yeh even the experts can screw up a metallic. Miniac's (cam brown)'s car had a bit of [overspray] (i think) on the boot. Themetallic flakes are denser in one spot on the bonnet, and it looks kind of bad.

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I'm in the same boat (wanting to respray my mini) and have decided to leave it to the professionals. Although I am going to strip it back to bare metal and attempt to get rid of any rust.

You may find that you'll save a fair bit if you do all the paint stripping yourself - it's relatively easy to do but a lot of work.

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By the looks of this thread, there is some haste on the how to I was going to have ready asap for ya all. Have been interstate on a few jobs, and home now, will get stuck into something for ya to read. As Mike said, 30mins read will just have you talking the talk, but its walking the walk that you really need, that takes time. IMHO I would give Paint supplies Sa a call and go in and see them, they have loads of paint going cheap. I just got nearly 12ltrs of asttd colours and at a great price also. I am going to be spraying Ed Met. Hot Green and will add my own pearls and ally paste till I get What I want.
Paint Supplies Sa has Glasurit going out for $15 /ltr, and then ou will want an ISO free 2pk Clear from em, it cost me $125 for a 3ltr pack including hardner. Ample for our mini's. Glasurit is what the Europeans are using for the BMW and Merc. PS, I should update the pics for Ed, he's comin on nicely, will be preeping for paint this weekend and next week. Yay for the holidays......



Not true.... Etch prime only if you are going bare metal. Autocryl or nearly any other HB pimer Will be fine. I only use 2pk primer if I want to get the job done asap and it also sands quicker from time of being sprayed.






Metalic like and mica paints are east to spray once you have a steady hand. Even strokes and criss-cross paterns are the way to spray mica paints. After every few minutes I swish the pot around to keep the mica well mixed so as not to let any settling occur. The aditive to be wary about is the candies and the met flakes in both powder form and liquid mix. I but all my pearls from Protec and is relatively cheap, I buy it in tubs which range from $35 - $70. Duo yellow/green is fun to try, especially overBlues and reds. Pearls can be added to your Acrylic, 2pack and all the clears. I find that adding to your base coat gives depth of colour, then a combination of met and duo pearl in a contrasting colour for the clear gives the wow factor. Red pearl over Green Base mixed with Gold pearl and duo grn/yellow will be what I am doing.


Only if using a cheap and nasty will this happen. Ed will have acrylic base coat specifically made for 2pk clear. There are many brands out there that have this system, try to stick with ISO free 2pk Clear, it will keep things healthy and in check.
The only time Acrylic will blister and shif on you like mike said is that if you have painted acrylic over 2pk without keying in the surface, ie rubbing the whole car down with at least 240 before your primer. I have seen people take shortcuts and spray base over original paint with Acryl and then wonder why they have got frying when 2 pack is sprayed over that. The answer is clear, When 2 pk hardens, it also shrinks to make a rock hard porous free surface, which if there is no sound base, will pull it out of whack. Presto, you have a custom fried effect, somehow not concours winning I'm afraid.

There is allot more work getting the bling out of a full gloss acrylic than there is in spraying 2pk.
My 2c worth.....

ps: mitre 10 has these on sale, and make a perfect bug free spray-booth...
http://www.mitre10.com.au/onSale/cataloguesDec/cat02.pdf
Have bought one for the very reason of getting the perfect finish outdoors, I use 2 pedestall fans on the outside of the screen as my airflow. Also from Mitre10 at $16 ea. Can't go wrong with that huh....

So Collins, if wanted a shinier finish, I could rub back my acrylic paint to get rid of the gloss and give a rough feel (say 240 grit?) then get it professionally clear coated in 2pak, would that be possible, would it work and would it last? I wouldn't do it now as the back end of my car has bad orange peel still and im gonna rubb it back and re-spray it (it's bad orange peel).

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1964 Morris 850, 1330 Supercharged - 81.8hp atws.
1975 Leyland Mini S 1100S powered - Nice and reliable.
1977 Leyland Mini LS - Project LS-T

Do you know what the manufactur is of your acryl? I would certainly investigate the path of clear coating, if, and only if the acryl is a system that will allow for clear over base. My guess is that it won't be suitable. The 2pk clear over base system using acryl as base is as I said, a system that is made for 2 pack. Yes it is acrylic, but it has diferent properties t allow for a clear coat. Did you spray the car yourself to the point it is at already? if so, it would be worth noting what primer/undercaot you used also. Start with 1000, and make your way down to 2000 for your orange peel. colour rubbing takes time, but worth doing slowly, last thing you want to do is break through the colour, acryl patching can look nasty.

Not sure the brand, but I think it wouldn't be top quality paint. Undercoat is just arcylic primer on msot of the car but the doors have a lot of primer filler due to wavy body, it gave a good surface to sand down. The whole car is cut and polished and stuff and looks pretty nice (pic in sig and like to car domain). I will cut the back down to get rid of the bad bits. As the rear was worse than the rest of the car, most likely due to being in the sunlight when I painted (I learnt a lesson there!). I think I will stay with my acrylic, for simplicity and ease of use, as I am untaught, all learnt as I went along with some advice from others. I think I'll give a few 'good' jobs a go before I attempt to get a 'great' job. But it's good to know that these things are possible with 2pak.

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1964 Morris 850, 1330 Supercharged - 81.8hp atws.
1975 Leyland Mini S 1100S powered - Nice and reliable.
1977 Leyland Mini LS - Project LS-T

discolouration while painting outdoors is not from sunlight, UV is the best thing you can have while painting, the discolouration may be from either humidity in the air which makes your job go slightly milky, or when you painted, you sprayed the ground down with water to stop dust on a hot day (again humdidty). There really is nothing wrong with Acryl's, as a finish coat, they are easy to patch if done correctly, but a swine to cut...