Thread: Paint a Car by Hand with a Brush??

Tweet

Well back in 1953 I brush-painted a '31 Ford Fordor light blue with red wheels using the Alkyd Enamel and it looked OK from about six feet back and even had some gloss since I put it on pretty heavy to let it flow into the brush streaks, but (!) the brush streaks were clearly visible up close. I have wondered whether a sheepskin disk and some compound could have smoothed it out some. I think today you really do not want to do this, but if you do it might help to buff it with compound after the paint sets up for a month or so.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

In edit mode (not worth another post) I never tried compound on the enamel, so I didn't get to the dull stage; sorry to mislead you and certainly Brian has more experience in painting and many other things. I guess after I got it uniformly dull and lost all the gloss I would then try some form of wax, but the bottom line is that you can probably get a better job at Maaco than you can with a brush. However this afternoon I priced a good quality PPG job with clear coat and was told the paint, solvents, hardener etc. would come to about $500 and the total job by a local guy who does excellent work would be about $1500. Still that $35/gallon candy apple red looks tempting if I could find somebody to apply it after I prep the body.