Painting Rob Bird's Toledo in Dolly Mixture

[Bumpa]

On pages 16-18 of the latest Dolly Mixture magazine, Rob Bird describes how he painted his Toledo with (I think) a brush and/or roller in the correct colour of Honeysuckle. He says he used the following polyurethane paint products:

Pro 14 line red oxide
Pro 14 line grey primer
line 14 polyurethane top coat

I have no idea what these paints are or where you can get them. A Google search has not revealed them. If Mr Bird reads this perhaps he could give us more detail. For those of us who can't spray paint, a good finish with brush or roller is of interest.

I once hand painted a Lotus Elan with International Yacht "Perfection" paint and after sanding the brush marks and polishing, looked a million dollars. But you can't buy that in any colour, just a select range of basics. Fortunately the red and white were perfect for the Elan Sprint. See for yourself.

[Matt Cotton]

That really does look nice!

I too wondered what Rob had used to paint his car. A good solution as you say if you haven't got the equipment to spray a car.

MC

[Carledo]

I don't believe i've ever seen Robert Bird on here, but he maintains a fairly regular presence on the Toledo Triumphs Facebook page and an occasional one on the Official TDC Facebook page.

Way back when I was living in High Wycombe, there was a guy in the East Berks TSSC group with a Vitesse who brush painted his car with "Green Line Bus" green coach paint. Guess who he worked for! But he did a superb job and won many concours and best of show prizes with it! We used to rib him a bit about how long it took, but I think he got the last laugh!

I'm the other way, the most unlikely thing was when I was about 19, I resprayed a Ford Anglia in the street using cellulose paint drawn from all the half empty tins of darkish blue in my company's paint store mixed together and gunwash thinners, put on with an HVLP gun driven by an Electrolux cylinder vacuum cleaner (the spraygun came with the hoover). I think I charged the girl who owned it £25 (1973 money) and still made a profit!

Steve

[Tony Burd]

In the VW camper world alot of people have used rustoleum paint applied with a roller with very good results. I think you can get it colour matched as well.

http://forum.club8090.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=18751

[new to this]

You could use coach paint,you can brush it on or use a roller

Dave

P.S you can get good results with aerosols cans

[Bumpa]

The idea of Steve spray painting cellulose in the street made me smile. I bet the neighbours loved you. If you tried that today you would probably be arrested. I used to do all my car maintenance in the street. There was no off road parking at my parent's house.

[sprint95m]

You could use coach paint,you can brush it on or use a roller

Dave

P.S you can get good results with aerosols cans

Indeed you can Dave, single pack enamel is what it is referred to nowadays.
It is very suitable for spray painting too.

Eg https://www.smithandallan.com/brand/tractol/



Ian.

[Carledo]

The idea of Steve spray painting cellulose in the street made me smile. I bet the neighbours loved you. If you tried that today you would probably be arrested. I used to do all my car maintenance in the street. There was no off road parking at my parent's house.

I resprayed my first car before I was old enough to drive it, in the garage at home, having practised previously on a handful of pushbikes and my first motorbike! I'd had a little Badger airbrush since I was 12, spraying slot car bodies! In those days, nobody raised an eyebrow at such antics, H&S was far in the future! You'd get folk coming by just to take a sniff and get slightly stoned on the fumes! Sometimes I miss those simpler times with air full of asbestos and noxious smogs. Other times, I wonder how I survived them!

Steve

[tamtrucks]

You'd get folk coming by just to take a sniff and get slightly stoned on the fumes!

Steve

those were the days...happy times

[cleverusername]

If you have got enough time you can achieve anything, though I would be interested to find out how long it takes to sand down a brush painted car.

Saying that, if it is possible in a reasonable time, it would have big advantages for DIY painting. Getting a good finish from a spray gun is no easy feat.

Do you remember the film the Day of the Jackal? The Jackal, Edward Fox, car has been identified. So he pulls behind some bushes and does a quick spray job. He gets a factory finish in the middle of a field. Everytime that film was on the telly, my father commented on how ridiculous this was and after trying to spray cars, I understand why.

[new to this]

I once painted a viva with a roller,then spend time wet sanding,to get rid off the orange peal

Dave

[Bumpa]

"If you have got enough time you can achieve anything, though I would be interested to find out how long it takes to sand down a brush painted car. "

In the case of my Elan, it took me all summer to fully paint the body, but then it is fibreglass and has a special set of problems. First I had to strip the terrible paint job the PO had done with water-based paint stripper. This exposed some gel coat damage, so I contacted International Paints and they couldn't have been more helpful. The procedure was to sand, then put on two coats of primer. Then, and only then the gel damage was fixed with their "Watertite" epoxy filler. Incidentally this is expensive but superb, and I use it on all filling jobs on steel cars too. Unlike ordinary fillers it is waterproof and is extremely smooth.

Once the filler was smoothed down, there were three more coats of primer, sanded in between, then three coats of Perfection undercoat, more sanding, then at least three coats of top coat. It looked terrific and VERY glossy, but with brush marks. Then once it had hardened for a week or so, lots more sanding, and then final buffing with a machine to achieve a lovely finish.

Hours and hours of work but a great result. Paint shops that know about fibreglass cars will charge £8000 - £10,000 to fully do an Elan, and now I know why. My time is free and the products used cost about £300 at a guess.