Painting Basics & Techniques - Part 1 of 2 with Kevin Tetz - Eastwood

excellent

techniques

gun handling

techniques

gun setup handling air hoses sequencing a paint job and we will also talk about many other things like airline systems the importance of filtration the importance of air volume rather than air pressure air so the other one can cool down The thing is, below this you'll see icons appear that talk about some of the equipment and tools that I'm going to have there, all available at Eastwood and some of them are for sale. You can find all this. at East was so I just want to let you know in advance that the other cool thing is that you can actually feel questions, you can talk to us and at the end of this presentation we will answer some of those questions.

You guys having a switch is one of the beautiful things about what we're doing, we're alive, it's like it's a news report, we're live here and it's great to be a

part

of this if you don't know who. Heck, I'm Kevin Gusto. I own, operate and produce the Patron Location series. I also do some television shows. I do the truck show on Spike and I just want to say out loud that I am a very good painter. That might sound. almost full of things like that, but there is a reason why I can say that I am a very good painter is because I have painted thousands of cars, it is not because I have God's gift of

painting

, you guys, anyone can be a very good painter.

Repetition is conscious thought that is muscle memory and that is what it is, you must pay attention to the rules, set it up correctly and do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to practice, practice, practice, practice , and you, if you are a beginner, if you are a professional you improve, it is muscle memory, so when I say that I am a very good painter because I have done it a lot, so all you have to do to improve your skills is practice. Let's get started, we're going to talk a little bit here about air compressors.

Now the air compressor is the heart of your workshop. I'll say it again. The air compressor is the most difficult workshop. Everything else depends one hundred percent on the quality and volume of air you are taking out here are some requirements I hope you have a notepad if you don't these presentations are available for download later you can view them later and you can take some notes because there are many important things. The minimum is that you need to paint an entire car, you need at least a five horsepower compressor, a two-stage air compressor, preferably with a cast iron pump, a minimum 60 gallon tank and you are Talking about spending some money. you have to have the right amount of air volume, air pressure doesn't matter when

painting

, more air pressure is for your tires, it's a totally different set of equipment and systems, CFM air volume is key and when you read the guns, which ones are required to have CFM, it is not pressed between 12 and 13 cm, some of the lower drawings some of these two guns pull less, but he hears the difference, he can see the difference in the inner diameter of this and this tube , ok, you can have the same air pressure or the same volume of air pressure in both pipes and the volume coming out of the end of this is much greater than the volume coming out of the end of this, so the volume is that atomizes and breaks. paint so you can breathe through a straw or you can breathe through a sewer pipe, breathing through a sewer pipe is easier and it's easier to paint, so think about that analogy when you're setting up your system , now that you have your air compressor I wanted to show you something else, this is what I'm plumbing my main paint shop with.

It's a system I got from Eastwood and it has a three quarter inch bore airline and the fittings are really cool, there are push lock style fittings. which has an O-ring system and a wild that compresses at the top and makes short work and ensures that your airline route is very, very easy and the system that I have has a hundred feet of blue hose and it has several fittings several joints, several joints and the good thing is that it's flexible, so you can avoid a lot of the need for four. Look what you can do with it and it's lightweight aluminum with a nylon membrane and it's really versatile so I highly recommend it again.

Also available is this wood, let's talk about filtration, you have to have clean air, you have to have a lot of air, but you have to have clean air, so this is the little ball filter that you can buy and these ones that you can screw on. on the end of the paint gun and this will filter out some of the residue. I don't recommend it, only this helps if you have a problem, sometimes this can solve it on the fly, don't depend on this, to save your paint job, this is called a desiccant snake, it is full of desiccant, now let's explain this again in just a second, so wait, this goes in line with your air system and it has silica inside it that will absorb moisture that it doesn't have.

Not compressing it doesn't interfere with its CFM delivery, so it's a good solution if you're painting a limited amount and it's relatively inexpensive. When they wear out, you replace them and then you go into your different regulators and filter this out. it's just a regulator with a pressure gauge without any filter, it has a filter, you can mount a pressure gauge and mount it in line with the regulator, you should have a regulator to get the air pressure to where you want, this is the mack daddy of all this this is a multi-stage three state desiccant system now desiccant is this is not silicon under silica what are silica beads that absorb moisture and it works extremely well these packs or what you get with modern electronics when you buy a television when you buy a computer they are all packed everyone has seen them they fly out of the box you throw them in the trash they are the same thing it is in this and they will be in your can in line in your air supply and they will filter out the moisture this is multi-stage these two are designed to trap in

part

icular this is designed to trap moisture and you again you have to have clean air you have to have a lot of air but you have to have cleaner so think about systems like this now I want to make something very clear if you buy this and you don't install it correctly you are wasting your money, so if you're not going to install it correctly, don't do it.

I'm not even bothering you, just know, throw caution to the wind, this is what I'm talking about, what happens when air is compressed, it's a piston, like a super hot one designed, that the air when it comes out of the manifold is hot, so if you put your relatively expensive desiccant system right on the collector or a couple of feet from the collector, that air is still full of moisture and it goes over the filters, it doesn't separate, so what you have to do is sit it on the At least 20 feet, preferably 50 feet away from the hot collector of your air compressor and you could be saved.

I'm in a big garage. I want to plummet. I'm in a small store. I'm not 50 feet, I'm just 30 feet. The walls here are something that now does not crumble with PVC. I want to say it out loud from the beginning. This is PVC and I made this piece just for demonstration purposes, so what you can do to reduce the distance is go up and down and up and down. now this is 10 inches here, that's 20 feet of three-quarter inch inside diameter pipe, so if you were to double this, you would have 40 feet of dry air to give the air the ability to separate itself from the moisture with this and Also it gives you the opportunity to mount a ball valve bridge drain valve down here and get the water out and be able to evacuate so it doesn't fill up with water, so thanks to your way through these things, you can fool the distance with something like this. hook it up and down, you don't have to have a 50 foot wall so keep that in mind when planning your airline system, let's get to the good stuff, let's start talking about the spray guns before we move on to the demonstrations of the pistols.

One of the questions that keeps coming up and we've talked about this with the Eastern guys before planning this presentation is the gun settings, the air pressure settings, yes, you have to have the right pressure and the gun. recommends 10 pounds of air cap, it almost makes me angry that gun manufacturers say 10 pounds of air cap because for you and me there is no way to verify that it is 10 pounds on the cap, it is not an indicator on the gun and There is no trim gauge on the inlet to measure the air pressure at the cap, what you have to do is factor the air inlet pressure here now, ten pounds on the cap, a general rule of thumb is that will give you between 30 and 34 pounds on the intake, so when they say ten pounds on the air cap, don't even worry about that, worry about the air intake pressure, which is the pressure that goes to the bottom of your gun.

This is what people say, well I set my air pressure but when I pulled the trigger everything malfunctions when you set the air pressure make sure the triggers are fully depressed and if you have a wall regulator or a regulator on your gun, pull the trigger and let the air pass through it, it's pressure. It's set up with the device wide open, so keep that in mind too now, what am I doing with these things stuck to my extended paint guns, stupid, but is there a method to this madness? These are what I call dry training guides and they are perfect.

To learn weapons handling techniques, as I said right away, it is muscle memory, its repetition, and these give you the opportunity to understand what it feels like to be in strange and uncomfortable positions without even a little liquid passing through the paint. gun let me show you what I'm talking about now the bristles the bristles of this brush represent where I want my spray gun on the surface and this right here is a Ferrari in case you're wondering now what I'm doing I'm practicing my technique keeping the bristles barely touching the surface and I can practice my overlap and I can practice the movement.

I can do a test run on the panel to see if I'm going to step over it, but the most important thing is that up here on my wrist I'm feeling what it feels like when I'm in the right position in a nice comfort zone using the right technique on my wrist. okay I'm going to hear my wrist is broken isn't it so I'm not sweeping I'm going linear and my wrist is broken so the brush on the end of the gun is a beautiful training tool and it's amazing how effective it is for you, it really turns on the light bulb. to know exactly where your surfaces are in relation to your spray gun takes a lot of pressure off of you.

Another great idea is this guy here. The reason is that sometimes it's easy to get lazy with our spray technique now that I'm lazy with my spray pattern. It's like that when I'm pointing the gun at the panel and my pattern is obviously going to get very heavy on the bottom and very light on the top and have a tiger stripe, it's going to be inconsistent, it's not. It's going to be what I want and this gives me the ability to challenge myself and keep my gun perpendicular to the surface. 90 degree spray pattern parallel to the surface, so again it's a dry training guide to show me if I'm off in one direction. or the other and it allows me to memorize this natural position that I'm going to get the best painting results in, so keep that in mind when you're spraying paint rehearsing Ron Covell talks about being excuse me when you're welding, rehearsing to get your comfort zone so developing your muscle memory before you start painting and before you start welding and painting is no different at all, you want to be in a comfort zone, what I'm talking about is the comfort zone, I don't want to be. out here going crazy painting here and I don't want to go here like this, I want to have your own, where I have control, painting is about control, controlling your air, your gun, your fluid and your surface, so if I'm here if I'm out of control, I take a step and get into the comfort zone, so keep that in mind too.

I'm following an outline now because we want to make sure you have time for your questions, so I'll check this out from time to time. Okay, we've talked about the spray gun technique. Let's talk about the air hose technique and why it is important. I'll show you something else to consider besides your CFM on your air compressor. How many CFM is your air hose? I don't recommend anything longer than a 25 foot air hose because it experiences pressure drop with distance. The other thing that is very, very important is to maintain a 38 bore air line and three-eighths ID fittings that these are not five-sixteenths are not three-eighths the difference between this and the professional spray gun setup that I have.

In my cabin it is day and night. I have seen a stinging difference in this in the length of the spray pattern. going to three-eighths ID fittings, it's very important for a good spray delivery effect, so what I'm talking about with the air hose, no one is really going to do this unless you forget when I'm here, I guess. what's my air hose, do it, it's touching the panel and at least I'm not going totrashing what I'm about to paint or worst case I'm dragging my air hose into the wet paint is not good so this is what I recommend, take your air hose, place it over the shoulder, that's not good enough because look what happens, it can disconnect from the shoulder, guide it with the other hand and you're using a kind of push survey, you're controlling your environment.

There you go my boys and as I am you see what I am doing while I am increasing my distance from my body I am feeding the aerial host when I return I am removing it it takes a little time to memorize it but it is very important to do it just think about this things in rocket science , but it requires some thought and some repetition, let's put this here, let's talk about the weapon setup now that we know what we're going to paint, we know what we're going to paint with and the way this is, this is how we It was the esplanade, it is a very good piece of equipment from the evolution weapons or what you just saw, they are very cost-effective and they are good weapons.

I use them when I'm tired when shooting. and I'm very happy with the results, sometimes even the best spray guns can get a ridiculous pattern just because of maintenance and things that build up on the air horns and things like that, so here this is a representation, this is a pattern elliptical. what you want to see this is like the shape of a football and that's what you want to see with your spray gun now if so if it's heavy on each side and light in the middle that means you're blowing it with air pressure your boot is too high, some of the spray guns only want 20lbs on entry, 20 to 30lbs is typical, so you have a chance to try on some kind of take off piece or a piece of cardboard like this, Set up your spray gun. before you paint your car, it's like you're welding a piece of scrap metal tight before you put the side panel on, so this one here means it's heavy on one side and heavy on the other side, but it's cyclical, it's a curve like that normally what that means is one of the air horns is blocked these are the air horns on the tip of the spray gun now one of them could be crusted over and blocked so you know it's a simple matter of cleaning it but that is what I'll tell you, so look, look at this: this is the digital air pressure gauge.

This thing is Nate. If you have to have a pressure gauge on the end of your gun, this allows you to adjust it on the fly and is very accurate, so we. We're going to stick with a pretty low pressure, we've got about 20 for the entry, so let's do it, let's try it, so what do we have there? We've got the perfect elliptical pattern, we've got the football right there, man, the reason why This is because we allow the spray gun to do what it's designed to do. I have the fan completely open. I have the fluid supply fully open.

That's not to say you have to shoot like this all the time, but that's the optimal setting for me. Now we have an air volume adjustment on the bottom of the gun body, which is nice to have if you want to adjust on the fly. here, if you're going to get into some tight gaps, it's nice to have. that and here's your smooth delivery here's your fan that's a fan that's the blue delivery so look what happens when I modify and I want to improvise is that my pattern starts to disappear and what will have you right there if it's going to run for everywhere place, you know, we're not doing collages or artwork, we're painting cars and we want a good overlap so you can, if you have a cylinder to go in, it's very unusual that I recommend that you throttle your fan pattern down and it is very unusual for me to recommend that you throttle the fluid supply downwards.

Here's why look what I'm doing there. It's foggy. What's going to happen is I'm going to get a rough surface. I want a flat surface. I want a flat surface. the pain flows and self-levels, so I want to make sure I let the expensive spray gun do what it's designed to do. I know some of you are saying that this idiot is showing me how to spray paint that he doesn't do. I don't have any safety equipment here. I want to show you something: this is acrylic craft paint. I'm not being dangerous here, there is no overspray in the air because this is a high quality HVLP gun, it hasn't given me any overspray and this is water. - now when we do some excess craft paint, of course, I'll put on a mask nicely.

I want to make sure you understand that I am doing this for demonstration purposes only and that it is a safe way to demonstrate. These techniques for you guys, so always keep safety at the forefront. These chemicals that were used when it's time to paint are dangerous and dangerous to handle and ingest into our body, so be careful and this is actually a good tip for you guys, also get some craft paint. It's not as expensive, certainly not as expensive as car paint, and it allows them to play with their equipment, set things up, and get a feel for what they're doing. so let's talk about overlap what am I talking about with overlap that's a universal spray technique you want a 50 percent overlap what am I talking about that I've made a pass there a 50 percent overlap means I'm moving up to the half fifty percent of that pass and backing up so this way fifty percent overlap down fifty percent overlap down fifty percent overlap down now I'm stopping and starting and you can see what's happening too , you don't want to do that Because it builds up a lot on the edges, I stopped and started so I could talk to you guys and show you guys, but you guys don't stop and start fluid delivery when you're painting to relieve the trigger because you can keep going. the air circulates at the same time you're delivering paint so here's your technique it's not perfect it's the first layer is black on the light substrate so that's what I'm talking about fifty percent overlap you want that your vehicle looks like it's been submerged, you don't want random dry spots and a 50 percent overlay or some type of overlay helps you build that code from point to point, so it's very, very important to perfect your overlay and paying attention to what you are doing and gun handling techniques will allow you to be in a nice comfortable position in your comfort zone while you do it talking about comfort your hand this is your guy this is what your eyes are telling you to move through your brain, so here's your standard prone position for a spray gun, if I want to pay a lot on a pickup truck or something, if I keep the same hand position, it's ridiculous, I'll get a heavy pattern on a side, so here's something I've learned over the years: you can change the position of your hand, look how my wrist is broken, there you can change the position of your hand to suit what you're trying to spray, so I just suggested the position of my hand and as I'm going down, I'm unlocking my wrist and now I'm in a prone position.

The same goes for going a little lower. I usually kneel. I'm old. I am old as the earth. My knees hurt. I no longer want to kneel on a concrete floor when I was in my twenties. I'm not like that anymore, so what I've also learned to do is adjust my spray gun and when I touch it. this, but my palm on the controls now guesses what I can do. I'm down here and I have a parallel pattern like this, perfect, so if I don't want to bend over like this, on my knees and get my comfort zone I can do a quick adjustment of my hand and go from the prone position to this position here and I have a perfect technique, so keep that in mind when moving around in a larger vehicle, so we talked about the overlap we talked about.

How to Set Up Your Gun Properly We've talked about the proper techniques for handling your air hose. Here is something that is very important. I want to talk to you about the sequence of a paint job. Here's the analogy of wanting your car to look like it's been flipped over. although you've grabbed the blankets and pulled them up from your feet to your neck in one continuous layer, I'm sorry if that's silly, that's just what it got me thinking, but you have to sequence your paint job into a full jumpsuit and This appears a lot in the forms on the website.

I visit Eastwood's online restoration forum. Where do you end up? Where do you start? Let's talk about how to sequence a paint job, but can we decide to go over that side? Okay, okay, now keep in mind that this is my Mustang RC, it's clear and I'm going to be drawn all over the place, so obviously in this frame you can't move the car, but this is what I'm talking about. Now I always start at the roof of the vehicle in general, there are a couple different reasons why normally the airflow comes from the top down and creates a wrap around the vehicle, even in a semi choked or cross paint.

In the cockpit, the top surfaces will be affected first if I shoot the sides and then go up to do the top last. I've got wet paint here that I have the potential to mess up, so when I start here and then work the vehicle and go up here by the time I go back to the second coat on that top, well, it's probably drying so I can start over and it's gone. I risk messing up my sides, so the sequence I learned Over the years, I call now that this is in the Asian Patriot video series.

I go into great detail in the videos to demonstrate this, but I'm going to go ahead and do it here, basically what I do is I start. I like the driver's side. I want to start on the driver's side and do what is called a push-pull method. I'm going to explain very clearly push-pull on a Ferrari right here, so what I do is step number one, I paint from the edge from the drip. Now a lot of guys start from the middle and work their way down. I don't like, I don't like to do that because you get a dry spray in the middle and it gravels the paint, so push, push. to the middle now we jump to the other side and we start from the middle where it's still wet we grab that wet edge and we drag it through step number two now I'm taking a jump, I'm taking a jump and that's what it means you're going side to side, side to side, and you're creating a wet surface that grows across the car, so step one, step two, I'm jumping back to the driver's side quarter panel and painting my fourth, as usual. start from the bottom and work your way up because that allows me to push through the side so I'm going to go up here directly to the sail panel and then eat the process to the other quarter panel and paid from the bottom one up it doesn't rest on my door gap and I'll explain that in a moment and I paid for my other quarter panel and since I have a shim here that I was on right now I can paint my way across that back deck. because I can easily reach it from the rear bumper position now I can reach it with my wedge now that I have this I lift the rear panel and I paint the rear panel now I'm jumping back to hear my edge Here it's still wet enough to where I lift the door and I twisted as I climbed through the door past the panel gap.

There is a very good reason for that, beyond the panel gap and it makes sense to stop and start at the panel gap because it naturally breaks the car, however due to surface tension you will have a lot of build up in that gap. If you are making a metal or a candy, it can really bite you in the buns and make sure you see it. transition, you don't want that, so I stroke it past the spaces of my panels and jump to the other side. I hope you get the picture and let's paint our way up to this door again again, the shepherd's panel space, so now what we have.

It's what's called the doghouse, it's the front of the car, this edge is still wet because I was there less than a minute ago, but now it's dry enough to pick up the wedge and I kept moving forward, so I pick up the fender job. my way around the wheel and I push my way through the same way I did on the roof and this is the push and pull method, you push to the middle and then you pick up the middle on the other side, you walk, you pick it up . up and you take it off the wedge and you keep it in a continuous overlap down until you've crossed the entire doghouse and this edge here is still wet enough that you can have this continuous liner and if you have a fascia grill bottom, pick up the dry edges there and you have a continuous code on that paint job that looks like it has no dry spots, there are no transitions and you know where to go and usually when you go forward in a car it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to do a single code on a car, well there's the flash time, then you can enter the paint booth, make sure you takeyour cup again and start again, start with your second layer or your third layer.

This is how I like to sequence a paint job and here's another demonstration. Let's go over this hot rod here and we have a little bit of time so I'll go here if I stop here. This is what that space looks like. down on that door, now my paint is going to bubble up here, it's going to be very happy right there. You've seen this on original equipment cars, so if you stop and start right here, you're just accentuating that and you're building crazy layers of paint right here, right in that space, you don't want to do that, you want the first coat, maybe hold it up to here, when you come back for your second code, stretch it up to here on the third. remove it over here, make sure you get three full coats, change the position of that, that will really help you, especially with translucent or candy colors, that's a great technique if you're working on a candy walk on the side, that's an advanced technique , but this here will prevent you from running into the gaps.

Nobody likes racing, no. different in painting yes yes