I got a slammin' deal on some acrylic enamel (single stage) auto paint last week. I originally was going to do another 2 stage paint job like I did last time, but I got got 1 gallon of paint, a gallon of reducer, 2 quarts of hardner, a quart of fisheye eliminator, a gallon of prep-sol, and some bumper spray crap for $145. My car was all set to go, all the prep and sanding was done, so I sat down and sprayed the car in stages...fenders seperate, hood, then the body, and lastly the bumpers. The paint looks great and I'm pretty happy with it...except for one thing. I don't have any heat lamps to bake it, so I turned my industrial sized heater on for 6 hours and got my garage up to about 120*. The paint seems a little soft still...if I press into it I can still leave fingerprint marks, and I accidently wiped a little prep-sol on the one panel and it started eating into the paint How long does this ---- have to cure before it's rock hard? I need to wet sand and polish this thing, but I don't want to if it's going to ---- up my paint

 

depends on how thik you sprayed it but you cant spray it to thick cuz it will run so a cpuple of hours to dry and you wont be wetsanding it for at least overnite. and even tehn you gotta take your timw with it so you dont ---- it up and you will clog your paper cuz teh paint is still tacky. personly i would wait at least 24 hours to let it cure perferablly a weel lol

 

Well, it's on pretty thick...but I did it in 4-5 coats and let each coat tack up in between for around 15 minutes or so. Problem is it's been almost a week now and it's still kinda soft. The paint called for a 4:1:1 mix with reducer and hardner, so that's what I did. I'm going to try pulling the car out and letting it sit in the sun for a day and see if that helps, I remember something once about paint being light-activated and my garage is pretty dark.

 

Without heat lamps its going to take a long while to harden. I hate acrylic enamal!

 

When I painted that ---- at Kawasaki we put Accelerator in it. That ---- would dry in like 4 hours. For some reason that ---- doesn't like to dry. Oh and was it a solid color or a metallic? If is a solid color you can buff the ---- out of it and it will look real nice. If it is metallic then you can't. It will turn dark on you.

 

It's a solid color (just a basic gm white). I looked at the can yesterday and it said urethane on it...maybe it's not an enamel, but whatever. Yesterday in the sun seemed to help a little, doesn't quite feel as soft but I think I'm going to give it a while though before tearin' into it.

 

if its still soft when you buff it, it could burn right through or gum up on you.

 

i dont think it was acrylic enam. thats like house paint. urethane single stage. was it really thick when it came out of the gun? i know that stuff needs to be reduced quite a bit. but urethane shouldnt take that long to dry.. i could see a single stage enamel takin a while if you didnt reduce it enough.

 

Yeah, it's a urethane single stage. It was thick in the can, but once it was diluted down with reducer and hardner is was very nice to work with. I let the car sit for 2 days in the sun, and it hardened up alot...much more than it was in the week's time in the garage with the heat going. I think it's safe to sand and polish out now, unfortunately it dropped into the low 30's and is snowing again so it looks like I have to wait a bit.

 

geez where you located? im trying to do some body work but i cant cause the weather keeps shitting out on me