Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

Spray painting today, in spite of perfect weather, did not go well.

I did a lot of oil based enamel spray painting years ago, but this was my first attempt at working with a latex paint with an air gun. After a lot of reading, the key issue in working with a latex paint in an air gun is the viscosity. From there, it goes tricky very quickly. There are quite a few thinning formulas out there and all come with warnings. Too thick and the gun plugs and you have to be fast to clean it. Too thin and the number of required coats to get the colour you want and the finish, goes up. At the same time, the colour starts to get lighter and if you go too thin, the tint particles start falling out of suspension. After an hour of fiddling about, I could not get the gun to draw the paint through it at all, so gave up and wasted more time cleaning up the gun and making sure it could at least spray clean water in the correct pattern before putting it away and bringing out the backup plan, small paint roller.

Two coats and four hours later, the tool box is safely back in the basement to cure and harden.

I started with a block of 4x4 under the bottom of the box and painted the back of the box first. I then carefully picked the box up by the sides and turned it to face me and then tilted it towards me letting the lid swing open until the box was upside down.

I then set the lip of the box across two pieces of 4x4, while swinging the lid forward to rest on a 2x4. In this position I could then easily paint all the other remaining sides of the box. After four hours, I repeated the process for a second coat and then brought the tool box back into the basement to cure The attached two photos show it curing in the main painting position described above.

One thing I will do differently with the other boxes/cases is to prime all the hardware by hand as I did this time, but then finish paint all the hardware by hand as well, before going to the roller. On the bright side, the roller application has produced a very nice finish to the paint and I think it is going to work out very well.


David