Did you do anything to coat or treat your fuel tank prior to installation?
Did you do anything to coat or treat your fuel tank prior to installation?
One thing that I did with paint was to run about 50' of pipe to adequately cool off and condense water in my line as it can lead to orange peel. Driers do work, but on hot air, you still have issues. I went with a dryer out of the compressor and one at the gun. Outside of that, keep the gun 90° to the work and it doesn't hurt to run it off the work before going the other direction so you don't deposit too much paint at the turn around point and cause runs. I was really decent at the end of my painting when I did the 90.... wish I was as good when I started it though!
So what ever happened? I sure hope this thread does not die because of paint?
Bring it on! Love itHa no, not at all. I've just been terrible at updating the thread, though I consider it often. I essentially do nothing but work, work on this, work on projects that spawned from this, and spend time with my boys. I've probably got over 100 photos of progress backlogged for this thread. Some photos are years old at this point (sub-projects that need completed), but most are more recent. Good (and absurd) things are coming.
With the weather turning towards fall, I feel like this is a good time for an update. Originally I'd hoped to complete the project by fall, but that certainly hasn't happened. After the rolling chassis and drivetrain were complete the project reached a point of near-paralysis, where despite having loads of parts in waiting, none of them could be utilized. It really came down to one roadblock, paint. Parts either needed to be painted first to be fitted, or needed to be fitted to something that needed to be painted. This had to be figured out.
I've dabbled in painting enough to know that obtaining a factory quality (or better) exterior finish is very difficult as a DIYer with limited resources. The required skill, equipment, and safety considerations are just beyond what is practical for most people. For that reason I'd originally planned to save a lot of time and effort by outsourcing it to a local custom autobody shop. We had agreed on a very reasonable $3000 to paint all the parts, which would require minimal prep due to being new or prepped myself. However this negotiation was early-pandemic, and by the time I was actually ready to go, the price had ballooned to over $10,000. This isn't astronomical in terms of custom paint jobs, but when the job involves minimal prep (the majority of the labor), that has already cost a fortune, and is being applied to a 4x4 that will be used, I couldn't justify it.
(once again)
I contacted every paint shop in the area and none of them would even offer a competing quote - they were either too busy or only wanted warranty work. Having exhausted all options I was left with the realization that I'd have to do it all myself, a daunting task. I didn't have the space, the equipment, the time, or most importantly the skill, to confidently expect good results, but I had to give it a go.
Space
Paint tent 1.0, seen here, was destroyed by a storm.
Paint tent 2.0, seen here, was also destroyed by a storm.
Paint tent 3.0 would have to be improved. It would need to be larger, better lighted, better ventilated, and better thermally regulated. I started by purchasing a 12x12 tent, large enough to do a 90 tub. Then I added an external diesel heater, hanging IR heater, and experimented with insulation techniques (seen below).
View attachment 28443View attachment 28444
Filtered intake to deliver clean airflow.
View attachment 28445
Remote temperature and humidity monitoring device and 360 degrees of LED lighting.
View attachment 28446
Equipment
Lacking 220v in the shop, I have two 110v air compressors: one in the shop which is quiet, compact, and maybe 50% duty cycle, and another outside which is loud, larger, and 100% duty cycle. I plumbed both together and built an after-cooler out of a transmission cooler and and industrial fan to deliver enough dry cool air. Downstream I have a centrifugal filter, Motor Guard M100 filter, and a large diaphragm regulator. All fittings are high-flow and the final hose is the light-weight hybrid type that makes maneuvering a paint gun easier.
For paint guns I have a 0.8mm gun for Cerakote, 1.3mm HTE gun for epoxy primer, 2.5mm gravity gun for undercoating, and 1.4mm LVLP and 1.5mm HVLP guns for urethane topcoats.
For safety, I rely on a 3M full-face respirator, Tyvek paint suit, and the newly improved ventilation in the tent.
Altogether this is about the minimum to do what I need. Most of this I already had - supplies are where I really had to invest. More on that later.
Skill
I had some experience but really needed to improve on it to tackle this. I started by watching every pro-painting video on youtube that I could find time for and joined a few online autobody forums. Then I proceeded to paint test panels repeatedly until I could achieve consistent results. This took much longer than expected. More on that next time.
I don’t agree. A metallic grey defender looks like it was built in 2010, and that’s not a compliment. A white defender is timeless.Looking dated is the point…
I'm with you on the metallic grey but I have a friend in town that has an Arles Blue NAS that's a little faded and scratched and it looks just right 👌. I think the greens do that as well - they get that dated look as JimC said as they get used.I don’t agree. A metallic grey defender looks like it was built in 2010, and that’s not a compliment. A white defender is timeless.
Fair, but I think Keswick is one of those good classic colors.I don’t agree. A metallic grey defender looks like it was built in 2010, and that’s not a compliment. A white defender is timeless.