Friday, July 6, 2018

Friday Night In The Garage

it's 2000 and my wife is attempting to get the little to go to sleep. His Mom and Dad start work at Oh-Dark-Thirty, so 2000~2030 is the family bed time.

And he's teething again, which means Captain Crankypants is manning the bridge tonight.

And the Old Man aint happy......no movie? Geesh. Next thing you know you'll be accusing somebody of stealing the strawberries......

So I'll be out in the garage rectifying a problem of my own making. When I sanded/primed/sanded/primed and then painted the rear edge of the spoiler assembly, I waited three days (80*~90* weather) for the paint to cure. Then I flipped it over on the saw horses, making sure to use an old towel so I wouldn't scratch the new paint, and proceeded to work on the bottom of the rear edge, which had some dingleberries in the paint because....Garage Paintjob! That took me a week or so to clear up by carefully wetsanding the crud out of the paint. Fortunately, I'd put a fair amount of paint on it, so I had plenty of paint to work with. After I was satisfied with that, I began installing the bottom half of the spoiler, which involves screwing in the thirty-four screws that hold the two pieces together.

As I was installing the screws, I had to move the spoiler around a bit so I could get good purchase on the screw head, and I noticed the towel was moving with the spoiler as I maneuvered it around. Hmmmmm...shouldn't do that. I lifted up the spoiler clear of the saw horse, and the towel came with it. Shit.......it really shouldn't do that.

Yup....even after three days of high 80* weather, the paint wasn't fully cured, and the weight of the spoiler pushed it down against the towel just enough to make the semi-solid paint flow around the towel fibers, and the towel was stuck to the new paint.

RATS! I HATE it when that happens.....

So, I peeled the towel off the paint as gently as I could, and surveyed the damage.

Yup.....the paint's pretty bad in a band about 2" wide and 14" long. SO....I grabbed my flexible sponge, a piece of 600 grit, and my bottle of Windex, and started sanding. I wasn't trying to get it all off last night, just wanted to see how easy it came off, and it'll be one of those sit-there-for-two-hours-listening-to-the-radio while I carefully sand it out with a round sanding block that fits the contours better than a flat sanding block.

And then I'll have to spray it again to blend it all in.

13 comments:

  1. No rest for the weary, eh? Srsly, sorry that happened.

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  2. At least my fingers are healed from the last sand-a-thon!

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  3. Would it be worthwhile to run a dehumidifier in a small room and use that as a paint curing room?

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    1. I'm not sure if that would help, John.

      The humidity here is generally pretty low. IIRC it was around 10% when I sprayed the spoiler. High humidity will definitely cause problems, like "blush" where the solvent evaporation from the paint lowers the temperature of the paint surface below the dew point, and the paint gets a bluish hue due to the condensation on the surface.

      I'm making a(nother) Home Depot run today,so I'll pick up a fan for the garage. Should help with the paint curing as long as I don't turn it on until the paint flashes and skins over.

      Delete
  4. Ouch... What were you painting that it didn't cure in THREE days???

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    1. The spoiler itself is made from a type of fiberglass reinforced plastic, usually referred to as "Sheet Molding Compound". Kinda like a "prepreg" sheet of stuff that gets pressed and cured between two heated dies. Seeing as it's 30+ years old, and spent the majority of that time in the high desert out by Riverside, I'm taking a SWAG that the materials in the spoiler itself are very well cured!

      The paint is (GASP!) "DupliColor" Toyota #040 "Super White II", and it comes in a rattle can. The paint is a few years old, but it appeared to spray and cover normally. The primer was a new can of good quality "Primer/Filler", and was allowed to dry 24 hrs between sanding and recoating, so I highly doubt it was the solvents from the primer slowing down the color coat curing.

      After it's sanded out and repainted, I'm going to wait a few days, again, and when I flip it over to fit the gasket, I'll put a layer of plastic over the towel. I think it was the individual tufts on the old, hard towel that dug into the paint.

      And with the way things are going, I'd better figure out a way to prevent the plastic from sticking to the paint!

      Delete
  5. I feel your pain, but I sure don't have any input aside from what you're doing.

    I wouldn't have thought of a dehumidifier for curing so much as a baking room. Maybe some incandescent bulbs fairly close.

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    Replies
    1. It was a genuine WTF moment when I picked up the thing and the towel came with it.

      I should just drag the whole shebang outside a day after I paint it and let it bake in the sun, like when I paint something in wrinkle finish.

      The wrinkle paint really needs some supplemental heat to kick off the reaction.

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  6. Captain Queeg,

    "Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and ....."

    I get that way myself, sometimes!

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    Replies
    1. I figured most readers would get the strawberries joke.

      Can you guess where "no movie" came from?

      Delete

Keep it civil, please....

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