Calling all Duplicolor/Rattlecan Experts

gchristopher9

Member
Location
Boston MA
Hey guys,
So I recently picked up a spare grill that I am painting gloss black. I started with 220 grit sand paper on the chrome, then blew the dust off. Next i went at it with some adhesion promoter, which in some spots dried with this weird texture spider web looking spots. I did another coat, then sanded the spider webbing down with some 400 grit. Then I used duplicolor primer and then gloss black. I got more spider webbing when I did the black, so I sanded again with 400 until it was gone, then i did a few more coats of black which all took just fine. Things were looking up until I just sprayed my first coat of clear. There are quite a few areas that now have this spider webbing effect again. It also looked white over the black, but it appears to be going to clear as it dries. My question is WHY IN THE HELL IS IT SPIDER WEBBING?! Now that I've shot the clear I am very weary to sand this as I don't want to sand any of the gloss black off. Where do I from here? Do I need to take everything off and start over? What the hell am I doing wrong and how do I avoid this spider web?
 
What kind of paint are you using, I used a lacquer black and an enamel clear and had the same effect. if you mix paints you could get that effect. Now did you sand the chrome completely of or did you just scuff it up. if you did sand some of the chrome down to the plastic you can get paint underneath the chrome, to cause that as well. hell there can be a number of reasons that can cause the effect. most certainly let the primer dry first before sanding it, and let the paint dry completely before applying the clear coat. I'm sure you 'll have some more of the IS family chime in on this.
 
just scuffed the chrome, didn't take any off though. I am using all acrylic enamels. I made the same mistake with the lacquer and then enamel and had to start over.

i did a little digging on duplicolors website and it said something about acrylic enamel having a re-coat time of 1-2 hours. if you miss this window you have to wait 5 days to be able to spray it again.
 
Bummer :mad:
Sounds like the clear was not compatible with the underlying paint, or . . . dry time was not long enough. You should test it on a spare piece of ABS plastic anytime it's coming out of a can.
 
it would be a good idea to be trying this on a scrap piece, finding these issues out on the grille itself sucks. it sounds like your problem was in the adhiesion promoter

I've never had much luck with duplicolor stuff myself, I screwed up my own headlight bezels for the second time trying to do it at home with duplicolor spraycans, so don'tfeel too bad, it can happen to anyone:smile:

at this point let it dry & strip it, ideally the whole thing... forget about bonding agent's, you need a good high build primer/sealer... no idea what to use duplicolor, if your willing to find a local body shop supply store you can buy the good stuff, in aresol cans... it'll cost a lot more to get what you need but you get what you pay for with paint & primer...

you should get as much off as you can & then seal it... if you have a lot of material on there you can consider using a urethane bumper stripper to soften it up & scrape the bulk off when it softens up, it's a messy procedure though...
 
well that actually does make me feel a little better. i struggled with gloss on my headlights, so i figured i'd try semi, and it came out even worse. primer looked pretty slick so i did a couple coats and just left them like that.
 
yeah, my headlights never looked better than when they were just sealed... first time round I tried to basecoat/clearcoat, but it was really hard to not get dry spots in the inner crevices & trying to wet the crevices enough to be glass made me get runs on the bezels... second time around I tried it with spary cans, was krylon actually but same difference I guess... not perfect results at all, then I tried a third time & it still wasn't perfect & at that point I had a lot of material build... decided to strip, made a huge mess & then just threw them on the side, decided I'll either get around to fixing them or just build a new set... haven't had time to re-do them:embarrassed: mine really sucked cause I had a lot of hours into building them even before paint, a lot of hours...
 
i feel your pain. i painted a plastic finish panel on my miata with white krylon and was like on my fourth & final coat on an otherwise flawless finish when i set it down to see it go, blup blup blup... and it wrinkled up in a 6" wide area. i was like what the hell?? i've been spray painting crap so long now i consider myself an expert, turning out finishes that reviled 2 stage paints i've done with a gun. so i did it again, and it wrinkled again. i was guessing maybe tilting the can caused propellant to enter the mix so on my third attempt i made sure to keep the can upright. it worked well but at the last second wrinkled under where the license plate would go. i called it good, but i'm still a bit confused as to why this is happening. sorry i have no answers :( i was just surprised to see someone else with a recent experience as mine...
 
This happened to me in a small spot about the size of a finger print... there was wrinkling that went all the way through the primer. I was extremely confused as well as it literally looked like a finger print that no matter how many times I sanded down and sprayed over, this spot wanted to show through to the bone. No paint wanted a part of this small area. It almost seemed like somebody rolled on by when I had it freshly painted (had to leave it outside of my apartment cuz I had nowhere else to do this at the time) and touched it and then went :eek: and ran away... I plan on re-painting it possibly this weekend in a much more controlled environment, with gloss black, and I'm gonna strip it bare and re-start the entire primer/paint/clear process.
 
so after talking to a bunch of mechanical engineers at my work who often do custom projects, i've narrowed it down to two possibilities. The first is that the surface just wasn't clean enough to properly accept the paint. The second is exactly what I found during me research. That the recoat window for acrylic enamel is 1-2 hours. If you miss this window you MUST wait 5 days for it to completely cure before you can do any more painting. Sucks that i had to learn this one the hard way. Luckily with the light sanding and multiple coats of clear i was able to make it look pretty decent. I think i'm going to leave it as is for now, because it doesn't look bad. It will also give me a chance to test out the finish through a Boston winter. If it looks like hell come springtime i'll remove it and strip it all down and start over.

here is a quick pic i took with my camera phone.

View attachment 156185
 
Dave I don't think he'll come over to the dark side just yet, but we'll be here waiting for you when you jump. lol....
 
I'm not a huge supporter of the chrome, but i would like for it to be visible. if i was badge less i would happily go all black. i'm contemplating maybe a dark grey or something along those lines. i'm hoping to eventually ditch all the chrome on my car. ordered the supplies to black out my winter 18's to see how i feel about it. if i decide to go black on the 20s i got a lot more work as they are chrome, which would need to be blasted before i could paint.
 
Figured I would post in here rather than start a new thread. since last spring i have acquired a spare grill, and this weekend i pieced together my badgeless grill. sprayed my first coat of primer last night, and not surprisingly, i can still see the parts where i filled with the plastic repair that turbo recommended in his plastic fab thread. i am nervous to paint over this, as i feel like it will probably show through the paint as well. so my question now becomes, has anyone ever had this happen, where the different materials show through primer, but look fine when painted? OR does anyone know of a good aerosol high build primer/sealer that will cover all parts completely so i wont be able to see the material difference before i shoot my paint?

not sure if you'll be able to see the color difference in the patched areas after i upload to photobucket, but i'll give it a shot. you obviously all know where to look. any suggestions are appreciated.

View attachment 156186
 
2 badgeless badass FX35 s in Boston! :tup::tup:

w00t! haha

ege i went to a car show this past sunday at the woburn trade center. there were about 350 cars there, and only ONE other fx. didn't really look to closely at it as the disgusting chrome wheels he was rockin scared me away. anyhow, i think it happens pretty frequently. we shoudl get some boston peeps together, meet up before hand, and roll in there all together! would be sick to have a nice group of FXs to represent!
 
w00t! haha

ege i went to a car show this past sunday at the woburn trade center. there were about 350 cars there, and only ONE other fx. didn't really look to closely at it as the disgusting chrome wheels he was rockin scared me away. anyhow, i think it happens pretty frequently. we shoudl get some boston peeps together, meet up before hand, and roll in there all together! would be sick to have a nice group of FXs to represent!

Apart from you and I and William, there's really no one else that cares in Boston IMO.. Maybe we three should hang out?

3musketeers.jpg

:tongue::laugh:
 
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