So as stated previously, I have been spraying my vehicles with car paint mixed into aerosol cans and painting only one panel at a time on a particular day as opposed to using a larger gun and spraying all the vehicle on one or two days.  This method has its drawbacks but it allows me to spray in my garage without making a complete mess of the building and all the contents within it.  The paint I have used for my last few vehicles is a base/clear paint in that the color coat known as the base coat is applied first and then an aerosol two part clear coat is applied after that.  This clear is made by Spray Max and has a hardener that is applied by pushing a button on the bottom of the can (thus called a 2 K clear).  I like how it sprays and flows out for results that I am happy with.  Note that I will not be going into paint show competitions with it but for vehicles that I use and drive throughout the summer.  I spray solid colors and not metallic colors in that the metallic color is hard to spray with an aerosol because the metallics can form stripes at the edge of the spray pattern that show up on the final job.  It is a different technique to limit these stripes but is quite challenging.

On the Econoline I wanted to have a two tone paint scheme.  The orange was sprayed first and then the white was sprayed over top where I wanted.  I used a Frog tape to do my paint lines as it was less sticky but still gave protection to the paint I wanted protected from the new color.  Before the clear coat was applied we wet sanded with 3000 grit the transition line between the two colors.  This helps eliminate feeling the transition  where the extra coats of the new color are being applied over the other color.  I started this painting of the vehicle in the interior including the cab and dash area as well as the door jam areas.  Now I don’t have to worry about overspray on the outside of the vehicle when those panels are painted.   The nose of this truck was my next choice of panel to paint.

My base coat is mixed in one large batch and made into aerosol cans at any automotive paint store.  There is a difference in what cans each company uses and I have found some cans spray better than others.  I learned from previous projects not to mix only ten cans at a time and go back to purchase more when I ran out.  Even though there is a paint code to follow when mixing the color it is easy to add one drop of this color or that color and change the end color ever so slightly that can be noticed.  For this project I ordered 45 cans of Calypso Coral and 6 cans of white.