barrman : Gillespie Paint
Gillespie Paint
Post by barrman on Jul 31, 2006, 1:04pm
Most of you have followed along with my weekly "look what I painted this weekend" reports since I got back from the FE. I have shot 1-1/2 gallons of the USMC green now. Here are some things I have figured out that might help others.
I mix mine 2:1 with Xylene. It works great. But, don't go any thinner. Colton was helping me the other day while I was mixing. I don't won't him near the Xylene, so he calls off the numbers on the side of my mixing cup while I pour the stuff in. I had already put in 12 oz of paint and was going for 6 oz of Xylene. He stopped me at 8. I went ahead and used it. It ran like crazy. So, stay with the 2:1 and not 3:2. I am going to try less thin mixtures next time I paint. I will let you know what I find.
The finished paint is extremely shiny for about a week. My parts painted at different times don't match until they have been in the sun for a few days together.
I put on a base coat that isn't very thick, just enough to make everything green. I wait at least 15 minute (or until the wet shiny look is gone) before I do the second coat. I put this one on real thick. Just a hair before it will start running. When doing my hood a week ago, I still had a lot of paint left in the gun when I was done with my second coat. I didn't want to throw it out and decided to do a third coat to the hood. I ran out with about 1/4 left. I could see the difference while it was wet. 2 hours later and it looked perfect. No difference. So, as long as you got at least 2 coats on, don't worry about finishing every single panel you start if you are going to add more.
Surface prep. I have treated the parts I paint like anything else and sand like crazy to make it smooth and clean. The paint seems to stick great. I had some more extra the other day and since my almost paintless flat bed trailer was parked next to the shop, I decided to use the paint up on the end of the bed of it. i shot a 2'x7' section without any prep at all. Surface rust, old paint, cat hair, dog hair, bird dropings, etc... It stuck and dried looking good. I had Colton try to wear it off a few days later. A 7 year old with a ball, bat and toy cars didn't make the paint come up. I am really impressed with this lead based paint.
I put my freshly painted hood on the truck Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning I had to take a bail of hay to my horses. This involves sticking the front of my truck into some woods so I can get the 6' 2000 pound round bale exactly where I want it. I have done this several dozen times before with the old paint and didn't think anything about it yesterday either. Until, I was done and walked around the truck. I had a bunch of little scrapes on my paint. They looked like chalk marks that the tree branches had made. I wetted my finger and they were gone. They didn't come back either. Since my hood is still pretty shiny, I suspect that it is still curing. Even though it has been sitting in my metal shop in 100+ degrees for 9 days since I painted it. I like this paint a lot and recommend it to anyone.
