Triumph Spitfire Paint #8 - Supplies, Booth and Interior Epoxy

I'm combining two visits with one post here since there wasn't much to share in the first visit as it was mainly paint booth set up.

I did get a bunch of supplies, however. I got my tintable Raptor Liner kit from Amazon for about $100. I got the 4-liter kit, which came with a "free" spray gun. As I mentioned previously, I intend to modify a cheap-o Harbor Freight purple gun, but the difference in cost between the kit with and without the gun was about $3, so I  got the gun anyway, just in case.

Also from Amazon I got some Evercoat Rage Ultra body filler for about $58 for a "gallon" (actually, 3 liters). I read through SPI's forum and some others and this stuff got high marks enough that I figured it was safe to go with. Not a definitive choice from everyone but, again, safe. Not like I have anything to compare it to anyway!

I also got the rest of the paint that I will need (hopefully!) from SPI. I got another epoxy primer kit (paint and activator) just in case, two quarts of medium red, a gallon kit of 2K primer, two quart kits of universal clear, and a gallon of urethane reducer. All in all, the paint ran $600 in that order, so if you include the two other quart kits of epoxy and the gallon of Wax and Grease Remover, all told it's just under $800 for paint. Having priced around, that's not too bad at all, and the SPI stuff is top notch.

All my new supplies

I changed how I put up the "paint booth" this time. Instead of just using those spring poles like I did last time, I bought a bunch of cup hooks and screwed them into the ceiling. I doubled over the tarp at the top for some tear resistance, punched small holes, and worked my way around hanging it to the cup hooks. I put a cup hook about every 2 feet and it worked fine. I'm using the spring poles now to hold back the tarp when the fan comes on as the tarp sucks in due to the air flow.

Tarp set up. Not an exciting picture.

With that, I got the car arranged where I wanted it and did a few dry runs with the paint gun to ensure I could reach all of the interior spots that I needed to. Some tight spots, but I think it will work without having to roll the car on the wings.

The goal of my next visit, with the booth set up, was to get the interior in epoxy primer. Goal accomplished!

After making sure that spraying the car without rolling it was the way to go (it was), I hit everything with a combination of 100-grit sandpaper and some 3M paint stripper pads. You may remember that I bought a box of the maroon 3M pads. These have worked well, but I wanted something a bit more coarse. 3M makes tan pads, similar to the maroon ones, that would work great, but the price difference is huge!  I paid about $18 for 20 of the maroon pads. That many tan pads would run me about $60+. I found some 3M paint stripper pads instead and, while they are more expensive per item, I only needed a few of them so $3 a pair made more sense!

Between the sandpaper and these stripper pads, there was quite a bit of dust, so I vacuumed the entire car, wiped it all down, and blew it down with compressed air. Then, I hit it with the wax and grease remover and let it set for a bit. I went over it with clean Scott Shop Towels  (get them at Walmart), changing them out often. Rinse and repeat. The second go around was much cleaner and I went through a third time only on the spots that needed it.

All clean! Some tape and ear plugs in there, too.

With the cleaning done, I masked off some areas just to prevent incidental overspray (probably didn't need to do this) and taped over all of the holes and put earplugs in all of the captive nuts to prevent gumming them up with paint.

Masked off a bit.

From the back.

I went through, with the spray gun in hand, a few dry runs to figure out my order of laying the paint down. I decided to start at the boot, getting the hard to reach areas first and working out of them to the easier areas. I then moved to the area behind the seats and got those hard to reach areas, like the sail plate, and then the floor. Then I moved up front under the dash (the hardest spot) and got those areas, then into the footwells via the door cutouts, then finishing with the floors under the seats. I go through this in the video, but I know it saved my some time and hesitation when the paint started flying.

The epoxy primer is two-part, with a 1:1 mix ratio. I had just about a half of a quart left in the can that I used for doing the underneath. Since I knew I was going to need it all, I mixed it all in a quart cup after stirring the paint itself for a while. Since it is a high-solids paint, it tends to separate and proper mixing is crucial to a strong and proper application.

After a 30-minute induction time, it was time to paint. I set up the paint gun (I won't go into that because every gun is different, but I took notes and you should too if you do this!!) and got to spraying.

If I didn't mention it before, I've been very happy with the air compressor's performance with regards to the paint gun. It kicked on maybe two or three times during each full coat and had no trouble keeping up. Because it wasn't running that much, and because I had a fan blowing around it to keep it as cool as I could, I didn't have any moisture problems. Granted, the day was not that humid, so I may change my tune on a humid day...or just not paint.

I went back in after about 15 minutes to see how my coverage was. There was some spots that I missed and also some spots where I had bad adhesion or where the gun cup touched the  wet paint. I made a mental note of these areas to hit them first when I went back for the second coat.

After waiting ~45 minutes from the last spot I painted (~1 hour from when I started), I went back in for the second, and final, coat. I had mixed up just a little bit more to make sure I had enough (I did anyway) and got the second coat down. I hit the missed spots first, then went back to the plan I had for the order of laying the paint down. The second coat, as you suspect, went better than the first.

Floor boards. Yes, this stuff is that glossy when it dries.

Boot area.

Dash and footwells.

And that was about it. I point out in the video several runs and areas of bad adhesion.  I will leave these areas alone for now and only go back and address them if I feels it's necessary. Well, the bad adhesion areas I will, but if a run will not be seen (under the carpet, for example) I'm not going to fix it.

Another semi-milestone! Next few visits will focus on flipping the car over, getting that epoxy scuffed up and preparing the area for Raptor Liner application. The first shot of color!