Some Info About Painting With Enamel.

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RustyDusty

RustyDusty

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Hey guys, I just wanted to share my findings with you on enamel paint.

I've been painting the dash bezels in my Duster. I'm using Rustoleum flat black enamel. They've been painted for about 5 days now. I did all the proper prepping, including spraying adhesion promoter on the plastic beforehand. I went to go do my scratch test today (the rattle can said it would take 5 days to cure) sure enough, it scraped right off. The enamel is soft and tacky. My heart sank. :(

Heres the difference in Lacquer and Enamel so the rest of this makes sense:

  • Lacquers truly do dry. The solvents in them evaporate out, thus drying it.
  • Enamels (without a hardener, Rustoleum for example) cure, they don't "dry". It cures (hardens) by a chemical reaction called oxidative cross-linking. The binder is hardened molecularly due to exposure to oxygen.

If you spray enamel on too thick the top will dry and prevent oxygen from getting below to the still uncured enamel. Once this happens the enamel underneath can not cure (or will cure extremely slowly, possibly years) because the oxidative cross-linking can no longer occur. You will always have soft paint under a thin hard shell when this happens. Which I hope I didn't do.:angry7:

In all truth enamel takes 15-30 days or even a year to cure hard. Not what the can said (5 days). So don't necessarily give up if it's not dry in the time the can says.


The best way to apply enamel is in VERY VERY VERY THIN coats. I mean seriously thin coats. This way a lot of the paint is exposed to oxygen and can begin the curing process. This way your project can turn out rock hard.
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We'll see if mine dries in a month... I'm really hoping it does and I didn't spray it too thick. I'll let you all know what happens.

Also a MUST for painting plastic is to use an adhesion promoter!

This may be common knowledge. So sorry if I'm just rehashing something you all know. I just thought I would share my findings in case any of you are having issues with this. Hopefully this info can alleviate some of your frustrations.](*,)

Cheers,
Drake
 
Drake, some of what you say may have been correct in the past but the days of outgassing while enamels are curing are practically gone forever since the usage of hardener such as isocyanates have created a loophole so to speak in what it is you believe in. I myself a pinstriper for the past 50 plus years and also dabble in ordinary as well as custom paint. Believe this or not but I painted my Signet back in 91 and still get compliments from those who see my car today. My find is that most persons who have problems with paint aren't experienced in the art of preparation which to me is practically everything when paint is the subject. Preparation is everything as paint needs a tooth so to speak to grab on to. The tooth I am speaking about has to do with the sandpaper needed to prep the surface. I can go on and on but find myself out of time for tonight as I've got 4 appointments in the A M
 
Hotlines, what you say is true to paints with hardeners. But spray paints like Rustoleum don't have a hardener. Rattle can enamels don't, they can't. I reworded my previous post to clear it up. Thanks for the input. I totally agree with you that prep makes all the difference. Have a good morning, I hate em!
 
Understandable Rusty except for the fact that preparation is everything and there isn't a day that goes by when I haven't painted whatever kind of substrate without using a hardener where-as the paint scrapes off easily. Lessons learned makes for a better outcome and a great big smile even if its your own :)

Painting any substrate with a spray bomb like Rustoleum needs to be prepared for paint in order for the paint to stick
 
How would you add hardener to something out of a rattle can? If there's a way to do it, please let me know. I'd love to get rid of this one month curing time!!!

It's not that it won't stick. Its tacky and soft. I could skim the top off and still have uncured paint below. It's not that it's chipping off. It's just not curing.
 
Even laying on a line like this without a hardener, straight paint no reducer yet has to last a least 5 years.

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first of all.....you mention you painted your dash and you also mentioned something about plastic adhesion .....so what did you paint? your dash? or your dash pad?

when it comes to plastics,vinyls,fabrics and so on....I suggest cleaning them well and using a scotch bright pad to dull down the surface and then use a rattle can of vinyl and fabric dye... about $5.00 a can and does great.

as for if you painted your dash, why did you rattle can it? the finish of painting with a paint gun is much nicer and you can "dial in" the ingrediants to make it cure to your liking and weather accordingly.

if you are having troubles with the paint curing maybe you should try letting it sit in the hot sun for a day or waving a heat gun over it for awhile.

I personally used an oil based paint to paint my dash. It "said" not to thin it out with any solvents but I didnt care what the can said lol..... so what I did was mixed up the paint 1-1 with medium reducer and then splashed in some hardener into the mix ,pulled out my hvlp gun,set the pressure to about 12 psi, laid a "tack coat" which is a light dusting to give a base for future coats to have a little extra to stick too, then I went through with "cover coat" medium coat. and then I came through with a final coat "wet coat" which is just enough paint to give it a glassy look and evenly covered surface.

I have been using the oil based paints on the interior of my duster so far with AWESOME results. I normally am not a fan of oil based paints due to the slow dry time but when you add reducer and hardener it starts setting up in minutes and is dry to the touch in about 2 hours "tacky" and is cured in about 5 hours and is hardened in a matter of days. and this process is faster yet in warmer weather/in a booth/sitting in the sun.

I also used the vinyl dye on my plastics/vinyls in my interior and have had great results.

I agree as has been mentioned above that your paint work is ONLY as good as the prep time you put into it prior.....and you must either know what you are doing or do your research ahead of time so you do not run into problems such as that......and when in doubt,spray a test spot ahead of time to make sure you get the results your looking for.

if worst comes to worst and you do not have access to air guns or compressors and so on and rattle can is your only option, I suggest scraping it all off,cleaning the surface and re prepping it and repainting with a different rattle can paint .

heres a few pictures of what I did with mine.
 
There are spray dyes for vinyl and plastic interior items. Mine came from YearOne. I painted the plastic armrest bases dark green in mine. It seems to stick well and dry fast. I did three coats within 10 min of each other. And yes, light coats! Hope yours dries better soon, good luck
 
I painted the dash bezels. I have never heard of painting a plastic with dye. What is the prep for dying plastic?

Edit: I just read up about it. That's really cool... I'll be stripping all my bezels and dying them. Wish I would have known earlier!!!

Can you dye over plastic that has already been died, or does it have to be virgin?
 
you can go to your local walmart,autozone,advance auto parts, o'rileys and so on and pick up a can of duplicolor vinyl and fabric dye.

or you can spend a few bucks more and order a LITTLE bit better quality stuff from lets say year one or summit racing and so on.

the prep for plastics and vinyl and so on is to WASH WASH WASH.....you need to make sure any and all oil contaminants are removed from the surface.

you can do so with light soapy water, surface prep "wax and grease remover" from your local paint supply or auto parts store or even a walmart.

then I take a scotch bright pad and scuff the surface until it has a uniform "dull" texture. Then I take and blow the peice off with compressed air and then go back over it yet once again with wax and grease remover.

then shake your paint well, spray a light dust coat "tack coat" let it flash for a few minutes, spray a medium coat "cover coat"....let it flash for a few minutes, then spray your 3rd and final coat "wet coat" and let it dry.

the stuff dries within minutes and can be handeled within 10 minutes, I painted and installed my dash pad within a 20 minute time span to give you and idea.

its pretty forgiving stuff so if you make a mistake its easy to fix. this paint has a "splattery" spray pattern and results are best when spray 8"-12" away from the surface of whatever you are painting.


Ill try to get you a website link to the paint I am refering to so you can get a better idea
 
when you go to the link I sent you, you will see a icon on that webpage that says FEATURED VIDEO. click that and it will show a video demonstration of the product being used and the steps they took and that will give you a good idea of some steps that need to be taken
 
Thanks! I love this forum. It's filled with such informative members. I'm doing the accents on the bezels in sublime green enamel... How long should I let the dye dry before painting over it?
 
I personally wouldnt go with such a vibrant color accent on the interior, I like clean and simple and factory looking...BUT to each his own lol.

as for waiting for the dye to dry before painting over it?

I am not sure what you mean?, the dye is the paint,no need to paint over it!

This brand of vinyl dye comes in MANY different colors rather it be white,silver,black,orange,dark blue,light blue,yellow,lime green,dark green and so on and so forth.

all you have to do is have a clean prepped surface to start with and spray the dye and your done, thats all there is to it.
 
Here's a photo of what I mean... This is my bezel done in the flat black enamel that isn't curing... the sublime dried hard.. I can't get sublime green dye. So I'd have to paint over the dye with my sublime green enamel. I think it looks pretty sharp. I'm not going for a real original look, I just want a cool fun car!

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They call it dye but it still has the possibility to chip if it doesn't stick or penetrate the surface enough. Several coats should help prevent this tho
 
I see what you mean now, that doesnt look to bad,

I did the same thing with my gauge cluster but instead of the green I did silver.

All I used for that was krylon rattle can satin black paint and it came out nice and was dry in about 10 minutes.

only problem you may be facing is scraping all that old paint off may fill in the woode grain texture so you will want to really scrub it with a rag and some paint thinner or something.

I didnt know you meant you were painting your gauge cluster, or I would have told you about the krylon paint earlier on.....its good for plastic and dries fast and you can get it just about anywhere that sells rattle cans of paint and its only about $3.00 for a can and one can is PLENTY for that project.

then after about 15 minutes or so of drying you could move on and repaint the green on the embossed gauge bezels.

here is a picture of my gauge cluster after I did it.
 
Back in 2000 I dyed the entire interior of my Barracuda from Blue to Black with SEM Landau Black vinyl dye with the exception of the headliner and carpet. About a year latter I was given a new front seat that that didn't have any broken springs and had perfect white upholstery. I dyed it black. It wasn't until when the stitching started to separate that I purchased new covers for the seats, door panels, visors, arm rests upper and lower dash pads, dash, kick panels, etc are still dyed items. In that period of time I put approximately 45,000 miles on the car and currently have accumulated 65,000 miles. The SEM dye has held up fantastically and the only areas that it has required any touch up is/was the piping on the edge of the seat where I slide my butt in an out and everyother year or so the drivers side kick panel.

NOTE: I tried the Duplicolor black but it does not look as natural as the SEM Landau Black, too much gloss with the Duplicolor.

Regarding enamel paints for automotive use: They are rarely used to day because they are not as forgiving or as durable as the current standard, acrylic urethanes. The urethanes spray as easily as lacquer but will give a gloss equal to or better than an enamel. They dry and are ready for color sanding in 24 hours if cured at room temp or in a couple of hours if cured at an elevated temp. Plus spot repairs are much easier with urethanes. The down side is the cost and they do present more of a health hazard so proper PPE is required.

The urethane materials are available at your local autobody supply house in primer and basic colors like black, white, silver, red, etc. I keep aerosol cans of DuPont self etching primer, primer surfacer and SEM Weld Through Primer for small quick projects. Where those small projects require a matching top coat I use either a hobby air brush with canned propellant or for bigger items I will pull out my jam gun.
 
The sprays for vynil and plastic such as SEM products are laquer based or alcohol based. They dry almost instantly. Their clean and prep solvent is about the same chemical as pvc pipe cleaner. It leaves the surface tacky.
Krylon claims their newest spray bonds to plastic at the molecular level. Thats plabably true only if the surrface is stripped to raw plastic.
If a plastic bezel is stripped and rechromed, then detail painted, the paint will scratch off. Solution, dont scratch it. Most shops who restore these bezels wont apply a clearcoat because it takes away from the luster of their plating but they will always recommend you clearcoat it to protect it.
 
DusterDude72 said:
krylon also offers this http://krylon.com/products/fusion_for_plastic/ specifically for plastics and they offer it in satin black aswell.

But I found the paint I previously posted a link to worked just fine and with good dry time and adhered to the plastic great.
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Will the dye work for the bezels though? Or do the bezels have to be painted?

Does the factory paint or dye the bezels?
 
This has been an interesting discussion. Thanks for bringing it up and all who have contributed. I've learned a few things from it.

One thing that should be clarified is whether one is working with vinyl (flexible) or plastic (rigid). In both cases, the prep is the same, get it clean and remove oils (handle pieces with rubber gloves to keep from putting finger print oils on them.) The information that follows is what I do and have done. It works for me and, hopefully, for you, too.

I use adhesion promoter for dyes which I use on vinyl. I've used Duplicolor and SEM. IMO SEM is a better product. It's harder to find but only a little more expensive.

For plastics, I use a rattle can primer and paint. Thin coats/layers? YES. It may be tempting to go heavy, but covering bald spots is much easier than correcting sags or runs.

For metal, I may go rattle can if I can get the right hue and if the part is in a low contact/wear area. I have not been happy with putting rattle can paints on upper door areas. Sweat seems to be corrosive. The problem seems to be worse with light colors. For the most part, I prefer to use regular automotive paints with traditional prep methods on the upper door panels. If I have to do this anyway, I'll spray everything else metal that needs to match with the automotive paints.

Automotive paints have strong solvents that can warp or craze plastic. If I'm going to use automotive paint on plastic, I make sure I have a barrier coat on the plastic first. I use grey paint that is close to primer in color. I've never used automotive paints on vinyl, so I can't speculate on what might be needed to make it work.

When I'm using rattle can paints, I often use either a clear or dull top coat to prevent scratching and wear. It's not fool proof, but I get added peace of mind from the extra coverage.

FWIW: If I recall Mr. G correctly, the instrument cluster bezels were initially "vacu-formed" with a thin layer of aluminum. The black part of the cluster was painted, while the "wood grain" is actually a brown wash. He used to have a girl come in once a week and do nothing but apply the wash to instrument clusters.

I have found that anything that worked when I was painting plastic models works on instrument cluster bezels. The only issue was durability. That's why I'll use Krylon or Duplicolor instead of Testors or Pactra.
 
RustyDusty said:
Will the dye work for the bezels though? Or do the bezels have to be painted?

Does the factory paint or dye the bezels?
Click to expand...

Just paint or dye spray the hole gauge cluster and after it is dry take a small paint brush and dip it in your green and paint your green accents on the bezels.
 
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