# achieving a smooth finish with paint



## mac1012 (5 Aug 2013)

hi just general question I paint some of my clocks with emulsion paint and I looking at how best to achieve a smooth finish , I have tried using a roller which produces a good finish but is a bit of a faff and wastes a lot of paint in the roller as I only do a couple of clocks at a time I use a small roller for radiator with a gloss sleeve I could do with something more miniature than that if it exists I have tried brushing again with pretty good results and is more simpler and cost effective than roller 

just wondered if any one uses those foam pads I seen at like axminster and hobbies , another thought i had was a modelling spray gun with a homemade booth but the compressors are a bit expensive or I might try a self propelled system like what revell make 

any feed back or ideas would be great thanks 

mark


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## MIGNAL (6 Aug 2013)

Putting on paint isn't unlike putting on Varnish. Good preparation and good brush should get you a very high quality finish. Don't forget that you can sand between coats to get a very flat surface. You should be looking at something like 800G paper.
Those foam brushes work well with varnish. They should also work well with Paint and they are cheap enough to try. I can get a dead flat, mirror like surface using foam brushes and varnish. It's a bit of work but there's no reason why you can't do similar with paint. Most of this is technique rather than expensive equipment. Spraying is fine but is a usually a lot more involved (equipment wise) than a simple foam brush. Spraying is more suited to production runs of items.


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## mac1012 (6 Aug 2013)

thanks for your reply , yeah the foam brushes are for paint (I think ) I have tried a good quality brush ,roller but with me brushes start going a bit stiff after a while don't want to spend a lot of time on each piece but a lot of work has gone into getting the piece up to high quality I am leaning towards trying a badger airbrush system as sometimes I will have 4 or 5 clocks of the same colour and may work better the clocks are around 9 nches and I paint the front sides and back and it can get bit awkward when trying to paint all over with a brush 

my thinking with a booth I can set it up and spray front and sides without having to man handle the piece and when dry flip over and do the back ,I guess it may take a few coats as I guess it probably will go on fairly fine but I can just leave the air brush and just go back to it where as now I am continually washing out brushes between coats and bit of dry paint getting mixed in the pot always seem to haunt me !!

may try the revel that you can use canister with and see what results I get I don't need a big system as clocks are not that big 

mark


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## thick_mike (6 Aug 2013)

mac1012":3nnogg9f said:


> thanks for your reply , yeah the foam brushes are for paint (I think ) I have tried a good quality brush ,roller but with me brushes start going a bit stiff after a while don't want to spend a lot of time on each piece but a lot of work has gone into getting the piece up to high quality I am leaning towards trying a badger airbrush system as sometimes I will have 4 or 5 clocks of the same colour and may work better the clocks are around 9 nches and I paint the front sides and back and it can get bit awkward when trying to paint all over with a brush
> 
> my thinking with a booth I can set it up and spray front and sides without having to man handle the piece and when dry flip over and do the back ,I guess it may take a few coats as I guess it probably will go on fairly fine but I can just leave the air brush and just go back to it where as now I am continually washing out brushes between coats and bit of dry paint getting mixed in the pot always seem to haunt me !!
> 
> ...



You can swap cleaning out brushes for cleaning out spray guns. Which ever way you paint there will be some waste (just the same as when you do woodworking there are off cuts). Spraying is actually quite inefficient at getting paint from the tin onto the part you are trying to coat. I'd be surprised if you could get more than 50% transfer efficiency especially on small objects. The advantage is that you can get a flat even coat with care and the object dries slightly quicker due to evaporation of solvent from the spray mist.

Give the rattle cans a go first as a low cost way of trialling spray painting before going to the spray gun system. It will give you an idea of the advantages and disadvantages of spraying. Check out some spray painting tutorials on youtube too.


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## david123 (6 Aug 2013)

Make sure that the clocks are in a warm dust free environment, warm the paint so it is nice and runny (Pop it on a radiator or sit it in warm water),and apply . One other thing is to use a P1500 wet and dry paper between coats (make sure the paint is completely dry) spray on the water and lightly sand. it should come out like glass, if that is the effect you want.


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## mac1012 (6 Aug 2013)

david I take it you mean this method is by paint brush ? then spray water on and sand wth wet and dry ? so will this get rid of any brush marks ?

to answer the other point its not about the wastage its about making it a more efficient way of painting them and a better finish I know there will be clean up of air brush but my point was between coats I can just leave it and then come back when dry and do another coat apart from a quick flush of nozzle 

yeah I might try some acrylic sparay cans if I can get the colours iwant never thought of that 

mark


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## marcros (6 Aug 2013)

Mark,

You could have a read of this refillable-aerosols-t69174.html?hilit=%20aerosol

mixed opinions, but may be worth thinking about


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## david123 (6 Aug 2013)

Hi Mac
by making sure everything is warm and the surface is smooth, using light brush strokes the paint should find its own level and run into the troughs made by the hairs of the brush, the wet and dry technique removes any negative movement of the wood fibers after first application of the damp paint.
Hope that helped. 
Keep us informed of your progress.


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## mailee (6 Aug 2013)

I think if you go down the airbrush route it will take a lot of work as an airbrush needs the paint to be pretty thin to spray hence lots of coats to cover. Best way for spraying would be a compressor and a touch up gun for that size of item. Of course then it would mean spending on a small compressor to power it. Sorry to put a damper on it.


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## mac1012 (7 Aug 2013)

that's ok no damper received I been looking into compressors etc I going to do a bit more research I prob going to use some acrylic sprays found a nice range on internet from a art supplies 

http://www.londongraphics.co.uk/product ... /20/page/1


have a good range of colours and quite reasonable the colour I want which is a duck egg blue is hard to find and it is my most popular colour that customers like.

so your saying compressor and touch up brush can you expand what you mean by type of compressor and and the type of touch up brush please 

mark


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## mailee (8 Aug 2013)

This is a touch up gun Mark. i can recommend the make as I have three of the bigger guns by this company.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HVLP-touch-up ... 0813919468
You would also need a compressor of this size to run it, but not a bad price for the size.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wolf-Sioux-24 ... 1141516157
This would give you the complete set up for under £150. It is also HVLP which means less overspray and more of the paint on the job with a better coverage. HTH. :wink:


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## NikonD80 (9 Aug 2013)

If you're considering spraying then you need to make sure you have a decent area to spray in and a quality face mask. The paint dust can be terrible and it gets everywhere. I let a friend of mine use my workshop to spray his Dalek in and I was cleaning paint dust off of everything for weeks afterwards despite having covered everything with dust sheets.

All the paint you buy will almost certainly be too thick so you also have to allow for thinning the paint to the right consistency - and getting the correct thinner. You'll have to clean that out too every time you use the sprayer - I now mix my paint in those cheap disposable paper cups to avoid this and do my spraying with an Earlex HVLP sprayer but I only spray large items. Personally, I think an air compressor can be a worthwhile investment - especially when you consider all the tools and vacuum bags you'll be able to use with it.

If you 'just' want to power an airbrush though, you might find a look at this website useful.
http://www.everythingairbrush.com/index.html


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## rafezetter (19 Aug 2013)

I have both large and scale hobby compressors for airbrushing, and depending on the size of the clocks you paint - the hobby sized compressors and airbrushes like ones in that last link will actually cover a fair bit. I've painted items as large as a 12"x12"x12" box with my hobby airbrush - yes it took longer and more refills, but consider these things:

Hobby compressors are quiet enough to have indoors in the same room.
You can buy hobby airbrushes that are more like their larger variants, with bigger cupsize and single action so all you need to do is point and shoot.
Low PSI output means you have to have extremely sloppy technique to get things like paint runs.
Low PSI also means considerably less overspray into the room - I often spray scale models with no mask at all.
A hobby spray booth can be as simple as an upturned large box with one of the sides cut into a flap propped up for spraying and dropped to keep the item from picking up airborne dust in the room - and even "fancy" spraybooths can be made with a kitchen cooker extractor unit and a wood box - just google homemade spraybooths.
A hobby airbrush could with practise be used to add some very good detailing to the clocks like pinstriping and far easier than doing it by hand - it could also be used to add motifs with stencils.

Big compressors will make your second project "making the goddamn thing quieter with aftermarket filter intakes and building a soundbox for it" - even the better range are still 80dB - and the "silent" ones are £300 and up.
Even small "touch up" guns still have a significantly wider spray pattern at correct distance - like 4" or so, because the touch-up refers to cars and vehicles where the scales are different.
Spraying emulsion paint in a larger spraygun is a PITA - the higher airflow dries it almost as it comes out leading to repeated clogging unless you use additives like floetrol, and even then you have to be VERY careful you don't over compensate by trying to flood the paint on, you'll get horrific paintruns and blending those in will become the bane of your life.
HVLP guns (High Volume Low Pressure) still put out far more overspray by comparison - you WILL need a mask without question - even with waterbased paints.
A spraybooth will need to be a small shed - or somewhere dry AND COVERED outside where you don't mind getting fine paintdust over everything within a 3 meter radius.
Spraying in an environment other than an indoor room will present problems with the paint - It's extremely inadvisable to spray in temperatures lower than 10 deg - or you might suffer things like "blooming" where the paint reacts oddly and although it dries, the finish is uneven and patchy. This in turn makes your spraying opportunites seasonal - a fact I have had to battle with constantly - it's very annoying to be unable to do any spraying on projects for months at a time.

Having said that - using a big spraygun can be a joy, larger items are the work of mere minutes and with practice the finish is excellent - and if you wet n dry a couple times and recoat, it will be as good as any Steinway piano.


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