Model T Ford paint.

Been working on a T for a fella, it's a family car he bought when he was 14, now he's 81 and wants this car to stay in his family forever. It will not be in show and shine contests, just driven once in awhile but mostly stored inside.

He wants me to paint it and right away Ill admit I'm not an automotive body man though I have shot lots of paint in the past.

Now back to the T, I have ground off all the paint with roloc scotch discs and now I need to do a final sanding of the bare metal to get it smooth. Summer's humidity is beginning to put a little brown on it so I have to keep moving here. I could finish it with a base-clear or I could use a plain acrylic enamel. I'm not real experienced with base-clear, I have done it but getting a good coat of clear on without overspray clouding of what I have already sprayed is something I haven't quite gotten a handle on.

So where do I go from here. I have bare metal now, what should I do next to prepare the base for the final coat? What products should I use and in what order? I'm to the point where I don't want to screw it up. Gotta get it done. Thanks. Oh yes, I mentioned to him I could have someone else who is much better at this than me do the paint. His answer was "you do a pretty good job".

If it where at my house/shop it would get a coat of epoxy primer, then when it flashed a couple of coats of 2K primer. Block that and finish with single stage urethane instead of acrylic. Two coats, maybe three depending on color. That can be color sanded and buffed in a day or two if you get runs or dirt or insects or??? Much more durable. Lacks a little of the shine of a two stage base/clear, but I don't like that much shine on a old car. Just looks wrong to me.

The car would have been painted with a thick lacquer coating. Today automotive lacquer has pretty much disappeared from the market because it doesn't last very long. You could do the finish with acrylic enamel but if you want it to look authentic looking put a lot of extra coats on allowing ample drying time per coat. Too much too fast and the finish can crack when it fully cures. Perhaps put a coat a week on. You might also consider using urethane. It's a better finish and can be applied thick in less time. You need an air supplied respirator to spray it though.

my recommendation is to put you in an affordable value line paint system. look at ppg's omni line. good solid product, good performance and reasonably priced. when you get to bare metal and ready to prime, use mx 190 cleaner, wax and grease remover. over the bare metal, shoot two coats of mp 170 epoxy primer. from there go with mp 282 surfacer, it is a 2k power fill easy to sand primer. shoot it and let it sit a week before you block sand it. block it down, then re-shoot the mp282. let it sit another week and block it again. if all is good, shoot the color in mtk, which is a single stage urethane. i recommend staying in a manufacturers product line and not try and do science experiments with different lines to avoid problems.

heres a couple pics of a chevelle we just did, this is a tangelo orange 4 stage pearl in ppg envirobase water borne.

Thank you so much for the tips. They are downloaded and printed. I will post a pic of the finished product.

Again, your painting puts me to shame.

How are the water bases working out?

really like the water base. excellent color match too.