painting (was: Re: Cromadora wheel restoration)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

bs asks:

"I've got the air compressor, the plumbing, the filter, the dryer, etc.  Any
recommendations on a gun?  I'm the type that would rather pay for a quality
tool up front, and I'll be looking to use this on a real car in the future.

"What about paint?  What's the best stuff to use on Alfa wheels (I've got some
Campagnolos, some Momos, some Ronals, I'd be happy to get them all close to
the original Campagnolo color).

"Where do you go shopping for stuff like this?"

Sikkens, the automotive paint division of Akzo Nobel, produces paint and
related materials as good as any and also has a superb color matching system
consisting of a large loose-leaf notebook with a comprehensive series of
relatively large color swatches with neat round holes in the middle of each
swatch, so that the page of 'close' swatches can be laid on the car (wheel,
whatever) in the sunlight to verify (or deny) any particular possible match.
They also of course have the usual list of car colors so you can find that
your 1968 Alfa's AR 113 Giallo Chiarese is grid F3 on sheet 434, and if age
has affected the original you can readily compare the adjacent progression.
Neat system, should do for matching a Campagnolo or whatever. They also
produce a nice Technical Reference manual covering applications of their
materials. They are at least one possible place to start looking for the
paint.

For the last decade or so the hot technology on small-shop and consumer
painting equipment has been HVLP, standing for High Volume/Low Pressure air
supply - usually at 50-60 cfm at 4-5 psi; the nice thing is that it puts most
of your expensive paint on the surface rather than in the air, your lungs,
hair, clothes, garage walls, floor, etc. A 'pure' HVLP system uses a turbine
to move volumes of air, but 'hybrid' systems use a 'conversion gun' and
appropriate hose, filter, etc to run off a standard compressor. A pure system
from Apollo, Fuji, or others will run $500-$800 or more, but conversion guns
are available from Binks, DeVilbiss and other choice brands for under $200. A
couple of DeVilbiss guns in a random catalog on my desk convert 23 psi and
11.4 cfm from the compressor into 10 psi at the tip, $199.99 for gravity feed
or $179.99 for siphon feed; the $500 Fuji moves 100 cfm at 5 psi - more of the
results you want for more investment up front. Given that you can put $500
worth of paint into the environment to put $100 worth onto the car, HVLP can
be a real economy.

YMMV

John H.

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