Painting tips

as far as hurting anything with paint or overspray, I don't think you can, but certain things sure look better if taped off like hoses.  AC MEL probably has a few tips on painting a dozer but I will say to make sure you wash down with a paint prep and/or thinner or you will be wasting your time.  Any oil residue underneath will yield poor results.

Edited by CAL(KS) - 13 Mar 2018 at 9:37am

CAL(KS) wrote: as far as hurting anything with paint or overspray, I don't think you can, but certain things sure look better if taped off like hoses.  AC MEL probably has a few tips on painting a dozer but I will say to make sure you wash down with a paint prep and/or thinner or you will be wasting your time.  Any oil residue underneath will yield poor results.   at my previous job we did restorations.  I spent many hours washing items with paint prep from an hvlp gun and running a tack rag.  its a lot of work to do it right.   ill take mechanical work over it any day.

Thank you Cal, I am doing a lot of paint prep. Degrease and steam power washing when weather permits. Parts able to be removed such as floor plates, air filter assembly, seat frame, sprocket covers, battery boxes and dash parts are all getting stripped, sanded, primed and painted.

The BIG thing that has stopped me cold from painting  is oil leaks!
After all your prep, when you're ready to paint.STOP, Let the tractor sit overnight(or longer) and then drag a clean paper towel over it. ANY oil on the paper towel is a clear signal 'some' seal, some where is leaking a bit of oil.
The problem is that when you spray that area some of the oil will get blown 'all over' and ruin your pretty paint job. You'll get a million 'fisheyes'.
As for the actual paint, that depends on the use of the tractor. If a 'trailer queen - show piece', 'base-clear' as it'll never see rain or sun most of it's life. For a 'daily driver'. 'single stage' would be a good choice. For real farm use. 'epoxy' will be the toughest.

I took a look at the Van Sickle web site, interesting, probably not available in CA. I believe the Alkyd Enamel is the same as synthetic enamel, reduced with Naphtha or a modified version there of. The Tisco paint was an alkyd enamel, even with the gloss-hardener, very, very, very bad. I can't really blame it all on the paint, CA sunshine had a lot to do with it as well, I should have built a barn. Be careful as well of acrylic lacquer primer, my limited experience with it bares a mention as well, if you plan to topcoat with enamels you have about a 24 hour window to get it done, if you don't, it hardens off and then you have to scuff the entire paint job with 3M brite pad or equivalent, it will not accept enamel topcoats well after the time limit, another thing it is well known for is cracking and severe checking, under the topcoat, it dries fast and hard and I am sure that our warm climate exacerbates that as well. I also have a very bad opinion of clear topcoats, in the hot,sunny parts of the country they will not stand up at all, the sad part is clear topcoats make great painters(which I am not) out of all of us, they are almost infallible when it comes to metallics and modern colors because they give the ability to get the base coat on straight and proper and then the final finish and gloss come from the clear. I personally prefer an acrylic or poly color finish that has been cut and rubbed to that of a clear finish, it has to do with luster rather than gloss, the gloss is to sticky sweet, luster gives you depth, like the hand rubbed lacquers of days gone by. A quick note about acrylic enamels is they tend to orange peel very very easily, multi, wide dryer passes to achieve a wet coat works better than one or two heavy passes even with a tack coat.  Good luck    Tad


Edited by Tad Wicks - 14 Mar 2018 at 4:25pm

aluminum foil is handy to cover some things for painting