The Infamous Sputtering Spray Can Joke...

[Lonestar 1]

Hi guys,

how do you remove the little droplets sputtered by an almost empty can of TS-13? I made the mistake of trying to use its contents to the last drop, and the last drops of liquid came as, well, drops... iit looks like someone sneezed clearcoat on my Italian Red Monster Beetle... yuk!

So what's the cure - x-acto blade? 2000-grit sandpaper? Cry to the last tear?

thanks!

Paul

[redzone 212]

hey mate, heres a trick i found recently, if the paint has not fully hardened, use some WURTH brand automotive brake cleaner art no. 0890 108 7-L it will remove the paint without damaging the plastic. please note other brands of brake cleaner will attack abs plastic though.

[WillyChang 1814]

your best/safest bet is to let it cure for 1-2wks then wet-n-dry it with 1500-1800grit used wet

wrap the sandpaper around a large soft NEW pencil eraser, makes a great sanding block

[Shodog 1835]

Willy has the best advice. Let it cure and wetsand. You should have enough clear coat on it to protect the color coat while sanding. Of course you will probably want to spray one final clear coat on.

[Lonestar 1]

your best/safest bet is to let it cure for 1-2wks then wet-n-dry it with 1500-1800grit used wet

wrap the sandpaper around a large soft NEW pencil eraser, makes a great sanding block

Good advice all - WC, I love the eraser idea. Usually I use the palm of my hand to do that

Thanks,

Paul

[taliesin 260]

yup, willy & shodog have it nailed.

the wet sanding trick is what professional automotive painters do when their paint jobs run; i know because i helped on fix some runs on my restoration project that a friend in the business did for free. i always thought the pros never got runs. they do, but you will never know it because they won't tell their secrets and you can't find it when they are done!

[WillyChang 1814]

haha... got a secret for ya

back in the early days when paint was cheap(er) and we didn't care much about VOCs etc etc

i'd paint 1/24s with TS colourcoat then clear with X-bottle with Spraywork airbrush.

I'd spray on so much clear until it looked "wet" and started dripping at the sills

then... after all the major drips was soaked off i'd let it dry slowly... whilst rotating the body every 5 mins or so

(yes you'd need to frame it onto a rig that can hold position at the 6 cube facets)

if it stuffs up, soak in methylated spirits would wash off all the X-clear and start again

if done right, i'd get this deep mirror shine even before buffing

[WillyChang 1814]

how do you remove the little droplets sputtered by an almost empty can of TS-13? I made the mistake of trying to use its contents to the last drop, and the last drops of liquid came as, well, drops... iit looks like someone sneezed clearcoat on my Italian Red Monster Beetle... yuk!

btw it sounds like either

1) you haven't warmed up the can before you started painting - warm whole can in a bowl of warm water, sprays finer & lot smoother

or

2) its an old can that you've stored upright & its lost pressure... i store used cans upsidedown

Tamiya cans usually have lots of propellant, still pressure even after all the paint is gone.

[lucasan 28]

Willy those are great tips. Luckily I haven't run into this problem yet. Incidentally, why would lonestar get the clear droplets? Is this because the paint wasn't mixed properly in the first place?

[redzone 212]

hmmm so no ones game to try the wurth brake cleaner hey? i've used it twice now with awesome results....

wetsanding is good but u always lose details in the process like door shut lines etc.

[Shodog 1835]

why would lonestar get the clear droplets?

TS-13 is clear coat used over your color to give it a nice shine. I used about a can on my hilift while wet sanding between coats.

wetsanding is good but u always lose details in the process like door shut lines etc.

if your losing shut lines then your sanding too much. All wet sanding does is knock the high points off the paint which gives you a smooth surface.

[DudeWalker 0]

I've got to ask. How do you do your clears? They look awesome. The rears must be a real pain to get right.

Thanks

[secretasianman 2]

I've got to ask. How do you do your clears? They look awesome. The rears must be a real pain to get right.

Thanks

As the immortal Shodog has stated, he wetsands between clearcots. which is an identical approach auto-body experts use. a single coat of paint will look like a toy. after the color is laid down, you would wetsand the paint, then clearcoat it. it's also referred to as color sanding. and one coat of clear can't be enough for many....

i'll let Shodog share his technique if he chooses

[Shodog 1835]

I've got to ask. How do you do your clears? They look awesome. The rears must be a real pain to get right.

Thanks

I'm guessing your talking about the light covers and not the Clear coat on the paint. Tamiya makes great clear paints. I just brush a few coats on the backside of the glass to get the line I thinned down some black, ran it in the crack and then wiped it off quickly.

here are the rear tails.

[Lonestar 1]

Thanks for the advice all.

redzone - the wurth trick scared me a bit, as I am worried that it will not only remove the clearcoat droplet, but also the paint below. And as this is the second time I strip and repaint this body because I messed up big time once already, I am getting really really cautious now as I don't want to start over a third time

WC - That TS13 can is indeed 12 months old, I used it partly for my first clearcoat ever on my VLB last year, and am finishing it for my MB this year. However I dont think the sputtering was due to lack of propellant. The sputtering makes perfect sense, when there are just a few drops of clearcoat liquid inside the can and it gets pushed in the dip tube, I can understand that the propellant makes it way to the top without pushing homogeneously the clearcoat inside the tube... hence the bigger droplets.

Shodog - After I read your awesome ABS painting tuto I figured out I'd try some of your methods, such as priming (which I had never done before), letting paint cure quite a while between thick coats, and wetsanding between paint and clear coats. My MB is coming in really really nicely, of course the learning curve is painful but it's a lot of fun to experiment new techniques. While restoring this body, this is also the first time I've made use of putty to fill in the cracks, as well as fiberglass and polyester resin to fix the lightbar holders back to the nosecone, and such stuff - a lot of fun and newness as I'd said. Anyway, as the body is a used, period one, I can always blame the imperfections on the previous owner's driving skills

Thanks all for the help,

Paul

[DudeWalker 0]

I'm guessing your talking about the light covers and not the Clear coat on the paint. Tamiya makes great clear paints. I just brush a few coats on the backside of the glass to get the line I thinned down some black, ran it in the crack and then wiped it off quickly.

here are the rear tails.

Thanks. Yeah the lights. So you freehand the rears? The reverse light - was it masked? I have tried doing them a couple of times with the brush on clears. I just can't get it right. I can't get any tape to stick on the inside.

Great work.

[redzone 212]

ah my bad, didnt realise it was only one layer u wanted to take off..