First time painting - what do I need to know?

Except for the one time I painted a M416 trailer with a case of rattle cans, this is the first time I will be painting up a truck using a spray gun and a compressor. Will be wire-brushing the truck tomorrow as good as I can, and spraying red oxide primer. Questions:

1. How long do I have to wait for the primer to cure before I paint, for optimum results?

2. I know that when using paint (I have 24087 Gillespie in gallon cans) you have to mix it with a little thinner. What product should I use, and how much?

3. Do I need to thin primer, or just use it straight?

4. What is the optimum spraying pressure for an HVLP (or is that HPLV?) spray gun?

5. I plan on doing one solid coat or primer, and later on, one coat of paint. Is this enough, or do I need to do two coats, like I'm painting my house?

Thanks for feedback, you guys are great!

Follow all the directions that came with your spray gun and what is printed on the can labels...and I guarantee that if the humidity is high one day and not the next that the colors will not match... but that is ok..because the Military did not care... and if you do too good a job it will not be authentic... ACE

I'm certainly no expert but have done a little painting on my trucks. Take my advice with a grain of salt.

I sprayed 3 coats of primer then three of paint. First time I used synthenol and was happy with the results but because it can be a pain to get I use xylene now. Xylene matches up better with spray cans for touch up too. Mix ratios are posted here on the site and I can't remember off hand what they are- 2:1 for synthanol and 3:1 for xylene I think...

I waited until each coat was tacky before spraying another. Also, when painting bare metal I used an etching primer first then the red zinc. I've found that heating the paint carefully with a lamp after the paint dries will harden it up very well but also leaves it with a bit of a shine.

Oh yeah, USE A MASK!

When painting with 24087 make sure that you paint at least three good coats of paint over the red oxide primer or the red will show through the paint making it more brown than green. I sprayed 4 coats on my trucks and they came out nice and dark green. I followed the painting recomendations on the paint page at http://www.armyjeepparts.com/ and everything went great.

Dave, how long between paint coats?

Obviously you guys already know more about painting than I do, but the biggest lesson I learned from painting the same place 2 or 3 times is to be diligent in surface preparation.

maddawg308 said:

Dave, how long between paint coats?

Click to expand...

Re-coat 1 to 3 hours or wait until after 16 hrs. Usually by the time I've painted every thing in a set, and have gone back to reload the paint gun, It's been long enough to start back at the first item again.