When I started painting cars there were only two types of paint in general use. Acrylic lacquer and enamel. Not acrylic enamel … synthetic enamel with names like Dulux and Super Max. All Acrylic lacquer was buffed out so a few chunks of dirt wasn’t much of a problem … but enamel stayed too soft to polish for weeks, even if it was baked. If an enamel job got too much dirt or you got runs in it, all the paint was washed off with enamel reducer and the painter got to spray it again. For a young painter on commission, washing a car down was embarrassing and a pain in the wallet. All painters I knew took pride in getting an enamel job out of the paint room or booth as clean as possible, in less than ideal conditions. A good percentage of the shops then didn’t even have paint booths. Just a garage-sized room with an exhaust fan. With today’s paints I can sand dirt out and polish the paint the next morning. I color sand and polish almost everything I paint … not to get dirt out, but to get a mirror like finish. That little bump that a sanded-out chunk of dirt can leave will look like Mount Everest on a glass like surface, so I make my paint jobs as clean as possible. It is still a matter of pride to me. Here is the system I use to get a clean paint job whether it is sprayed out in the open in a clean shop or in a spray booth. The first thing I do is take off the bumpers and any trim that won’t be on the car when it is sprayed. The moldings around windows can hold a surprising amount of sand and dirt. Now, I wash the car with as much water pressure as I have available. Get the wheelwells and engine bay clean too. Flood the cowl vent till the water runs clean out the bottom of the cowl. Open the doors and get that area where the rocker panel and rear of the fender meet. That is a real leaf and dirt collecting area and the reason most cars rust out there. Take a rag and wash the door and trunk jambs too. Now you are ready to get the car dirty again doing bodywork and paint prep.
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