BillyGoat

I’m painting a cowl that I did some crash repairs on. I’m using a brand of spay enamel that I’ve never heard of before, called X-O Rust. The local hardware was out of white in the major brands.

Well the first coat went fine. After a light wet sanding over the whole cowl, I washed and dried it thoroughly. The second coat was a disaster. A couple small sections wrinkled right up several seconds after the paint hit the surface. My assumption was I must not have cleaned the surface as well as I thought. After another wet sanding to remove the wrinkles I made sure the surface was really clean even using denatured alcohol. Well the third coat did the exact same thing in the same spots.

What is causing this and how can I keep it from happening? The rest of the cowl is looking really good. By the way the spots that are wrinkling are not repaired sections.

scratchonly

Plastic or fiberglass?

SPLIT S

You are running into what's called the recoat window. Some types of paint will only accept another coat before a certain amount of time has passed or after. It has nothing to do with your cleaning. On the can somewhere it should tell you just when you can apply more coats of paint. Usually you have only an hour, sometimes more until you can apply another coat. If more time passes the paint is getting into it's curing stage, it's very unstable at that point so when you try to put more on it can wrinkle. My advise is to set the cowl aside for about a week ( yes 1 week ) and let what you have already on there come to a full cure. You should then be able to sand and re-coat. Also watch how wet you are applying the paint - too wet and you are dumping alot of solvent on the finish, that can cause you grief too.

Regards,
Dan
www.gocolours.com

BillyGoat

Thanks Dan that makes sense. I see now where the can does say recoat within one hour.

A week it will be. Then another week after that for the fuel proof clear coat. Good thing spring is late coming around here.

SPLIT S

It's cold here too... had a couple of teaser days but not quite here yet...

Dan

JollyPopper

My Feedback: (6)

Split S is right on. I use a lot of Rustoleum appliance white epoxy. It does an absolutely beautiful job. The directions say to recoat within 1/2 hour or after one week. And if you try to recoat in, say, two days, you get exactly what you are experiencing. I know.