Total novice with some paint questions.

I am painting small parts off my tractor as I find time to fix them. Right now I am working on the transmission cover of my Super 55 and all that goes along with that. I noticed there was a posting for what type of gun to buy. I bought a low end HVLP because I heard they were the way to go, but I don't think my small compressor can handle the volume so I bought a regular siphon gun....it was cheap. I am to embarassed to tell you how cheap it was, but you know what? I used it to spary primer on the weekend and I think (remember no experience) it did a really good job. No runs, no drips nor errors and covered well. I was using a PPG epoxy primer. One of the restoration books said that epoxy was a good filler and etcher in one.

I also bought some AGCO Oliver Meadow Green paint. I was told by the dealer that he doesn't put hardener in it when he uses it, but a lot of fellows I talk to say I should. The question is, what type of hardener? All the paint can says is machineray enamal, and it contains xylol and tuluol.

Now, I want to ask some questions about the spray gun. It was cheap, and it seemed to do a good job. I know you usually get what you pay for, but what makes the more well known guns so much better? Is it better pattern control? Right now I am just using it to do my tractor. It puts down an even coat and I even thought it "sounded" good when it sprayed. It was easy to clean up with gun wash too.

When I get to the sheet metal it might be a different story.

My instruction sheet says I have up to 7 days to topcoat. The parts I am painting are small parts, many of them cast and are not going to require any sanding. The only sanding I need to do, according to the fact material fact sheet, is if I wait more than 7 days I have to sand with 400 girt sandpaper.

When it comes to the sheet metal I will take your advice and use a primer surfacer. That may be next summer.

• primed parts

Butch gives you some good advice.

Why do you think your compressor cannot handle your HVLP gun? The conventional wisdom typically applied to auto painting doesn't always apply to tractor painting. You do not necessarily have to have the compressor cfm equal or greater than the gun cfm. This is especially true if you are painting individual parts separately. I suggest before you give up on your HVLP gun, do the following "dry run" without paint in the gun:

1. Install a pressure gage at the actual inlet to your gun.
2. Using whatever regulator you have (wall or compressor-mounted), set the pressure on your gun gage to the proper pressure as indicated on your gun handle or in the documentation that came with it. For an HVLP gun, this will typically be something like "29 psig max". You do this with the air fan control knob wide open and with the gun trigger pulled.
3. Pick the largest individual piece that you plan on painting - e.g. the hood.
4. Start with a full storage tank after the compressor has just shut off.
5. Go over your part just as you would if you were actually painting it. Make sure you overlap your passes at least 50%. 6. Monitor your gun pressure gage throughout this "dry run".
7. If, when you are done "painting" the part, the pressure still equals what you originally set it at, you are good to go with the real thing.

If you can complete a single coat on the largest part and still maintain adequate pressure at the gun, you should not have a problem, even if your compressor capacity is quite a bit less than your gun requirements. The wait time between coats (typically 15 or 20 min) will permit your compressor to catch up.

You might also want to consider a "spot gun" (also called a jam gun or mini gun). They use a lot less air than a full size gun and are very satisfactory for many tractor parts. I even painted the hood successfully on my AC-B with a just spot gun. In fact I prefer it for just about anything not more than a few square feet per coat.

My strongest recommendation though has to do with breathing safety. If you are contemplating using a hardener because someone recommends it, please consider the potential health hazards of doing so without using a positive pressure, fresh air-supplied respirator. There has been a lot of discussion of such safety aspects on this forum. Do a search on the words "isos" or "isocyanates" for a lot of background reading on the subject.

As long as you don't expect a champagne product the first time out on a beer budget, you'll do just fine. You may also want to do a little practice painting on a large vertical piece of scrap sheet metal before topcoating your actual parts. It's well worth the extra time spent, IMO.

The PPG epoxy primer is a great product by the way. I would take issue with the characterization "good filler and etcher" though. Neither the PPG DPLF or the OMNI MP170 epoxy primers have any significant fill capabilities. They are non-sanding primers that are for priming bare steel, not filling scratches. They also do not have any chemical etch properties, at least not in the conventional sense that an "etch primer" (a quite different product) does. Other epoxies may but the two PPG ones do not.

Rod

I was getting info from "How to Restore Tractors" by Tharran E. Gaines. "Epoxy is the easiest to use because it combines the qulaities of a metal etch, a primer-
surfacer, and a primer-sealer all in one..... .Epoxy primers can be used in one of two ways. It can be used a primer-sealer, where you sparay it on, wait 15-20 minutes, and start top coating with your color. Or, it can be used a a prmer-surfacer to cover minor flaws in the surface. In this case, you will want to put down two to three coats, giving it 15-20 minutes between coats. Then, wait at least six hours before sanding the surface."

My instruction sheet says I have up to 7 days to topcoat. The parts I am painting are small parts, many of them cast and are not going to require any sanding. The only sanding I need to do, according to the fact material fact sheet, is if I wait more than 7 days I have to sand with 400 girt sandpaper.

When it comes to the sheet metal I will take your advice and use a primer surfacer. That may be next summer.

here is his post:

I have used Valspar hardener in AGCO Meadow Green paint with good results. You can get it at Tractor Supply for about $9.

I add the hardener, stir occaisonally for 15 to 30 minutes to let the paint and hardener blend, then reduce it with DuPont 3812S (fast) reducer, add a few drops of Smoothie fisheye eliminator per quart and shoot.

On a hot day, I will use a 50/50 blend of DuPont 3812S (fast) and DuPont 3864 (slow) reducer to improve gloss and flow.

It isn't Imron, but the AGCO paint goes on pretty well and looks good when it dries.