Finally approaching ‘home stretch’, I think. Time to get that tank finished up. I picked up a couple cans of Eastwood’s 2k Matte Clear, a surprisingly robust and easy to apply rattle-can clear. Since I have my crappy little air gun I debated getting a high-quality 2-part clear system and shooting it the pro way, but honestly the $60 to $130 cost of a quart or half-gallon of the stuff was more than I really wanted to spend. At $24/can and with my skill level I figured might as well make life a little easy.
I got the stuff, set up a ‘spray booth’ in the garage and went for a first coat.
About a year ago I was rehabbing an antique drum table that had been my grandparent’s and needed to replace the drum swivel and the bearing plate I bought came in a three-pack. I used one of the spares to make a super-simple lazy susan to rotate the tank while spraying. It worked ok, but the small size of the box kinda made spraying evenly a little unwieldy. I thought a bit and decided to go with something more vertical. I bent up a steel rod I had laying about so it would fit nicely through the rear tank mounts and lock over a rafter. Worked like a charm, allowed me to move all around the tank without having to manually spin it and try to see if I was getting even coverage.
The first three coats went on brilliantly, I was really happy with how it was looking.
I came inside and did a bit of double-checking on the optimum number of coats to achieve a decent fuel resistance. Didn’t want any more bubbling up paint (though, granted, last time that was the clear coat itself, but you know what I mean). After debating a little I decided to go out and hit it with one more coat. I guess I was getting a little cocky from my success. I shook up the can, pulled off the top and did the same spray pattern I did with each coat prior, starting at the top on one side and doing a wide pass down to the bottom.
Something was quite amiss:
DAMN. IT!
So. these rattle cans have an adjustable nozzle – it sprays a nice flat wide pattern that’s really great for doing even overlapping passes…if you move perpendicular to the spray pattern. I had forgotten that on my last pass of the previous coat I had changed the nozzle from a horizontal pattern to a vertical one to make sure I was getting some good coverage from down below the tank. So yeah. I shook it up well, did a test spray in the air to make sure it wasn’t spitting, and did a pass from end to end… and essentially carved a line in the finish with wet clear.
By the time my brain registered what was happening it was too late. I can’t think of a time I was more pissed off at myself for not leaving well enough alone. It was PERFECT before that, and honestly, from what the specs said, the three coats I did would probably have been just fine fuel protection-wise.
I just stared at it. Unbelievable. Well, I know that these kinds of clear essentially melt the previous coat a bit and it all melds together, so I figured I’d let this outgas and as soon as I could shoot another coat I did, hoping it would magically solve the problem. It helped, but not enough.
I won’t go into heavy detail on the rest – but the only solution was to sand that whole side until the ridge and blush were gone. Unfortunately that wasn’t really possible ’cause it also effected the color layers as well. In the end I went as far as I dared with wetsanding until about 95% of the problem was gone. Then I had to decide if I wanted to make it perfect, which would really have meant sanding off -all- the new clear, whack the color coat and spray new color over the top which would change the color itself.
Fuck it. Again – don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “done”. Especially considering how long this has already gone on, and who am I trying to impress, anyways? This is a learning project and in that respect it’s been bonkers successful.
So, I had to order another damn can of the 2k clear, and redo the coats. It’s fine, though I can see a little difference in the color ’cause I did indeed wet-sand a little into it, but I’m still totally digging it.
Next up, “The Page of Fiddly Bits”.