Practically Classics Forum

A guy in the offices of a place I worked at had a 4 door Minor. Black with red trim. The paint work was bad so he rubbed it down and hand painted it using rollers and a brush. The paint was Dulux exterior grade house enamel paint.

The end result was quite good a few brush lines but very shinny.

My view is that if he had properly resprayed the car it would have made the car not worth doing due to cost of a respray. This cheap job has saved the car. The owner couldn't afford a respray.

How to brush paint.

The prep work is the same for spray painting.

I have brushed a few vehicles and got quite good at it. I have found that the paint exterior grade enamel works fine depending on viscosity I add up to 10% white spirit.

I use a 2" HARRIS paint brush. Quality is important with brushes.

Tip the paint into a tray then fully load the brush. One 2 " brush load should do a door.

In the late 70s I was working on a white XJ6. The car had been brush painted I didn't knòw until the owner told me. He was a fair ģround show man.

It would be nice if every car had a top quality respray but the cost is so high that some cars are scrapped.

A sensible bodge if you like.

Hardly a bodge when you get seeing a skilled coach painter at their work, it's rare to watch in spite of what some folk say about the appeal of looking at drying paint!
My Tartan Rebel was brush painted when its gelcoat started to show some small but annoying signs of stress cracks, so as it wasn't supplied painted, the brushed on enamel that I used was the first paint it had ever had in its (at that time) 22 year life. OK, so close up there were some stray hairs but very few brush marks and this operation was so much simpler than having its gel redone, to say nothing of much cheaper, a massive consideration in a car that was only worth around £35 at the time yet is still around now, a further 21 years on, though its current custodian has decided to remove the shell, strip off the enamel and have it sprayed in a suitable acrylic paint to replicate the original gel. All of which has reminded me, I need to get its freshly completed engine out of the dishwasher in the catering block at work before their rather po-faced HOD finds it. She makes Joan Ferguson (Prisoner, Cell Block H) look human!

Brush and roller painting is seeing a bit of a revival, professional shops are now using brush on primer, one of the reasons for this is the low levels of VOC's.

I have spray equipment and have used cellulose in the past very sucsessfully, but it does suffer from sinkage and microblisters which are often related to the high level of solvents and can chip pretty easily.

We are planning to do our minor with synthetic coach enamel. it gives a very high build and is pretty tough, also as this is a project with my son it is more suitable for him to use.

there is a way of getting a top notch finish with mostly brush painting, do the best you can with brushes / rollers, let it harden flat it back and then apply a thin sprayed on coat for the final finsh, we will probably do this on the internal surfaces.

The other mistake people make is preparation, brush painting requires the same level as spray painting, also mask off / remove components in the same way you you would for spraying, you want to be able to get the paint on and spread evenly lleaving enough time to flow out not messing around cutting in edges.

Kevin

I worked for AEC. Routemaster bus makers.

I have seen how they do it

On the roof they tip the paint on. Then rollers and brushes. The painters go very fast. They use 6" Harris brushes.

Its a bit like spraying the prep and masking takes 99% but putting the paint on takes 15 minutes.

With brush painting cutting in takes to long. The paint on the test of the door is drying. Which will result in a dry edge.

Once the paint is on a looking good then playinh around will mess it up speed is essential.

I have sprayed vans with exterior household enamel and white spirit. It sprays well.

Quick as well.

low pressure sprayers. Apollo very good. Are best for diy painting.

As I said the brush job could make a car viable.
Besides when funds are available enamel strips or sands off easy.

For a Minor sized car 2 litres of paint. If you don't like the colours mix your own shade. I added 50% black to Buckingham green and got a very dark goodwood green.
£5 a litre.
White spirit £5 for 2 litres. Buy 4 litres. Because before brush painting wipe vehicle down with white spirit. Call it £50 including proper Harris paint brushes.

Solid colours only.

They used to rub down horse carriages with fish skins.

As I said my view is that many more old cars would be around if sensible cost cutting is used. Of course safety is paramount. If selling the car on then a brush job may lower the value but the money for a respray was never spent.

I usually only sell a car when its clapped out for what I can get on ebay. So a brush job is no issue to me.

My 1974 Shadow is two pack black with clear coat. It cost £3000. This was paid for by my insurance. It's very shinny.

I find that darker colours are easiest and white differcult.

I really like black.

I have used a fair bit of synthetic paint in my time too! One thing I would add is that it is only glossy at the top of the layer - too much polish (or even worse - T-Cut) will soon take away the glossy shine!

I fear modern domestic paints are not as easy to apply with a brush - all this VOC twaddle has made the manufacturers use less effective solvents and the paint doesn't flow nearly as well as it used to. However, I spray most stuff these days - the last brush synthetic was used in/on the house and I wasn't at all pleased with the results. The modern interior paint (PVA-based) is horrendous and you almost have to pour the paint on and let it find its own level - not easy on a window frame, but our doors have "loose" pins, so it's easy to take them off and lay them on trestles!

The last synthetic paint I sprayed wouldn't flow "properly" either! I used to use the trick of heating the paint (in a pan of boiling water), but the last batch wouldn't flow through the gun properly and I had to use White Spirit. Heating the paint gave a much better finish - it could be as good as 2-pak if done well - and two coats would be more than adequate (as I found after fitting a newly painted radiator filler flap into a newly painted bonnet - I couldn't open the dashed thing a week later!) and the shine can be amazing, even without cutting back!

This is synthetic, more or less straight from the spraygun and not cut back or polished at all:

A timely topic, and interesting.

As things stand, I've just started to prepare the body of mine for painting. I'll be using a combination of 2k and water based paint sprayed on.

Being the mine of useless information that I sometmes am, a couple of bits of car paint trivia.

The original Dulux (made by duPont in the 1930's or thereabouts) was developed for automotive use.

Metallic paints can be coachpainted. Daimler had a metallic brown car on show at Earls Court pre WW2 that was done in that way. That car was still around a few years ago at the odd show or two. It had been re-coachpainted and restored for the first time somewhere around the early to mid '70's by someone in Lancashire. Last time I saw the car, it was still sporting that paint job.

The finish on the tractor is acceptable for an old car no worries.

The harder the paint the better it polishes.

Enamels used for houses is too soft for polishing.

Note. Cellulose paint is a convertor paint this means that wet paint will etch into the paint already on the car. If that paint is house enamel then it will pickle big time.

Modern aerosols are quite good. I use clear coat aerosols on wood.

Bob

The Minor below was a roller and tip of brush job, that was a £250 car (this was about five years ago) and it was welded by me right round the bottom with home made panels including the spring hangers.

Cost of going back on the road was 1 sheet of steel, 2 cross member ends, a tin or so of vapormatic machinery enamel, all brake lines / wheel cylinders / master cylinder, brake shoes.

So was cheap as chips, and I always preferred putting the cash into the mechanical side as opposed to the cosmetics.

I then went mad and spent way more than the finished car cost by building a 1275 engine from a marina complete with new slipper pistons, free flow manifolds / bigger carb and free flow stainless exhaust.

It got more attention than the cars I have sprayed properly and was a hoot to drive and never worry about scratching etc.

Sadly i had to swap it for a nasty Discovery mid winter when the wife had a series of hospital appointments in Inverness and the snow had set in hard that year.

Always regretted the loss of this one, nick named the eight ball complete with a "traditional" pool eight ball on the gear change.

Cheap and cheerful it gave me more fun than most of the cars I have owned. The plastic front grille was made from a Range Rover Classics grille, I thought it suited, it didn't rust, and cost nowt

Lovely looking 4 door MM.

It looks fine and example of what I mean it won't win medals but it will go to shops and work and a day out at the seaside. Very affordable practical car.

Bob

Mmm, Mozza is slammed and lookin' da bomb, innit!


That would go down just grand at shows too, not everyone wants to see trailer queans and ponce metal. The concours d'état and the concours de tat are two very different disciplines after all.