Automotive Touchup Paint: Painting roof and hood

TLDR: I can't recommend Automotive Touchup.com paint. Regardless of my inexperience and user errors every can of primer and base coat had a faulty nozzle that led to splatter and blobs.

Onward:
I decided that I needed to paint the roof and hood of my newly purchased '03 DC. The paint of the roof was fading and clear coat was gone on most of it. Rust and large scratches were visible.

The hood had been sprayed with bed-liner by the previous owner and was grey on black at this point.

Local quotes to paint this were $1800-2000, so that wasn't going to happen.

After reading quite a few threads on here about Automotive Touchup and hearing good reviews and seeing positive results I decided I would go that route. I figured I can't make it look any worse.

I ordered 6 cans each of primer, base coat in 209 Black Sand Pearl, and their branded clear coat. I also bought some wet sandpaper, tack clothes, and the spray gun trigger thing. Total with shipping was about $270.

Took about 3 weeks to arrive.

Sanding:

Sanded out the rust and scratches with 180-320 grit sand paper like they said, although my roof seemed to just turn into a continuous section of light rust so I stopped on the front. Parts where there was still paint, but clear coat was gone I feathered with 600 grit sandpaper until there was no seam. Paint was then scuffed with a grey scrub pad.

Hood I used a grinder and a paint removing wheel and then sanded with 220 grit sand paper to try to smooth out the rough marks. (It didn't really work that great)

Primer:

Primer was put on the roof and hood with a total of 4 coats. Here is where the trouble started.

Every can and I mean every can sprayed splatter and dropped blobs. This might happen on the very first pass. I eventually would stop every 3-4 passes and wipe the nozzles and shake the can. This still didn't help. It was random and unavoidable. There wasn't even a "good" nozzle that I could swap.

We sanded the primer to remove the blobs and they were visible but felt smooth. Problem was in order to completely remove the blobs you basically took off all the primer and would have had to restart.

Painting:

Next day began painting. With my fingers crossed that maybe the paint wouldn't splatter since it was thinner I began painting. I kid you not the very first pass produced splatter and a huge drop on car. This continued throughout the process. Again, every can, no good nozzle.

Now Automotive Touchup seems to know this is going to happen because they tell you to shake the can and clean the nozzle, but why would I have to clean the new nozzle, right?

Also their instructions are in complete contradiction to each other. On the base coat can it says any imperfections may be sanded out between coats with 1000 grit or finer sandpaper. Perfect, I will just lightly sand out those splatter points. But wait, right below it in bold it says DO NOT SAND BETWEEN COATS!!. I guess I will follow that bold instructions and that we called a paint friend who said if you sand the paint before it is cured, not dried, but cured you can cause a whole bunch of problems. So no sanding.

Additionally, and this might be inexperience in painting, but the spray seems to not be uniform in its coverage. It spray out in a vertical fan which is nice, but the end points of the fan are far heavier than the middle section. This causes a striping effect, even as you overlap. Some areas are dark, others not so much.

I have yet to get to the clear coat, but I can only guess it will go the same route. Splatter and blobs and looking like Sh$%.

I will post pics when I am done.

 

sorry to hear it did not work out well. What was the temps you were spraying in? Were the paint cans stored in a cold place? Sometimes rattle cans will splatter if the paint is cold. You could warm up the paint cans leaving them in the sun or put them in a bucket of hot water. Did you relay this info to the paint company?

 

Did you try it without the spraygun trigger? Those things always caused drips for me. Seems like the more complete a person tries to do a job with cans, the worse it turns out. 270 is a chunk to spend I know and not at least get decent results.

If you have a compressor I'd start learning how to use a gun. The whole truck is going to need paint in the future.

 

Yep, tried it without the spray gun trigger, same issue.

We actually found a regular can of spray paint nozzle that worked as far as not dripping but it put the paint on too dark and caused even more striping

paint was stored around 70-75 degrees and applied between 70-90 degrees.

Haven’t talked to the company yet as it is the weekend.

And yes I feel $270 is a lot of money to get the results I am getting. I probably could have gotten same or better with scuffing, cleaning, Rustoelum primer and then Duplicolor.


I mean crap at this point I bet I will get done and the paint won’t be close to matching. (Yes I did the test strip)

 

Update: Clear coat did the same thing. Fantastic!!!

 

You can see each stage's splatter with the last pic being the clear coat.

Also notice that the primer didn't cover enough to smooth out the sanding which again was done in accordance to Automotive Touchup's instructions.

Like I said I am sure that I suck at painting having never done it and I am sure that many mistakes were made, but the streaking and splatter/blobs were pretty much out of my control.

 

occasionally on sale for $9.99

 

I get that there are better ways to paint. Maybe I should buy an electrostatic sprayer while I am at it. I am just giving feedback on the rattle can method that supposedly has great results.

Also I don't know how efficient a spray gun is and how much paint you need but a gallon is $375 and quarts are $100. just for the base coat.

Also also, my pops painted an Accord that was gifted to him and a local paint company made him the same type of rattle can set up and he said his had no problems (part of the reason I went this route). So it can be done, but apparently not from Automotive Touchup.

 

Sir, you are going to need a spray gun, and lots of practice. Paint a metal kids wagon a couple of times till you get the technique. Then do your truck over right. Please consider the 270 a lesson that will serve you well for the rest of your life.
I am in no way downing on you man. I learned the same lesson a long time ago with a sport touring bike. I painted both of these.

 

As I said I am sure I made plenty of mistakes, but I cannot control splatter coming out of a rattle can. The nozzles were defective. Every last one of them.

Or maybe they weren't defective and this is just how it goes with this company.

The lesson I learned was not to use Automotive Touchup. Again my dad did the same thing, but used a local company and he had no issues with the rattle cans.

 

Different colors and brands have different viscosities. Whoever mixes the paint needs to know how much reducer to add for it to spray well from a can if that is the route you take. Having somebody else mix it is a crap shoot no matter who you order from, so YMMV including sourcing from Automotive Touchup. Easiest is to mix yourself so you can set the viscosity to work with your spray equipment. Perfect paint is a trial and error process no mater where you source the materials from.