cellulose Paint

[gentil79]

hi all,

I am restoring an 80's Audi which has been striped back to bare metal and primed in cellulose.
I am very confused because i get some "professionals" that completely slag off celly paint and only recomend water based or 2k... which means that only pro's with spray booths can use them, denying the chance of a limited budget amateur like me to do the job.
I allways hear that Cellulose is easier and safer to apply and small errors can be corrected by wet sanding the paint once hardened enough... which can take a couple of weeks with decent weather. However, i hear that cellulose is less durable and requires polishing every year... it is also prone to shrinking and problems of other sorts.
The Pro's also say that other paint types are harder and therefore last much longer with a better finish.

what should I do? i can't afford to take my car to a professional because they charge ridicolous amount of money... but I don't want to spend my life with polishing machine...

[pryantcc]

How fancy do you want it to look?

I sprayed the back of my daily driver Merc with cellulose paint. Quite successful. I never polished it in the first place, it's slightly matt, and it needs a wash now, but it looks fine from anything more than a metre away.

I'm about to buy some cellulose to paint my old car on account of some advice I recieved here that 2-pack would look too plasticy and not very authentic.

I did however use 2-pack primer very successfully at home, outside on a sunny day, no professional gear other than an air-fed mask to stop me from dying. If it weren't for the appearance, I would certainly have used it for the colour coat also.

P.S. I'm not looking forward to the polishing very much either, but I don't intend to use the car much, so hope it's not an annual thing!

[gentil79]

Well, the car is white and i want it to look good with no imperfections. The fact is that i don't know what kind of paint was used at the factory back in 1981, because it had no laquer and it would loose the shine just after a year (taking into account the car was allways parked on a driveway).

[JPB]

Most cars built since the mid to late '60s would have had epoxy based - as used by BL - or other sorts of synthetic paint, so whatever was on there is very unlikely to have been cellulose I'd have thought.
But that's no reason that you shouldn't use cellulose to paint the car now, especially taking the H&S implications into account. OK, so cellulose isn't ultimately as durable but lasts fine with care.

[m.thaddeus]

hello There

There are various type of paint available which wont kill you and can be used at home. Modern single-pack Acrylics are ok and this type of primer will stay up better than Celly. Non- isocyanate 2k is an option worth looking into.

Topcoating with Celly over a 2k primer works very well.

Water-based is a nonsense in some regards as it has to be sealed with a 2k clearcoat. So any environmental gain is lost!

Find a decent paint supplier locally and have a chat with one of the counter staff when they are quiet.

Whatever you go for - it will stink and you will need a good mask -3M 4000 series 'bumblebee' is what you want. These are safe for working with 2k.

[suffolkpete]

I think the time is right for a PC Article on paint, with the emphasis on spraying a car at home. Most of the articles in the past seem to have been orientated towards professional bodyshops. I suspect that not many of the readers of this forum could afford a full professional respray and the cost of such work would often exceed the value of the car by a considerable margin. I buy my paint online from Paints4U, as the main local supplier round here is a bit snotty about selling outside the trade, and I find them very good, but I struggle to identify the types of paint from the description on the web site and whether or not they are compatible.

[JPB]

I bought all of the body-coloured paint for the Dolomite's respray from Paints4U, very satisfied with the service and the fact that they've no qualms about sending cellulose out, but the satin black areas of the car are going to be done with the Halfords' (acrylic) stuff as it's a perfect match for the factory finish on the sills, bootlid and rear lamp panel.
Halfords also did the Acid 8 cheaper than anyone else could supply it, same for the high build primer, but the red epoxy - as originally used by BL under the floors and inside the arches without overpainting - was bought from a German seller on eBay as finding that proved difficult.

Oddly, and perhaps someone knows how, it seems easier to obtain cellulose over the counter on the English side now than it was before the law changed to make it harder to buy on the Scottish side, where sales of cellulose remained unrestricted long after the law in England had clamped down on it.
I could just have taken the car in to the spray booth at work and bribe a student to do it in 2 pack as was originally applied at Canley in 1972, but I just like working with cellulose and the way in which it's so easy to have it looking good even if, like me, you've no detectable talent for spraying.

[karlsgazelle]

I bought all of the body-coloured paint for the Dolomite's respray from Paints4U, very satisfied with the service and the fact that they've no qualms about sending cellulose out, but the satin black areas of the car are going to be done with the Halfords' (acrylic) stuff as it's a perfect match for the factory finish on the sills, bootlid and rear lamp panel.
Halfords also did the Acid 8 cheaper than anyone else could supply it, same for the high build primer, but the red epoxy - as originally used by BL under the floors and inside the arches without overpainting - was bought from a German seller on eBay as finding that proved difficult.

Oddly, and perhaps someone knows how, it seems easier to obtain cellulose over the counter on the English side now than it was before the law changed to make it harder to buy on the Scottish side, where sales of cellulose remained unrestricted long after the law in England had clamped down on it.
I could just have taken the car in to the spray booth at work and bribe a student to do it in 2 pack as was originally applied at Canley in 1972, but I just like working with cellulose and the way in which it's so easy to have it looking good even if, like me, you've no detectable talent for spraying.

Sounds interesting John.
You couldn't bribe several of your students to do the bodywork and paint on my Gazelle by any chance?

all bribes and expenses reimbursable of course

[JPB]

It's hard enough to get the buggers to turn up on campus most of the time, bless their little asbestos-lined socks, but it's always worth asking your local authority for details of motor vehicle engineering training provision locally to you, as many sites have body & paint facilities that are far less regularly in use than the mechanical bays, which makes sense really as painting a stolen moped can be done in their own back gardens, but to grind chassis numbers off their older brothers' Subarus , they like the cover afforded by the mechanical and welding bays.
These facilities often rely upon members of the public bringing stuff in to have work done, it usually only costs a small contribution if at all.

[karlsgazelle]

Thanks John. Due to the lack of skill/equipment/facilities I may just have to look at that option.