Confessions of a first time Model T Painter
Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:02 pm
My initial budget estimate for the restoration of our 1015 runabout included $1000 for painting the car. That was based on a Corvair restoring coworker who knew “a guy” who had a small body shop in a nearby town that had he had used. I was comfortable doing the small amount of body work the car needed based on restoring a car in high school, but with no painting experience, I planned on having someone else paint it.
As I progressed with stripping the car and prepping it for priming, I decided that I would at least prime it myself, knowing that I can sand pretty well and could get the primer smooth enough for painting. When I bought the urethane primer at a local wholesale automotive paint supplier, the guy mentioned that a lot of shops wouldn’t touch the car unless they started from bare metal. Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. I had already had the fenders and splash panels media blasted by a shop specializing in such work, and wasn’t going to let those sit around and get rusty. Plus, I still needed to remove the paint from the body, hood and door, so I was going to prime those parts no matter what. Getting it painted may not be as easy or as cheap as I thought.
About this time, my coworker finally mentioned that the work he’d had done by “the guy” was about 20 years ago, so I realized that his $1000 guess could be way off. About that time, I also contacted a friend in our model T club to see if he knew anyone that would be willing to paint the T body parts that had already been primed and sanded. He also mentioned the same thing as my coworker had said; “you’re doing the primer, why don’t you paint it yourself?”. So, I decided to paint it myself. This weekend I finished up the process and am very glad that I did do it. Here are some of my lessons learned that I wished that I’d known ahead of time. Perhaps it will help another T restorer facing a similar situation that I was.
Preparation
Even before I knew who was going to paint the car, I knew that I needed to get the old paint off the car. The runabout appears to have been restored in the 1950’s or early 1960’s. I believe that it was lacquer paint and had some lead work in spots for some minor body work. To make matters worse, someone had brushed some kind of undercoating on the bottom of the fenders. After some research, I took the fenders, lights and splash boards to a local shop that specializes in low pressure media blasting. They charged me about $100 and did a great job stripping them. There’s no way I would’ve done that work myself for that price! The remaining body parts I mechanically stripped with the exception of the tub. I mechanically stripped the paint off, but the old primer was on there like stone. I figured that if something is that stuck to the metal, that can’t be all bad. Worst case the primer would have a reaction to it and I’d strip it to metal then.
Priming
As I mentioned, I had planned to prime it myself because I needed to get the bare, blasted pieces primed or they would start rusting. Up to this time my spraying experience was all with rattle cans, and I was an OK painter with those. After some research I decided to go the high volume, low pressure spray gun route. I decided to get this two-gun kit from Harbor Freight:
https://www.harborfreight.com/professio ... 94572.html
I figured that as long as it would get the primer on in some fashion, I could work with it from there. In retrospect I have found them to be great guns for the price; $40 with the 20% coupon that’s always available. The biggest thing that you need to be aware of is that the guns are coated with a thin layer of oil and need to be disassembled and cleaned prior to use. No problem. The big problem is that the fluid tip is torqued tighter than the rear axle nut on a T. Do NOT use the included wrench to try to take it off initially. You will wreck the wrench and possibly mess up the tip. Use a 10mm box wrench or socket to get it off. I am not the only one who’s had trouble getting it off initially. Using the right wrench or socket will make it easier, though it was crazy how tight that thing was on initially.
I purchased the primer from the local paint supplier and after watching videos on how to set up the gun and use the gun, I was ready to prime parts. The first night was a disaster. The primer came out like the popcorn ceiling stuff. Obviously, the primer was too thick. A quick search online showed that I needed a reducer. Why didn’t the guy tell me that when I bought it? Anyway, the next day I picked reducer from the store and it went much better after that. My priming was pretty rough when I started, but I learned as I went along. I used one of those three-sided dome painting booths that I picked up from Amazon and it worked really well. Little overspray got out, and what did was easily swept up. I did place some old sheets and blankets over the wheels on our 21 touring car that were closes to the tent, just in case. The rest is covered with a car dust cover.
I primed the body outside, as well as the 2nd coat on fenders outside after I did some body work on them. At all times I used a respirator, as you need to take proper precautions when using this stuff. By the time I was done priming I started thinking that maybe I could paint it myself. Up to this point I didn’t realize that you can sand and polish urethane paints. That gave me hope that I could do it. I decided to reserve judgement until after I painted the various chassis pieces.
Chassis paint
I had decided to use Eastwood’s extreme chassis gloss black primer and paint for the chassis pieces. I had already cheated and had the frame, spring pieces and running boards blasted and powder coated gloss black, so I didn’t have to do those. Even without those, there were a lot of parts and pieces to mechanically strip and paint. I used the small Harbor Freight paint gun for this job, and it worked well. My painting skills continued to improve, and were good enough to paint the generally rough surfaced parts like the front axle etc. I decided that I would try to paint it myself, and if it was a failure, try to find someone who would paint it.
Painting the car
Once I had discovered that I could color sand urethane paint, I needed to decide whether to use a two-stage system (base coat plus clear coat) or a single-stage system that had the gloss built in. I decided on the single-stage system because I wouldn’t have the risk of sanding though the clear coat and wrecking the job. I settled on using Eastwood’s single stage urethane Boulevard Black gloss paint. You can choose between two activators depending on the temperature that you will be painting. Since it was still summer, there really wasn’t a choice; get the activator for 80+ degrees. I also got reducer to go with the paint. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake that I did when I first started priming!
The first evening I painted the bottom of the parts and played hooky from work to paint the top sides. I had learned that it is much harder to see painting with black in the paint tent, which is why I wanted to paint outside. This is when I made my biggest mistake. The first coat went on really well early in the morning, and I thought wow, this is turning out pretty well! The disaster was the 2nd coat. By now the temperature had climbed some, but the big problem was that the now black parts heated up too quickly and the paint didn’t flow out as well as the first coat and left a rough surface. To make matters worse, I had “solvent pop” everywhere. Solvent pop leaves micro pits that I have found are very difficult to sand out, and can go down to the primer, resulting in a bunch of white dots on an otherwise black surface. I had wasted a day of vacation and a fair amount of paint, and had some bad looking parts. I was also almost out of paint, so while waiting for the paint I tried color sanding the parts to see if I could salvage them. I’ll describe that process later, but I couldn’t salvage them as painted.
After I got more paint, I decided to only paint in the shade if outside, or in the paint tent with better lighting or facing the open garage. My painting skills seemed to improve as I repainted the upper surface of everything, and finally the body. Model T’s are small, but there are a lot of bits and pieces to paint, and some parts are very tricky to paint. I found that painting the top bows to be a challenge because they are awkward to deal with and getting the paint to be smooth on all sides can be a challenge. This is because the paint swirls around the blunt cross section of the bows downstream of the surface being painted. I painted those things more than once before I was happy with the outcome.
The fenders are also tricky because they have a lot of edges, beads and that 1” lip under the edge of the fenders. I save the body for last, and by comparison, it was easier than the fenders. The biggest challenge was fighting runs in spots. The paint would look fine, then bam, a run started forming. I would deal with those during the finishing process. Even though I was painting in the shade and at the proper temperature, I was still getting solvent pop in spots. More on that later.
Color sanding
While waiting for my 2nd order of paint, I decided to try wet color sanding and polishing the splash board and fenders, figuring that it would be a good learning process. I’d just repaint them if I didn’t like the results.
My online research suggested using 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper before polishing. Those worked well for me. What I also learned was how important it is to get flexible sanding blocks. Don’t try color sanding without them! I used three; from pretty hard to pretty rubbery. They are sized to use half of a 8 ½ by 11 sheet of sandpaper wrapped around them. Think of the sanding block like a plane, with the sandpaper like different size blades. The hardest block should be used first, as it will stay firm while the sandpaper lops off the peaks of the orange peel, dust particles, small crickets (yes, trust me), ripples caused by sweat drops onto a freshly painted surface, and runs. It even worked removing fibers and the roughed-up surface causes by my drop cloth that front fenders where on drying when the wind flip the edge onto them.
I progress from hardest to softest block with each grit of sandpaper, though I didn’t always use the hardest block by the time I got to 2000, because the surface was already pretty smooth. 2000 is mainly for removing the sanding scratches before polishing. As my painting skills improved, my orange peel lessened and I would then start with 1500 grit sandpaper. Speaking of sandpaper, I’m as cheap as most model T owners and was tempted to use a piece longer than I should’ve. Try to suspend your cheapskate tendencies when it comes to sandpaper. I did and am glad that I did so.
Polishing
After wet color sanding, it was time to try out the polisher. For the polisher I once again went to Harbor Freight and got this one:
https://www.harborfreight.com/7-in-10-a ... 62297.html
It is important to know the RPM of the polisher, which is why I got this one. “According to the internet”, you want to use about 1500 RPM for color sanding. My results confirm that. Too high and you can burn the paint. I lowered the RPM to 1000 for final work. Even at 1500 RPM the surface can get pretty hot, and while I never burned the paint, I did melt a bit of the foam head in spots that I needed to remove. Also, tuck your shirt in when using this thing. You’d be amazed how quickly it will go from the piece that you’re polishing up to your arm pit after it grabs the loose end of your shirt. Trust me on this one.
These types of polishers use a foam head that attach to Velcro on the bottom of the wheel. You will need one made for rubbing compound, and one for the finishing compound. The first is firmer than the latter one. You will also need rubbing compound and finishing compound that is sold in big bottles that you squirt onto the surface. I got some from the local paint store, but Meguiars is a brand that is available at a lot of stores. Some videos show people putting dabs all over the part and then using the polisher to spread it out. That seemed kind of silly to me. I first used my hand to spread it around the part thinly. That way I knew every area had some before I started polishing.
The first time you sand a painted part, you feel like you’ve wrecked it. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it looks worse now. Yet using a polisher will soon bring out the shine. The rubbing compound is used to remove the remaining sanding marks and should bring the part to a dull, mirrored finish. The polishing will turn it into a great shine. It will also show you areas where you missed, so don’t be disappointed if you need to start over in areas with the rubbing compound or even sanding again locally.
Regarding how long it takes, for me it would take about an hour to sand and polish a fender top. I did not mess with the undersides of the fenders. The hardest parts to sand and polish are the hood pieces, with the louvers, rivets and handles. Even trying to be careful, you may still blow through the paint in spots on the rivets. I did. However, I just pulled out my black paint marker and carefully touch up those spots. They work really well for this. The body took about 3 hours to sand and polish.
I mentioned earlier the large amount of solvent pop on the initially painted parts. I was not successful in sanding those out, before I blew through to the primer. Even after repainting in the shade, I still it in the runs that I sanded down. I tried filling them with dabs of paint put on with my finger and even black wax, but just couldn’t get rid of them. Fortunately, there only in a few spots and are hard to see.
A few takeaways
1) I think part of caring for or restoring a T is being able to learn new skills. I know that I have since I started the restoration last March. I’m glad to say that even with buying more paint then it should’ve taken, my costs for paint, supplies and equipment were well below my unrealistic $1000 amount that I’d initially estimated. Plus, I’ve got a paint gun and polisher that I’ll use on something else.
2) Set realistic expectations before starting. We’d all love to have a perfect paint job. Maybe that’s realistic if we’re also willing to take it to a professional and pay a lot of money. My expectations were twofold. First, I wanted a nice paint job that no one would notice. I think it is human nature to notice obvious flaws more than to notice something outstanding. If the paint job looked good enough to go with the new upholstery, top, radiator and wheels, then that would be good enough for me. My 2nd expectation was achieving a paint job that was nice as is on our touring car. It is well done, older restoration that I suspect has enamel paint. The paint job looks nice, but there are a few flaws if you know where to look from them. More than once I would use that paint job as a gage for determining if what I was doing was good enough. Last night when one of my sons looked the body, he said that it looked better than our other T. I think he’s right!
3) The last takeaway is that if something about the paint job bugs you. Fix it if it is in your power to do so. The splash boards had been color sanded after my first painting disaster and while they polished out ok, there were a lot of white speckles due to the solvent pop. I decided that since I had enough paint left, that I would repaint them. They look much better now, and am glad that I didn’t settle for almost good enough.
Anyway, this post is way longer than I thought it would be, but if it helps at least one person who is thinking about painting their T, then it was worth it. I’ve benefited from what others have posted in the past, and I wanted to give something back that I’ve learned.
As I progressed with stripping the car and prepping it for priming, I decided that I would at least prime it myself, knowing that I can sand pretty well and could get the primer smooth enough for painting. When I bought the urethane primer at a local wholesale automotive paint supplier, the guy mentioned that a lot of shops wouldn’t touch the car unless they started from bare metal. Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. I had already had the fenders and splash panels media blasted by a shop specializing in such work, and wasn’t going to let those sit around and get rusty. Plus, I still needed to remove the paint from the body, hood and door, so I was going to prime those parts no matter what. Getting it painted may not be as easy or as cheap as I thought.
About this time, my coworker finally mentioned that the work he’d had done by “the guy” was about 20 years ago, so I realized that his $1000 guess could be way off. About that time, I also contacted a friend in our model T club to see if he knew anyone that would be willing to paint the T body parts that had already been primed and sanded. He also mentioned the same thing as my coworker had said; “you’re doing the primer, why don’t you paint it yourself?”. So, I decided to paint it myself. This weekend I finished up the process and am very glad that I did do it. Here are some of my lessons learned that I wished that I’d known ahead of time. Perhaps it will help another T restorer facing a similar situation that I was.
Preparation
Even before I knew who was going to paint the car, I knew that I needed to get the old paint off the car. The runabout appears to have been restored in the 1950’s or early 1960’s. I believe that it was lacquer paint and had some lead work in spots for some minor body work. To make matters worse, someone had brushed some kind of undercoating on the bottom of the fenders. After some research, I took the fenders, lights and splash boards to a local shop that specializes in low pressure media blasting. They charged me about $100 and did a great job stripping them. There’s no way I would’ve done that work myself for that price! The remaining body parts I mechanically stripped with the exception of the tub. I mechanically stripped the paint off, but the old primer was on there like stone. I figured that if something is that stuck to the metal, that can’t be all bad. Worst case the primer would have a reaction to it and I’d strip it to metal then.
Priming
As I mentioned, I had planned to prime it myself because I needed to get the bare, blasted pieces primed or they would start rusting. Up to this time my spraying experience was all with rattle cans, and I was an OK painter with those. After some research I decided to go the high volume, low pressure spray gun route. I decided to get this two-gun kit from Harbor Freight:
https://www.harborfreight.com/professio ... 94572.html
I figured that as long as it would get the primer on in some fashion, I could work with it from there. In retrospect I have found them to be great guns for the price; $40 with the 20% coupon that’s always available. The biggest thing that you need to be aware of is that the guns are coated with a thin layer of oil and need to be disassembled and cleaned prior to use. No problem. The big problem is that the fluid tip is torqued tighter than the rear axle nut on a T. Do NOT use the included wrench to try to take it off initially. You will wreck the wrench and possibly mess up the tip. Use a 10mm box wrench or socket to get it off. I am not the only one who’s had trouble getting it off initially. Using the right wrench or socket will make it easier, though it was crazy how tight that thing was on initially.
I purchased the primer from the local paint supplier and after watching videos on how to set up the gun and use the gun, I was ready to prime parts. The first night was a disaster. The primer came out like the popcorn ceiling stuff. Obviously, the primer was too thick. A quick search online showed that I needed a reducer. Why didn’t the guy tell me that when I bought it? Anyway, the next day I picked reducer from the store and it went much better after that. My priming was pretty rough when I started, but I learned as I went along. I used one of those three-sided dome painting booths that I picked up from Amazon and it worked really well. Little overspray got out, and what did was easily swept up. I did place some old sheets and blankets over the wheels on our 21 touring car that were closes to the tent, just in case. The rest is covered with a car dust cover.
I primed the body outside, as well as the 2nd coat on fenders outside after I did some body work on them. At all times I used a respirator, as you need to take proper precautions when using this stuff. By the time I was done priming I started thinking that maybe I could paint it myself. Up to this point I didn’t realize that you can sand and polish urethane paints. That gave me hope that I could do it. I decided to reserve judgement until after I painted the various chassis pieces.
Chassis paint
I had decided to use Eastwood’s extreme chassis gloss black primer and paint for the chassis pieces. I had already cheated and had the frame, spring pieces and running boards blasted and powder coated gloss black, so I didn’t have to do those. Even without those, there were a lot of parts and pieces to mechanically strip and paint. I used the small Harbor Freight paint gun for this job, and it worked well. My painting skills continued to improve, and were good enough to paint the generally rough surfaced parts like the front axle etc. I decided that I would try to paint it myself, and if it was a failure, try to find someone who would paint it.
Painting the car
Once I had discovered that I could color sand urethane paint, I needed to decide whether to use a two-stage system (base coat plus clear coat) or a single-stage system that had the gloss built in. I decided on the single-stage system because I wouldn’t have the risk of sanding though the clear coat and wrecking the job. I settled on using Eastwood’s single stage urethane Boulevard Black gloss paint. You can choose between two activators depending on the temperature that you will be painting. Since it was still summer, there really wasn’t a choice; get the activator for 80+ degrees. I also got reducer to go with the paint. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake that I did when I first started priming!
The first evening I painted the bottom of the parts and played hooky from work to paint the top sides. I had learned that it is much harder to see painting with black in the paint tent, which is why I wanted to paint outside. This is when I made my biggest mistake. The first coat went on really well early in the morning, and I thought wow, this is turning out pretty well! The disaster was the 2nd coat. By now the temperature had climbed some, but the big problem was that the now black parts heated up too quickly and the paint didn’t flow out as well as the first coat and left a rough surface. To make matters worse, I had “solvent pop” everywhere. Solvent pop leaves micro pits that I have found are very difficult to sand out, and can go down to the primer, resulting in a bunch of white dots on an otherwise black surface. I had wasted a day of vacation and a fair amount of paint, and had some bad looking parts. I was also almost out of paint, so while waiting for the paint I tried color sanding the parts to see if I could salvage them. I’ll describe that process later, but I couldn’t salvage them as painted.
After I got more paint, I decided to only paint in the shade if outside, or in the paint tent with better lighting or facing the open garage. My painting skills seemed to improve as I repainted the upper surface of everything, and finally the body. Model T’s are small, but there are a lot of bits and pieces to paint, and some parts are very tricky to paint. I found that painting the top bows to be a challenge because they are awkward to deal with and getting the paint to be smooth on all sides can be a challenge. This is because the paint swirls around the blunt cross section of the bows downstream of the surface being painted. I painted those things more than once before I was happy with the outcome.
The fenders are also tricky because they have a lot of edges, beads and that 1” lip under the edge of the fenders. I save the body for last, and by comparison, it was easier than the fenders. The biggest challenge was fighting runs in spots. The paint would look fine, then bam, a run started forming. I would deal with those during the finishing process. Even though I was painting in the shade and at the proper temperature, I was still getting solvent pop in spots. More on that later.
Color sanding
While waiting for my 2nd order of paint, I decided to try wet color sanding and polishing the splash board and fenders, figuring that it would be a good learning process. I’d just repaint them if I didn’t like the results.
My online research suggested using 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper before polishing. Those worked well for me. What I also learned was how important it is to get flexible sanding blocks. Don’t try color sanding without them! I used three; from pretty hard to pretty rubbery. They are sized to use half of a 8 ½ by 11 sheet of sandpaper wrapped around them. Think of the sanding block like a plane, with the sandpaper like different size blades. The hardest block should be used first, as it will stay firm while the sandpaper lops off the peaks of the orange peel, dust particles, small crickets (yes, trust me), ripples caused by sweat drops onto a freshly painted surface, and runs. It even worked removing fibers and the roughed-up surface causes by my drop cloth that front fenders where on drying when the wind flip the edge onto them.
I progress from hardest to softest block with each grit of sandpaper, though I didn’t always use the hardest block by the time I got to 2000, because the surface was already pretty smooth. 2000 is mainly for removing the sanding scratches before polishing. As my painting skills improved, my orange peel lessened and I would then start with 1500 grit sandpaper. Speaking of sandpaper, I’m as cheap as most model T owners and was tempted to use a piece longer than I should’ve. Try to suspend your cheapskate tendencies when it comes to sandpaper. I did and am glad that I did so.
Polishing
After wet color sanding, it was time to try out the polisher. For the polisher I once again went to Harbor Freight and got this one:
https://www.harborfreight.com/7-in-10-a ... 62297.html
It is important to know the RPM of the polisher, which is why I got this one. “According to the internet”, you want to use about 1500 RPM for color sanding. My results confirm that. Too high and you can burn the paint. I lowered the RPM to 1000 for final work. Even at 1500 RPM the surface can get pretty hot, and while I never burned the paint, I did melt a bit of the foam head in spots that I needed to remove. Also, tuck your shirt in when using this thing. You’d be amazed how quickly it will go from the piece that you’re polishing up to your arm pit after it grabs the loose end of your shirt. Trust me on this one.
These types of polishers use a foam head that attach to Velcro on the bottom of the wheel. You will need one made for rubbing compound, and one for the finishing compound. The first is firmer than the latter one. You will also need rubbing compound and finishing compound that is sold in big bottles that you squirt onto the surface. I got some from the local paint store, but Meguiars is a brand that is available at a lot of stores. Some videos show people putting dabs all over the part and then using the polisher to spread it out. That seemed kind of silly to me. I first used my hand to spread it around the part thinly. That way I knew every area had some before I started polishing.
The first time you sand a painted part, you feel like you’ve wrecked it. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it looks worse now. Yet using a polisher will soon bring out the shine. The rubbing compound is used to remove the remaining sanding marks and should bring the part to a dull, mirrored finish. The polishing will turn it into a great shine. It will also show you areas where you missed, so don’t be disappointed if you need to start over in areas with the rubbing compound or even sanding again locally.
Regarding how long it takes, for me it would take about an hour to sand and polish a fender top. I did not mess with the undersides of the fenders. The hardest parts to sand and polish are the hood pieces, with the louvers, rivets and handles. Even trying to be careful, you may still blow through the paint in spots on the rivets. I did. However, I just pulled out my black paint marker and carefully touch up those spots. They work really well for this. The body took about 3 hours to sand and polish.
I mentioned earlier the large amount of solvent pop on the initially painted parts. I was not successful in sanding those out, before I blew through to the primer. Even after repainting in the shade, I still it in the runs that I sanded down. I tried filling them with dabs of paint put on with my finger and even black wax, but just couldn’t get rid of them. Fortunately, there only in a few spots and are hard to see.
A few takeaways
1) I think part of caring for or restoring a T is being able to learn new skills. I know that I have since I started the restoration last March. I’m glad to say that even with buying more paint then it should’ve taken, my costs for paint, supplies and equipment were well below my unrealistic $1000 amount that I’d initially estimated. Plus, I’ve got a paint gun and polisher that I’ll use on something else.
2) Set realistic expectations before starting. We’d all love to have a perfect paint job. Maybe that’s realistic if we’re also willing to take it to a professional and pay a lot of money. My expectations were twofold. First, I wanted a nice paint job that no one would notice. I think it is human nature to notice obvious flaws more than to notice something outstanding. If the paint job looked good enough to go with the new upholstery, top, radiator and wheels, then that would be good enough for me. My 2nd expectation was achieving a paint job that was nice as is on our touring car. It is well done, older restoration that I suspect has enamel paint. The paint job looks nice, but there are a few flaws if you know where to look from them. More than once I would use that paint job as a gage for determining if what I was doing was good enough. Last night when one of my sons looked the body, he said that it looked better than our other T. I think he’s right!
3) The last takeaway is that if something about the paint job bugs you. Fix it if it is in your power to do so. The splash boards had been color sanded after my first painting disaster and while they polished out ok, there were a lot of white speckles due to the solvent pop. I decided that since I had enough paint left, that I would repaint them. They look much better now, and am glad that I didn’t settle for almost good enough.
Anyway, this post is way longer than I thought it would be, but if it helps at least one person who is thinking about painting their T, then it was worth it. I’ve benefited from what others have posted in the past, and I wanted to give something back that I’ve learned.