Painting An AMC Rambler - Learn to Spray Your First Paint Job

We used the larger of the two DeVilbiss Finish Line HVLP paint guns from the Eastwood starter kit to shoot the primer and the topcoat. The ideal would be to use a dedicated primer gun like the Craftsman Heavy Duty Performance HVLP gun with a 1.8-2.0 fluid tip, then use a smaller tip for the finish work, but it is also OK to do both jobs with one gun and two different needles and tips. The inlet pressure should be 27 psi with 6-8 at the fluid-tip cap per the primer tech sheet. Try to let go of the trigger before the end of each stroke.

The primer flashes in 5-8 minutes between coats and can be topcoated in one hour. If you are going to let the primer sit for more than one hour and you are adding extra coats of primer, you will have to sand the primer with 600-grit paper. The shortcut is to not let it dry for more than one hour between primer coats. You don't have to sand before the topcoat is applied, it will just add scratch marks to the finish.

Between the primer and the topcoat, we cleaned the gun with acetone and switched the needle and fluid tip to 1.3 mm.

The topcoat was the same Barbados Blue we used to paint the engine compartment on the CC/ Rambler. It is mixed 8:1/2 activator then four parts reducer and was mixed with a bit of metallic as the hippies preferred in the '60s.

We used a "cheater valve," which is a pressure regulator that attaches at the inlet of the gun. We set the regulator at 27 psi, which should be about 7-8 psi at the fluid-tip cap.

The top knob on the gun controls the fan shape. Turning it all the way clockwise narrows the pattern and turning it counterclockwise widens the pattern.

This shows the correct shape of the fan, and if you are using the correct 50 percent overlap, you are always painting using the widest portion of the pattern.

Since we are using a metallic paint, DuPont recommends a mist coat. That means spraying a light coat over the final coat to get an even pattern and eliminate any patterns that might appear during the paint job.

We cleaned the gun again and sprayed two coats of clear with 3-5 minutes between each coat. It uses a 4:1 ratio with an activator. We allowed the basecoat to dry for 15-30 minutes before we applied the clear. We didn't sand the basecoat, but you can if you get some dirt or dead flies in it. Use 1,200 or finer sandpaper, and wipe it with adhesive remover and a tack cloth before adding the clear. We've also heard of guys color-sanding between clearcoats for show cars, but we don't really do that stuff here.