I know Iso-Free 2K coatings have been done to death already... So what's the best alternative omitting 2K with iso?

[HH5]

Hello.

Lurked around on here for quite some time, I find this forum more useful than a lot of paint dedicated forums in all honesty.

I have an old 2000 Toyota Celica that is my project, I am restoring it and boy-racer'ing it. I used to play NFS Underground 2 as a kid and now I want to turn this car into the car I used to drive on the game - underglow lights and all that too.

I've been under the car and removed any surface rust with wire brushes and drill attachments. The car didn't require any welding and it was all superficial. So I then used rust converter on any spots where it was still knocking about, hit it with Zinc primer all over it then some Chassis paint. It looks quite nice from the underneath now.

I replaced the bumper with a Veilside fibreglass replica and the side skirts. I left the rear bumper but drilled some diffuser fins into the bottom with plenty of tiger seal, abraded and primed them.

I sanded the rest of the car down, took off the wing mirrors and spoiler, filled any minor imperfections and I am getting very close to painting.

I have a DeVilbiss SLG-620 as my primary gun with a 1.3mm tip, also have some cheapo HVLP 1.3mm as a spare, I also have a Fast Mover LVLP 1.3mm that I haven't used yet and have been considering it (my compressor is 100L).

My garage isn't the biggest and I think painting the entire thing in one go might be a little difficult so will be breaking it up into sections (i.e. roof, then the front wings, bonnet and bumper, then one side, then the other, then the back). Or perhaps a single panel at a time. I am not too sure yet.

Nonetheless, the car is originally Silver, but I wish to paint it in a solid colour - no pearls or metallics. I want it in RAL 5015 Sky Blue.

I am thinking of two options. In terms of durability, i'd like at the least 2 years out of this paint job before I have to look into messing around again with it. Ideally after a satin finish:

1. Buy some regular solvent basecoat & then use the Arc-Rite "Military" Satin Clearcoat (I believe this is the same as the ProXL range from the description). Or potentially the uPol S2085 "SMART" acrylic clear. I'd prefer a satin finish though because I am lazy and don't want to wet sand/polish. Possible 3/4 coats of clear per panel if I can.

2. Buy some Polyurethane Coach Enamel, thinners (whether it's White Spirit or Xylene or whatever the TDS calls for) and a very small amount of Terebine (Japan Driers) to aid with drying.

I know with both of these options, petrol/UV/weathering is an issue but I'd like it to stand up OK for around 2 years or so. And I am aware that if I go for the Enamel solution, there is pretty much no going back without stripping everything.

Out of these two options, what would you suggest would be the best course of action? Alternatively, what else would you suggest?

Thanks.

 

[GraemeVW]

I used cellulose on my van. Two colours. One colour I didn't have quite enough so it was a thin coat. This area has not faired well! It's gone dull, crazed, needs doing again.
The areas I put a proper amount o are fine and still shiny.

On my old motorbike I used tekaloid enamel. I brush painted it. It looks amazing. Not so easy to do though!
I couldn't get it to spray nicely, but I wanted to learn how to coach paint anyway. Once you get how to do it, the finish is as good as properly sprayed and better than alot of spray attempts! You wouldnt known it was brushed if i didnt tell you.

Would I enamel a car? I don't know. I may do my van again in it, but I don't plan on keeping it forever so wouldn't be my problem.
I'd probably go celly, it's easy to spray.

Spraying enamel, I found, I just couldn't get it right.

 

[GraemeVW]

Brushed enamel. That's straight off the brush, no flatting or polishing.
I think i still did this piece again as i wasnt 100% happy with it.

No photos of my attempts at spraying it. I just couldn't get consistency right. Think I may have been using too small a nozzle.

 

[bourbon]

That's a great finish for brush paint

 

[Burdekin]

You can safely roller 2k, then flat and polish it to the finish you desire.

 

[MoreWellie]

Brushed enamel. That's straight off the brush, no flatting or polishing

That is superb, I have tried and couldn't get that good despite doing quite a bit of it. even so I was happy with the finish I achieved

 

[500e]

Have a look at Imron a Dupont Co
Acrylics ?

 

[GraemeVW]

That's a great finish for brush paint

That is superb, I have tried and couldn't get that good despite doing quite a bit of it. even so I was happy with the finish I achieved

Thanks.
Took a while to work out how to do it though!
Very little info on how to properly coach paint is out there.
Just ja e to experiment untill you get the paint right, the temperatures right, the film thickness right, the speed right etc etc etc.
Rewarding in the end though.
I especially wanted an enamel finish on that project though.

Back to the OPs question, from experience, enamel is hard to get right whatever way you apply it.
I'd probably go cellulose.

But then alot of folk, especially if they want mat/satin, swear by graffiti aerosols. Montana maybe?

I'd probably just use cellulose if it was my car.

 

[HH5]

@GraemeVW wow. That is actually impeccable.

The Montana comment piqued my interest as it was something I was looking at in the past but never progressed as I didn't want to use cans but rather wanted to use the gun and compressor. MTN 94 seems to be based on a Modified alkyd liant with Ethyl acetate as the thinner, which is quite interesting...

I've never played with celly myself but from my understanding it's a lot of coats built up, is that right? Would you say celly is more durable/long lasting than basecoat with 1K clear over the top - and is it possible to get a satin finish with celly, or is it matt from the gun and glossy once polished up?

 

[GraemeVW]

@GraemeVW wow. That is actually impeccable.

The Montana comment piqued my interest as it was something I was looking at in the past but never progressed as I didn't want to use cans but rather wanted to use the gun and compressor. MTN 94 seems to be based on a Modified alkyd liant with Ethyl acetate as the thinner, which is quite interesting...

I've never played with celly myself but from my understanding it's a lot of coats built up, is that right? Would you say celly is more durable/long lasting than basecoat with 1K clear over the top - and is it possible to get a satin finish with celly, or is it matt from the gun and glossy once polished up?

I'm no painter, but...
Celly is easy to use and won't kill you.
I normally bang 3 or 4 coats on in quick succession. Put more thinners in each coat, ending up around 75% thinners. If you time it just right, you can even put a coat of pure thinners on last, levels it all out nice.
In this way it should be peel free and high gloss straight from the gun, no further work needed.
The beauty of it is if you get it wrong, it's easy to sand out and polish. Just make sure there is a good amount on there!
It thins out as it dries (shrinkage) so you can't use top coat thickness to cover up light sanding marks etc.

It's in no way the best paint option, technically, but it's very diy friendly and super forgiving.


Edit...
I'm sure you can order it satin of that's what you want. Same process though.
Satin can be trickier as you can't sand out and polish any faults.

 

[500e]

Acrylic is fast drying & hard
We had both Ault & Wyborg & Berger schemes in our paint shop much preferred the A&W Acrylic to the Cellulose, quicker dry harder finish which meant if you loused it up you could get back on it quicker,

 

[mtt.tr]

Base and acrylic for me.

This was my last paint job 6years ago

 

[charlysays]

I have kinda gone through what you have except I did the paint first and am now tackling flakey bits underneath. Look up my thread "Merc c250 TD blow over" in automotive projects for pics.

The issue with anything not 2k is painting it with anything else can potentially be problematic and durability will be compromised compared to 2k.
For a solid colour base and lacquer seems a pain too and not as easy to repair in future.

I used hmg nisocoat 2 2k on my DIY respray. It's sold as an industrial paint but works fine as a car paint doing a bit at a time- it flashes off too quick to do a whole car in one go.
The cured film is similar in performance to a 2k isocyanate cure paint- hard and high solids (so only 2 good coats needed).
It uses a polyamide hardener which is a closer to epoxy technology although it is 2k acrylic... So it's kinda a hybrid paint really. It works with 2k thinner and never separates whereas epoxy primer for example eventually separates from 2k gunwash. Can be sprayed with abek2p3 filters, no need for air fed.
Rawlins and online paint shop sell it, check it out. It was the best option which I could find for home use/ non air fed! It's also available in RAL and BS colours, clear and several gloss levels including satin.

 

[ronan]

Brushed enamel. That's straight off the brush, no flatting or polishing.
I think i still did this piece again as i wasnt 100% happy with it.View attachment 318580

No photos of my attempts at spraying it. I just couldn't get consistency right. Think I may have been using too small a nozzle. View attachment 318580

Lovely, is that off your Velo ?

 

[GraemeVW]

Lovely, is that off your Velo ?

Yes. Whole bike was brush painted.
Couple of bits need redoing now though, vibration cracks!
It had between 4 and 10 coats, depending on which piece. Didn't need that, 2 would have done, it just took that many as I had to keep sanding it flat and trying again untill I got each piece right. Steep learning curve!
The turning point was adding owatrol oil to the paint.

 

[steveo3002]

will the car be living inside ? if so that will make anything last way way longer

id go basecoat and upol 1k clear

 

[MG David]

I have used Deltron BC base coat with Upol 2085 1k clearcoat on top of it. (Having used epoxy primer underneath). This has generally produced good results. I know there are many people I respect on here who turn their noses up at 1k clear but serves a need.

To avoid issues I leave the base coat till the end of its overcoating window (1 hour per Upol) and then put the clear on in very light coats using the full flash off time (10 minutes).

Some of my early work with this combination did exhibit minor reaction further down the line. Having refined my technique, mainly patients, that has been solved.

 

[HH5]

@charlysays I looked at the Nisocoat and read on here about some users having issues with it - in terms of it not drying fully and curing in a timely manner. I read about it using a polyamide hardener as well and I think you're right in it being a hybrid between epoxy and acrylic. I wonder why body shops aren't moving away form using traditional iso-based paints if the case is that the polyamide acrylic paints perform just as well? Perhaps it's just time constraints (i.e. get the car in and out as quickly as possible).

@MG David I'm leaning towards using BC/CC with the uPol 1K 2085 clear coat. I'm going for a standard white base coat and am going to get that from SprayGunsDirect. I've used their black before on my daily and it came out perfectly. I thinned it down with 2K universal thinners. Despite me using 1K clear over the top, should using 2K thinners cause any adverse reactions with the paint?

@steveo3002 It's gonna be outside for most of its' life in all honesty. I have a garage at my current place but plan to move out next summer, meaning that she'll be sat on the side of the road unfortunately.

 

[charlysays]

@charlysays I looked at the Nisocoat and read on here about some users having issues with it - in terms of it not drying fully and curing in a timely manner. I read about it using a polyamide hardener as well and I think you're right in it being a hybrid between epoxy and acrylic. I wonder why body shops aren't moving away form using traditional iso-based paints if the case is that the polyamide acrylic paints perform just as well? Perhaps it's just time constraints (i.e. get the car in and out as quickly as possible).

Could you point me to the posts please? I spent ages researching on here and only one or two guys had used nisocoat and they both said it cured like a proper 2k, high solids and hard and wetsanded and polished well too. I had a few small runs on my respray and even those went hard. Unibinder "2k"/ Jawel Iso Free 2k on the other hand basically never cures as it doesn't cross link. It just kinda dries but stays soft forever. I haven't used the unibinder in a spray gun but I did use an aerosol of it and the best cure you can hope for is for no finger prints, won't pass the nail test even after all summer in the sun.

The reason no bodyshops will be using nisocoat (Comadex 800 is another one, probably same chemistry as nisocoat) is because it's marketed as an industrial paint- for outdoor railings, radiators, heavy plant & machinery etc and also because it's not very user friendly for painting a car with. It flashes very, very quick. You would have no chance at spraying a whole car at once with it. It would look very dry and dusty and the whole car would need wetsanding. As such you have to repeatedly mask the car to do it in stages. This is fine for most DIYers as it avoids the need for any significant extraction of overspray (I was painting in an agricultural barn 50X50ft and could paint up to four doors and a boot lid without any noticeable overspray issues) but it would probably drive a professional car painter up the wall.
I suspect the polyamide cured acrylics like nisocoat 2 and cromadex 800 don't perform quite as well but they are similar, so there won't be a massive difference in performance of the cured film vs isocyanate cured acrylic.

 

[MG David]

Despite me using 1K clear over the top, should using 2K thinners cause any adverse reactions with the paint?

The use of 2K thinners in base coat is quite common. It is always best to use what is recommended on the manufacturer's TDS. I expect you will find with some manufacturers it is the same thinner they use for 2K.