Building the perfect 90

Siia109

Well-known member
It really is a personal choice - Most every owner I have met thinks their color is the "right" one - when really the only right colors are Beluga black and white! :ROFLMAO:

I am a ways away from my frame swap on the 127 but still thinking about the final color - its almost standard issue for them to be white - but some of the matte finish colors have me wondering especially with the galvanized capping and shiny black accents (wheel arches, front bezels, maybe door tops etc) with a different color roof to cap it off.

It would be great if someone had a color app like they do with new cars - pick the color combination and its shows on a rendering of the vehicle...
 

erover82

Well-known member
I worked with a local paint shop, the only one in town, who dug out a dusty old Land Rover PPG swatch book. We found the color and began the process of mixing the first of many samples.

This dragged on for several weeks before I set off to Canada for a month to sample its Keswick glacial melt.

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After returning I was eager to make progress. I needed panels to test my paint system, so I began by cutting my own floor plates from 1/8" 6061-T6 using a pair of standard samples I had on hand. These would be much stiffer than the standard panels, and being flat, would be easy to strip down if I wasn't happy with a coating.

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Sanded, cleaned, and ready for primer.

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Mixing

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One of the challenges of being a DIY painter is having to orchestrate the coating process to a small daily window where temperatures and humidity are just right. If this had been anything but heating-loving epoxy, the day's window would have been long past.

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Primer applied

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I decided to undercoat the floors, seat boxes, and underneath the rear tub. While not factory correct, it nonetheless delivers an OEM appearance, and works well on Discovery and other vehicles to reduce NVH and corrosion. It may be expensive but 3M Dyna-Pro is the highest quality option I'm aware of.

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Using a 2.5 spray gun with 4 coats resulted in a nice finish.

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TravelinLight

Well-known member
Very happy to see progress reports / updates/ Looking forward to more as your attention to detail has been second to none with respect to your build quality and thoughtful upgrades.
 

erover82

Well-known member
Wet sanding floor plates is stupid, but since these would be used to evaluate the paint system and process I wanted to ensure any visible texture was from the paint itself and not the underlying primer.

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First spray results. Color is decent, but texture was disappointing.

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Wet sanding (again) at night after the boys were in bed so I can spray in the morning.

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Second spray attempt after adjusting a few things. Now I've got texture and fisheyes, great.

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At this point I was getting fed up with the extremely time consuming process of testing paint on unnecessarily large panels that needed sanding with every attempt.

To remedy this I switched to two 12" x 12" aluminum plates. This particular test was epoxy adhesion to Bonderite MC-R 1201 vs DA sanding. Both worked well , but I prefer to DA when possible because I can better see the coverage.

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Thinning the paint = smooth but runs. Fail.

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Sanded down again. Less thinning = fisheyes, runs, and texture. Fail.

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Adjusted overlap and speed. Fail.

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More adjustments. Still a fail.

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Different day, different fail.

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Z.G

Well-known member
Wet sanding floor plates is stupid, but since these would be used to evaluate the paint system and process I wanted to ensure any visible texture was from the paint itself and not the underlying primer.

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First spray results. Color is decent, but texture was disappointing.

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Wet sanding (again) at night after the boys were in bed so I can spray in the morning.

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Second spray attempt after adjusting a few things. Now I've got texture and fisheyes, great.

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At this point I was getting fed up with the extremely time consuming process of testing paint on unnecessarily large panels that needed sanding with every attempt.

To remedy this I switched to two 12" x 12" aluminum plates. This particular test was epoxy adhesion to Bonderite MC-R 1201 vs DA sanding. Both worked well , but I prefer to DA when possible because I can better see the coverage.

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Thinning the paint = smooth but runs. Fail.

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Sanded down again. Less thinning = fisheyes, runs, and texture. Fail.

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Adjusted overlap and speed. Fail.

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More adjustments. Still a fail.

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Different day, different fail.

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Going to be painting mine soon, so this is entertaining to watch because literally any of those would be acceptable for skill level 🙃
 

MountainD

Technical Excellence Contributor
Is your air cool and dry enough? I ran an extra 30’ of pipe out of my compressor and the a dryer then my hose before I got that under control, but there are many things that contribute. Usually too little paint on the orange peel, increasing amount usually laid that down.
 
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erover82

Well-known member
Going to be painting mine soon, so this is entertaining to watch because literally any of those would be acceptable for skill level 🙃

It's difficult to capture in a photo. They looked awful in person. If the focus is off, the panel looks amazing when it's definitely not. Example:

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Is your air cool and dry enough? I ran an extra 30’ of pipe out of my compressor and the a dryer then my hose before I got that under control, but there are many things that contribute. Usually too little paint on the orange peel, increasing amount usually laid that down.

This was a while ago and some lessons were hard learned. Having previously completed several successful projects with that equipment, I was convinced the source of the issue lay elsewhere.
 

MountainD

Technical Excellence Contributor
I was in fish-eye hell at one point. I tried filling the craters while wet, never get it right. Took those panels down to bare metal as I couldn't get past them on one section--even had to re-prime. I was frustrated. Same equipment as other panels---just this one was my nemesis even after cooling the air. I never did figure out exactly why, but I certainly feel your pain. The orange peel, on the other hand, was always just not laying it down thick enough. Too thick, I would get runs, but just shy of that, it would be glass. Oil Slick Black scares me enough to never try...
 

erover82

Well-known member
I was in fish-eye hell at one point. I tried filling the craters while wet, never get it right. Took those panels down to bare metal as I couldn't get past them on one section--even had to re-prime. I was frustrated. Same equipment as other panels---just this one was my nemesis even after cooling the air. I never did figure out exactly why, but I certainly feel your pain. The orange peel, on the other hand, was always just not laying it down thick enough. Too thick, I would get runs, but just shy of that, it would be glass. Oil Slick Black scares me enough to never try...

Yeah they can be very disappointing. Fish-eyes on test panels were less concerning since I knew they were from contamination and that I'd be more careful with handling and cleaning an actual panel. They usually originated from using unfiltered air for blowing off panels, contaminants in the air outside, and from silicone-based spray products I'd used around a panel or in a general area.
 

erover82

Well-known member
At this point I took a break from the brutal prep, paint, fail cycle, to instead focus on fixing the process and refining the color.

To "fix the process" I decided to switch to a new spray gun, experiment with pressure, adjust distance, and do more spray pattern tests. The one below is just a (poor) example of several. The point is I found pressure and distance settings that gave a nice pattern with the new gun.
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To refine the color, I had the paint shop mix up two successive batches, each slightly lighter than the last. This was accomplished by adjusting the formula to include additional white toner.

Left: Light Keswick, Right: Original Keswick
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Pleased with the color, I got back to painting panels. Let the schadenfreude commence..

New gun, new settings.. fail.

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Adjusted distance. Fail.



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Took a few weeks off and adjusted some things. Fail.


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A few days later. Fail. (Don't let the soft focus fool you)

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Next day. Adjusted.. something. Fail.

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Bonus fail. Sagging and heavy texture.

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I was really scratching my head at this point. I'd adjusted and corrected for every parameter imaginable and still found no success.

  • The multistage air filtration setup had been checked several times.
  • A new gun had made little difference.
  • Pressure adjustments made little difference
  • Lighter fluid flow / less overlap lead to more orange peel
  • Heavier fluid flow / more overlap lead to more texture
  • More thinner lead to less peel, but thinner coverage and more sagging/runs, and there seemed to be no sweet spot between the two
Having exhausted the possibilities, and knowing I'd painted successfully with this equipment before, I concluded the PPG paint system was crap - a tough pill to swallow considering I'd just shelled out good money for several gallons of it. I painted a sample piece in the "Light Keswick" and sent it off to a paint shop in Michigan. There they would match the color from the sample and formula I sent them, but mix it in Automotive Art Motocryl 50, a well regarded paint system that I'd used before successfully.

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Unfortunately, this meant spending even more time waiting on another piece of the puzzle. With winter approaching, I only hoped the wait would be worth it.
 

erover82

Well-known member
Weeks later, the new "Light Keswick" Motocryl finally arrived. Eager to get a move on, I quickly mixed a small batch and setup a test panel.

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It was interesting to compare the results of the newly painted panel with a previously painted panel. Even though it was color-matched, the Motocryl (left) was definitely more saturated than the PPG (right). Both were fine with me.

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More importantly, did the new paint solve the quality issues?

No, it was still a fail.

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In my despair, I only saw three possibilities.
  1. Despite having some experience, and my best efforts, I truly sucked at painting (possible)
  2. This paint sucked too (less likely)
  3. My equipment sucked (possible)
Then, after yet another panel painting attempt, I removed the spray gun from the air line coupler with a pop, and when this happened I felt a few water droplets hit my hand..

Could it be, that despite never (knowingly) having moisture issues with my equipment before, and never having paint quality issues before, and having implemented both an after-cooler and multi-stage moisture filtering, that there actually was moisture in the lines? After some investigation I found that yes, that was the case. I felt like an idiot.

Now being a slightly more educated idiot, I set out to correct the situation. The solution only had to address the indoor air system as I didn't use the larger outdoor compressor when painting. To do so, I implemented the following modifications:

  1. DIY air "chiller" - A heat exchanger mounted over the AC unit
  2. Additional copper piping (much of it not visible)
  3. Higher quality particulate/water separator
  4. Desiccant filter (replaced a 2nd water separator)
  5. Electronic auto-tank drain + water separator on exhaust to avoid recycling moisture
  6. Secondary power switch to let after-cooler/head cooling fan (not visible, mounted behind compressor) run continuously

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Using an infrared thermometer, I confirmed the DIY chiller resulted in a significant temperature drop. This let the moisture separator work more effectively, while the desiccant filter and Motor Guard submicronic filter caught the rest.

Finally, success.

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MountainD

Technical Excellence Contributor
I always advocate cool, dry air And when folks saw how much pipe I ran just to cool it, people scratched head—I dig your cooling radiator, wish I did that. Folks underestimate It. It’ll be interesting now which paint you’ll go with now….I sort of prefer that motocryl
 
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