Paint Advice Needed

[Vimmy]

Hi guys, I'm after a bit of advice on a painting issue on some work I've been doing for a last week or so. I made a radiator shroud for the top of the radiator and after (almost) finishing it the aluminium surface was a sorry state. I wanted to keep it nice and shiny, but that soon went out the window and ended up with loads of dents and bangs and swirl marks everywhere. I happened to find a can of 65C paint lying around, as you do, that was doing nothing so after priming the shroud i set about it with the paint.

The first piccy is the shroud temporarily in place.

I know it may seem daft to tart up the engine bay, but its in need of some tlc at the moment.

Looking at the second piccy the colour matches i think? (im not a painter as you can tell ) but i havent laquered it yet and wanted to know if I would get any deeper a colour with another coat or just laquering with make the colour a little deeper and then shinier?

I built the shroud for a fiver or so, far cheaper than the 40quid plus from the shops, but somehow doesnt have the pazaz that shop/professionally ones have. At the end of the day tho' if it works its doing the same job. Took me bloody well ages buggering about with a card template getting all the dimensions right too

Any paint/laquer advice welcomed

Cheers,

Col.

[stum450n]

Looks really good! Better than the polished aluminium ones imho!

Thinking that with one more coat of paint, a fine key and a couple of coats of laquer, that'll look spot on!

You tempted to do the pulley cover and battery clamp next then?

[Vimmy]

Thanks for that, I'll put another coat on and see how it looks then, dummy question here but what do you mean by a key?

Yeah now that I have this bit almost done, it would be kind of rude not to other parts as well. My radiator fan is a tad rusty around the fan blade edges so I might remove that and clean it up, perhaps give it a black spray whilst it's out, save any firther rust build up too

Problem then is at what point do you stop

[stum450n]

You don't stop from what I've seen! There's some pretty tidy engine bays out there!

By Key, I mean a VERY light going over with wet and dry (wet) before you apply the laquer and then progressively lighter goings over between coats... makes for a smoother, stronger finish.

[Vimmy]

Yes there's quite a few clean bays that must have takne ages to do, but I guess done it stages is achievable.

Now I see what you mean about keying, it makes sense thinking about it, how many coats of laquer would you recommend. What grade of paper would you say would be ok for the laquered coats, I have some 400 and 800 sheets but have read of others using 1200?

Some of the other parts I was going to do may suffer from heat from the back of the engine bay itself, does the laquer withstand engine bay temps in general?

Sorry for the questions, im a newbie to this

[stum450n]

1200's the stuff you want and ideally some cutting compound (T cut will do) for the final layer just to get it really nice and smooth. To be honest though, if it's in the engine bay, I probably wouldn't worry about cutting compound but any rougher than 1200 and you might scuff the lacquer.

Most Lacquer is alright with moderate temperatures once it's fully dried but it does tend to yellow quicker. I would be tempted to go for flat back high temp paint (hammerite will do) on anything that'll see high temps though.

Hope that helps!