Painting questions

The only experience I have in painting is rattle cans, so I know nothing. I bought a spray gun and what I thought was high quality paints. I got the paints at Napa. I told them I wanted the best they had to offer, I didn't care what it cost. The primers are Acme brand. My first question is, what does an etching primer supposed to do? Does it do what the name suggest? It sounds to me like it's supposed to etch into the metal and create a strong bond. Something for the other paints to stick to. The first thing I painted with this stuff was the aluminum name plates. After they dried I wiped them down with acetone, and the primer came right off easily. I could have wiped them completely naked again in a couple of minutes if I wanted. Now those parts were very smooth/slick aluminum, so I thought the other parts would do better. I painted some bare metal and some painted metal that I had sanded and got the same results. On the painted parts, I could wipe the primer off with the acetone, but the paint underneath wouldn't come off. I thought maybe the high fill primer would do better, but no, it wipes right off too.

Second question is the high fill primer seems to not be drying. The instruction sheet they printed for me said it would be ready to sand in 30 minutes. The directions on the bucket said 1 to 2 hours. Its been half a day and it still don't feel dry enough to me. I'm just learning, so maybe I mixed it wrong. I followed the instructions, but it seemed really thin and fogged up a lot. I may use less reducer next time.

The paint I haven't tried yet. I wondered if I even should. If it wipes off I may box it all back up and take it back. The brand they sold me is Martin Senour. They said it was really top notch stuff. I don't know paints, but they say it's all in the preparation. If that's true, and I have to do more than what I done to these few parts, I will never get an entire tractor painted.

No Steve, the guy at Napa didn't actually tell me to clean the parts with the acetone before painting. He just said I could use it for cleaning (the gun and such). The acetone is also used for the reducer for the high fill primer. The etching primer uses a different reducer and dried in 30 minutes. The instructions just say clean thoroughly with solvent, it doesn't say what solvent. I just assumed the acetone would do fine. I cleaned the name plates and removed all the old paint with Mother's aluminum polish. It took a long time and I had them real slick and shinny. I figured I needed to remove that slickness, so that's why I washed them with the acetone. The instructions said to wipe down metal down with solvent before applying a second coat. That is what I was doing when I discovered the primer would wipe right off. Perhaps the primer needs to cure longer. That's what I'm doing now, I'm going to wait a couple days and see what it does.

There is a product called 'gun wash'. Yeah for cleaning the gun out when you're done for the day. It's a 'cut' version of acetone, 'low power', 'watered down'. guy next door uses it and paper towels for 'wiping down before painting'.
All I know is every job he does you NEVER know where the booboo was...
Any of the primer etchers probably contain phosphoric acid to 'etch' the metal surface. Aluminum is 'tricky' to paint as it's soft and the valleys fill in with the mtn material so it's not rough for the paint to bond too. Also needs to be super clean.
The guy next door will use gunwash and paper towel and make ONE pass, then grab  ANOTHER paper towel with gun wash and make the 2nd pass. IF nothing comes off, it's clean, ready to paint, if not(usually the case) a 3rd towel/gw is used.
This kid(50ish) KNOWS what he's doing, should be in a real restoration shop($$$).
One big thing is be SURE the metal is ALL at 'room temperature' . Check with a $20 IR gun ! If the piece has warm+cold areas...paint will NOT bond properly.

I do know 90% of the work to a quality job is prep, 9% paint skill and 1% luck.
The 1% is hoping that multilegged creepy crawlies don't come 'visiting'

If acetone is used to remove paint from your gun when cleaning WHY would you use it to wipe down fresh paint on your tractor?

Stan IL&TN wrote: You will find if you let it sit there for a period of 50 years that it will not be any easier to wipe off than the original primer.  Also follow the mixing sheet for the paint and primer to the letter so no guessing on a little of this or a little of that.

Well my paintings troubles continue. My problem is the fill primer will not dry. Its been over 24 hours now, so I don't believe it's going to dry. It's not sticky or tacky, its just kind of soft and gummy feeling, not solid. I tried sanding it, I can make scratches in it, but it won't make any dust while sanding. It just gums up the sandpaper. The only thing I know to do is try another reducer. The instruction sheet only calls for two. One for below 85 deg. and one for above 85 deg. I'm using the one for below. It was probably in the 80s when I painted, but I can't believe it would make that much difference after 24 hrs. The mixing ratio is one part primer, one part reducer (50/50), that's pretty simple. So I don't know what went wrong. I'm going to try to strip these parts back down this weekend and start over. I don't think I need to put any paint on them the way they are.

Believe it or not Harbor Freight has some really good HVLP paint guns. I know some body shop guys who even use them some. There are some good YouTube videos on setting them up also.

HF guns are OK. You want a dedicated gun for primers because primers are very hard on a gun and you don't want to ruin your good gun.  I bought my son a Sata (not sure of spelling) and there is a difference between a high dollar gun and a cheaper one. But, he paints restorations and I paint old trucks and tractors. How warm was it in the shop when you painted? If it's not warm enough in the shop, or they gave you a reducer for warmer temps. you're drying time will take a lot longer, thus messing up the chemical reaction time of the hardener and it will evaporate not leaving enough behind to finish hardening the paint. Do some research on the paint you're using and see if you find more info. on it. I have heard that the paint you are using is vastly improved over what it was a few years ago. The HVLP guns help a lot also. Oh, and it's not a sin to color sand and buff. Just apply an extra coat to sand off. If you get your drying problem solved you can color sand and buff in a couple of hours. Don't wait a day or there will go the old elbows. I agree with the. others, I don't think your paint guy was very knowledgeable. And do get you a paint measuring stick. It's made of aluminum. Wipe it clean each time you use it and it'll last for years.

Rance I'd get that customer reps. name and I'd use that to leverage the people who sold the paint to me. I don't think you will have to raise a real big stink to get them to fix the problem with no charge to you.

NAPA would not be the place I would ever consider buying high quality paint and paint supplies.  I know the dedicated auto paint supply stores are sometimes hard to find nearby but it's sometimes what you have to do to make sure you are dealing with folks that know their product. 

AC720Man wrote: I use PPG paint sold by one of the sponsors on this site...

AMAC services inc
Merlin Boshart, 319-656-3235

Thank you!

your going to notice a BIG difference between primer and paint in a pressure gun compared to a rattle can. As you said, the filler primer WITH HARDENER can have a shine to the finish.. That's the hardener and its OK... you should run some fine paper over it to get a somewhat dull finish prior to painting... also the sandpaper will take out any dust / specs/ bugs/ bubbles prior to the final paint... good idea to finish sand just a little..