Help w/ painting auto meter pod!!

Did you primer it first?

san~man said:

Did you primer it first?

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+1

When you say it faded, I'm assuming you mean that it got hazy on you. This can be caused by a few things but the main reason this happens is if you spray when it's really humid outside. The other thing that is important, is to wait the recommended flash time (time between coats) before spraying the next coat. I do my stuff with automotive paint but with rattle cans you should wait whatever time it says to on the back of the can.

I can almost assure you that it was either spraying when it was too humid (above 70-80% humidity) or applying the coats too fast.

One other thing I just thought about is that you want to make sure that you aren't spraying from too far away from the surface of what you are painting. This can cause some dulling type issues...

First off, DO NOT USE PAINT THINNER!!!!!!!!!! It will make the biggest disastrous mess you have ever seen. Plastic + thinner = melts the plastic/smears ... just not good.

Whenever you wiped it down with rubbing alcohol, did it dry? That stuff dries really quickly, so unless you wiped it down then IMMEDIATELY sprayed it, I doubt that's the problem. One thing, just as a FWIW, anything that you paint you should always scuff it first. So like before you wiped it down with rubbing alcohol, take a scotchbrite pad and scuff it up real good. That will allow the paint to adhere to the surface.

I'm gonna try to help you out and give you probably more info than you need ...... Ok, so you want to re-spray it when it's not humid or when it is the least humid time of the day. If you sprayed it when it was raining, if so, that's what caused it. I know what you mean about humidity, around here it's ridiculous too. I painted my trunk recently, at home, and had to figure out the hard way on many things. I know that is on a much larger scale but I know you want your pillar look good. So what I did was went to www.wunderground.com and used that weather site to get my predicted humidity for the day. It tells you like 6 or so times of day and the projected humidity. That's how I judged when to spray. I know thats a lot of info for something small but I thought it may help.

You should take it inside and let it dry good (not humid). After that, get a scotchbrite pad and just scuff it up. If nothing strange happens (like huge chunks of paint peel off or something) then proceed. Wipe it down with rubbing alcohol. Use paper towels. Get two and use one to wipe it on and the other to wipe it dry, know what I'm sayin? Then use a tack rag (blue one, like a dollar from an autoparts store) if you want. This removes the small dust particles that can cause fisheyes. But if you don't want to do this then it ain't the end of the world.

Find a time where the humidity is 80 percent or less and then re-spray it. It should work out fine ya do it like that. If you got any other questions, post em. Good luck and if you get frustrated, quit for a while and come back to it.


I just read that you are using bumper paint. That stuff dries relatively dull .. post a bigger pic if you can. Because you may just need to clear it.

It's all about the prep work with painting. There's a pretty good write up here at :SNSign:

The good news is that it's just hazy from the humidity. You can just scuff/sand it down a little and then re-paint it. As a general rule of thumb for painting ... Optimal conditions are less than 70 percent humidity and around 70 degrees. But you can have good results until you get above 85 percent. So, when it's raining, the humidity is 100% and the way that affects paint drying is that since the air has so much water in it, the paint can't evaporate and dry. Think of it sort of like water that's in the air traps the paint and also causes condensation to mix with the wet paint (on a small scale ya know) .. One thing that's important when painting something and it's humid is to let it dry longer than you would on a non humid day, between coats, etc.

If you are doing it in a garage, using a dehumidifier would work. The problem that you would run into is that you would not have adequate ventilation. And the VOC's put off by rattle cans are something fierce! (in other words, ain't healthy to be breathing). So I would recommend either waiting until it is not so humid. If you think the paint faded badly, you would really hate to see what clear coat does in these conditions. It will 'cloud up' and man that's a PITA.

For what it's worth, I had an entire quarter panel do that one time when I was first learning how to paint. I wanted to break something really bad! Be patient, do it right, and it will look perfect. Trial and error (but the errors teach you real quick)