun finish.

In the end the owner of the paint supply shop, who was also an old hand at spraying, popped over to take a look - laughed and said I wouldn't get a better result than that in proper booth and just to cut and buff and you would never see it. He was right.

The thing I have since learnt is to try and not worry. Bugs, dust, hairs - It is amazing what defects you can fix as long as you get a good even film and have done proper prep work and have the time. The biggest advantage of not being a pro painter is you can take all the time in the world.

 

[The Z'eer]

Spray cans are low pressure and dry quickly and you tend to only be working a small area. When you are spraying entire panels it will stay wetter for longer over a larger area. More dust gets stirred up, more air moves about. 2k loves dust - no matter how diligent your cleaning and how many precautions you take you will always get some.

The first full respray I did, I had loads of dust specs - drove me mad and I reworked the panels several times trying to get rid of it in an attempt to get a perfect gun finish.

In the end the owner of the paint supply shop, who was also an old hand at spraying, popped over to take a look - laughed and said I wouldn't get a better result than that in proper booth and just to cut and buff and you would never see it. He was right.

The thing I have since learnt is to try and not worry. Bugs, dust, hairs - It is amazing what defects you can fix as long as you get a good even film and have done proper prep work and have the time. The biggest advantage of not being a pro painter is you can take all the time in the world.

Thank you very much for the vote of confidence, I don’t feel as bad now. I’m very new to this as you can see and I have spent quite a lot of money on the equipment and of course I was hoping for a fantastic result, without these imperfections.

I guess dust is something that appears in all paint jobs regardless of the level of professionalism and environment?

That said, if it’s a two stage paint job involving clear over base, and it’s applied wet on wet then surely dust will appear in the base coat and thus the clear can’t be applied until it’s removed?

 

[steveo3002]

with basecoat if its terrible you can either tickle it with a tac cloth or in the worst case sand it and re base it

minor specs in the basecoat will sand out in the clear

 

[The Z'eer]

with basecoat if its terrible you can either tickle it with a tac cloth or in the worst case sand it and re base it

minor specs in the basecoat will sand out in the clear

Ok, thanks for the answers there

I don’t quite understand how you could sand the minor imperfections in the clear if they’re in the base coat? Surely they’ve gotta be addressed before otherwise they’ll show through?

 

[steveo3002]

like someone else posted you will be surprised what you can get away with

 

[The Z'eer]

like someone else posted you will be surprised what you can get away with

What about metallics though, I didn’t think could be sanded due to tiny metal chips in the paint?

 

[steveo3002]

if youre sanding the base you need to recoat it before clear...mostly only if you happen to touch it or a fly lands on it etc

tiny specs will be sunk under the clear and you just sand off the raised bump

 

[The Z'eer]

if youre sanding the base you need to recoat it before clear...mostly only if you happen to touch it or a fly lands on it etc

tiny specs will be sunk under the clear and you just sand off the raised bump

So you’re saying that the tiny imperfections won’t be visible once the clear is applied and then sanded once cured?

 

[steveo3002]

yeah pretty much

 

[The Z'eer]

Aside from using water, I did wonder if this https://www.colad.co/en_gb/spray-booth/dry/dust-control May prove to be a better alternative?

 

[steveo3002]

maybe...

i still say you are worrying about nothing , put a bit more effort into being super clean and deal with the odd spec of dirt , a pro bodyshop wont turn out 100% clean work so neither will you in a fancy shed

 

[The Z'eer]

maybe...

i still say you are worrying about nothing , put a bit more effort into being super clean and deal with the odd spec of dirt , a pro bodyshop wont turn out 100% clean work so neither will you in a fancy shed

So the professionals will always suffer specs of dirt and dust when painting, regardless of using a very expensive purpose built spray booth?

 

[steveo3002]

yes even the factorys employ people to remove defects , its not realistic to expect a diy home paintjob to have zero defects out of the gun

remember a proper booth will have negative pressure , im guessing you have a fan?

 

[The Z'eer]

yes even the factorys employ people to remove defects , its not realistic to expect a diy home paintjob to have zero defects out of the gun

remember a proper booth will have negative pressure , im guessing you have a fan?

I have a proper ATEX extraction fan in the booth. I switch it on ten minutes before spraying.

The booth has the correct air inlet filters too. This is why I’m puzzled as to why it’s dust causing the issue. I thought with these attributes I wouldn’t suffer dust.

 

[MetalMonkey]

Thank you very much for the vote of confidence, I don’t feel as bad now. I’m very new to this as you can see and I have spent quite a lot of money on the equipment and of course I was hoping for a fantastic result, without these imperfections.

I guess dust is something that appears in all paint jobs regardless of the level of professionalism and environment?

That said, if it’s a two stage paint job involving clear over base, and it’s applied wet on wet then surely dust will appear in the base coat and thus the clear can’t be applied until it’s removed?

Base dries a lot quicker than clear - and you typically only put on a very thin layer, so usually much less chance of dust.

Any dust specks you get can often be denibbed or flicked out before you lay on the clear, if you are lucky.
Insects, hairs or larger trash you might be able to extract with some tweezers - and just tickle on some more base if required.

Ideally you want to avoid having to sand the basecoat at all, you want to apply the clearcoat before the basecoat has fully cured.
If you have to sand it you will have to wait for it to go off, sand and then mist on some more base.


The rest of the dust will get buried in the clear coat, and will be very difficult to see.
If you lay down a nice thick film of clear, then you have plenty to play with when it comes to wetsanding and buffing.
Once you have flatted the clear and shined it up, it will be almost impossible to see any tiny defects in the base.

You also have to exercise some self-control or you will go nuts - 99.9% of people looking at a paint job will not see the defects that you will see after working on it that closely for such a length of time.
A rule of thumb is if you can’t see them at an arm’s length, don’t worry about them.

I could go up to a new car in the showroom and almost guarantee I could find some defect in the paint if I looked hard enough - and yet nobody would ever spot it if they weren’t specifically looking for it.

Strive for perfection, by all means - but don't beat yourself up over it. It only needs to be good enough, and nothing is ever perfect.
One of the biggest lessons to learn is when to put the gun down and leave the job alone, its is all too easy to ruin a nice job by being too much of a perfectionist. I’ve done it several times.

I would recommend you work on getting your prep process right so you don't get any of those sand scratches - practise laying down the paint and then put some time in with a sanding block and a buffer - each of those stages is a different set of skills which takes time to master. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the results you get once it is polished up. You will get a little better each time you do it.