TheSamba.com :: View topic - Tractor paint (or rustoleum) and hardeners?

Tue Jul 24, 2012 10:22 am

I know there was the thread on rustoleum paint. How people roll or spray it. But I haven't seen where anyone has used a urethane hardener in them. I know the urethane hardeners are compatible with enamels. Just wondering if it actually helps the longevity of the paint.

Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:49 am

The Valspar that is sold at Tractor Supply has a hardener you can buy at the same place. Adds gloss and durability is the claim. Also adds very toxic chemicals requiring a good air supplied face mask if you use it regularly. The toxins build in your system and do not leave so it has a cumulative effect over the years...Be very careful with that stuff. Wheter the Valspar hardener will work with rustoleum is something you will need to experiment with. It probably does as both are alkyd enamels.

Without hardener added most of the tractor paints fade in months , some to some very unattractive colors....The cat yellow is famous for fading to PINK, which looks just awful on a D9...But, it is tractor paint, cheap paint designed to make a used tractor look nice long enough to sell it. Their restoration line is slightly better.

Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:57 am

Check out this topic:
http://forum.ih8mud.com/paint-body/182419-ace-tintable-rustoleum-product.html
This guy uses enamel hardener while spraying his Jeep with Rustoleum. Well, it's not Rustoleum, it's ACE Hardware's brand, which is the exact same as Rustoleum except they can mix it in any color you want. Comes out pretty nice. Says the paint is still soft compared to a normal car paint, but that's a given. In the end, he uses a clear coat from Valspar (he gives the numbers in the topic) and says it really hardens things up.
Check it out, though if you're going to spray, might as well just pick up a cheap single stage paint as it will run you about the same. But the roll on Rustoleum jobs last. The guy who started the whole craze posted an 8 year update on his orange Beetle, and it still is holding up, just lost most of its shine.
EDIT: Oh, and what DJ said. I usually just assume safety stuff is a given, as I'm a chemist and that is hammered into us in the industry, but I forget a lot of folks on forums either don't know or don't care. The hardener pretty much takes the safety benefits of Rustoleum paint jobs out of the equation. Spraying it, or any paint, whether it contains isocyanates, polyisocyanates, isobutane, etc., without the proper mask can eventually kill you if you do it often enough. Guy in his garage or outside once or twice will be fine. Just don't keep doing it if you feel sick or pass out.

Tue Jul 24, 2012 12:37 pm

I have a Breathe-Cool II setup with the hood. Well aware of the iso problems. Even though I know alot of guys who still spray without wearing anything :roll: . The hardener that they sell is just a enamel hardener. And I got a buddy that just painted his car using the tractor paint with their hardener but its only been a month so time will tell.

My buddys car.

And I remeber reading about the tremclad guy, long before it became mainstream. But I was really wondering if using the urathane hardener helps keeping the paint from fading better than using the enamel hardener.

And I priced ss urethane out at a few differnt places and it was more than i was willing to pay. But I may look into kirker some more. Heard decent reviews on it, esp for the price. But I read somewhere that said if you used the urethane hardener it could get you 5-7 years outta a enamel paint which would be just as good as a cheap urethane job. I just don't know how much merit that holds.

Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:14 pm

That Breathe-Cool II is an amazing deal, especially compared to 3M's Air Flow system which is pretty much the same thing just four times as much. I was looking into something like that for welding and car painting. Thanks for bringing it up. Though no NIOSH, even after 19 years, makes me weary.
I'm glad your hip to safety, 69. I can't believe some of the stuff people here do.
If someone can dig me up an MSDS on a hardener, I can see if it might help with the fading. However, I can tell you the fade is highly exaggerated. It'll fade just like a single stage paint will. Wax it once or twice a year to keep its shine.

Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:22 pm

Vinnems wrote: That Breathe-Cool II is an amazing deal, especially compared to 3M's Air Flow system which is pretty much the same thing just four times as much. I was looking into something like that for welding and car painting. Thanks for bringing it up. Though no NIOSH, even after 19 years, makes me weary.
I'm glad your hip to safety, 69. I can't believe some of the stuff people here do.
If someone can dig me up an MSDS on a hardener, I can see if it might help with the fading. However, I can tell you the fade is highly exaggerated. It'll fade just like a single stage paint will. Wax it once or twice a year to keep its shine.

well i think i pulled up the right sheet.

http://www.sherwin-automotive.com/media/msds/English/3636.pdf

Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:23 pm

Yeah, it's like I expected. Basically, you're just adding isocyanates to the paint to make it really hard. That's not going to do anything to stop the fading. The rest of the ingredients are just thinners. Throw it in if you want a tougher finish. But I'm seeing Rustoleum paint jobs still shining after four or more years on various forums, you just gotta wax it it.
Cool thing in that MSDS, scroll to page 6 to see the LD50 for the ingredients. This is how much large exposure and how much ingested it would take to kill 50% of subjects. Basically, the amount that an average person could take before dying, in milligrams of the substance to kilograms of your weight. Poor rats. Think about this, fella, next time you spray in your garage or outside with P95 masks, or worse. FYI, POR-15, Masterseries, and the like have this stuff.

Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:00 am

k what about this one. I just saw this one on ebay its a "wet look" enamel hardener.

http://www.5starxtreme.com/msds-tds/5108.aspx

Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:17 pm

you better make sure the product is completable with what you are planning to mix it with, nothing is worth trying to save a buck if you end up ruining what you have bought with an incompatible product.

i have seen ppg products completable within it's different product lines,
i have seen dupont products NOT completable within it's different product lines.

you get what you pay for.

Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:01 pm

69, that second link pretty much has the same stuff in it as the first one. I'm running the ingredients through some chemical databases I have, no mention of added UV protection.
Basically, with the hardeners, your adding in to you paint what makes an automotive paint and automotive paint. You're going to get a harder, potentially longer lasting finish, depending on what paint you use.
A problem in determining the fading, though, is that the paint companies never really run tests on this stuff, as far as I can find. There's no standard for how long until a paint fades, paint hardness (curious about that one), gloss retention, etc. I guess they could throw a painted panel under some intense UVs and see what happens, but they don't because no one really cares.
Fact: ALL paints will fade in the sun, ALL paints will be destroyed by water.
Keep things waxed if you want the shine to stay, whether it's BC/CC or Rustoleum or watercolors or whatever.

Sat Jul 28, 2012 6:32 am

Foxx wrote: you better make sure the product is completable with what you are planning to mix it with, nothing is worth trying to save a buck if you end up ruining what you have bought with an incompatible product.

i have seen ppg products completable within it's different product lines,
i have seen dupont products NOT completable within it's different product lines.

you get what you pay for.

yeah and i know what i'm spraying it on. and too me its not worth buying top dollar paint. But thats just me

Vinnems wrote:
Keep things waxed if you want the shine to stay, whether it's BC/CC or Rustoleum or watercolors or whatever.

thats what im goin do. bought me my gallon of mf gray the other day. so well see. I got to spray the front clip on my other car so i can get it back together and sold. then it will be back to the bus. and thanks for checking that chemical makeup thing for me man, i appreciate the help.

Sat Jul 28, 2012 8:39 am

69satellite wrote: Foxx wrote: you better make sure the product is completable with what you are planning to mix it with, nothing is worth trying to save a buck if you end up ruining what you have bought with an incompatible product.

i have seen ppg products completable within it's different product lines,
i have seen dupont products NOT completable within it's different product lines.

you get what you pay for.

yeah and i know what i'm spraying it on. and too me its not worth buying top dollar paint. But thats just me

if you know, and it's not worth high dollar paint, then why bother looking for a top dollar shine? omni is a ppg product and isn't a top dollar paint.
so is this, http://www.paintforcars.com/
prolly be alot happy with that then anything cheaper
kits are under 80 bucks
http://www.paintforcars.com/enamel_paint_kits.html

Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:54 am

Quote:
if you know, and it's not worth high dollar paint, then why bother looking for a top dollar shine? omni is a ppg product and isn't a top dollar paint.
so is this, http://www.paintforcars.com/
prolly be alot happy with that then anything cheaper
kits are under 80 bucks
http://www.paintforcars.com/enamel_paint_kits.html

i actually ordered a kit from them once. And they lost my order and i never got it and just got a refund instead. Because I didn't have the time to wait for them to redo the order. They charge about $50 for hazard shipping. And I have heard alot of complaints about their paints and it wasn't even worth spraying. But I never personally used it so I don't know for sure. And from what I've read and been told any cheap paint is only goin last ya 3-5yrs if your lucky. So thats why I'm goin give the tractor paint a shot. If I'm wrong oh will, I'm out $50 and some time.

Sun Jul 29, 2012 8:00 am

Cheap BC/CC & supplies from a local Auto Paint store is worth the money for the results/longevity. You don't want to have to do it over! :wink:

Sun Jul 29, 2012 9:55 am

i have bought omni from this guy with good results before, shipping isn't expensive and your "extras" can be gotten local if you need them
http://www.ebay.com/sch/wbmesq/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:50 pm

I mihgt be using the ebay guy to get some paint for this ghia i'm picking up

Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:01 pm

Old thread, I know, but maybe some people still follow it?

Has anybody ever tried adding some non ISO urethane harder to alkyd enamel and see what happens? My thinking is, if it mixes, you'd still have a cheap paint job option that includes the shine and durability of using hardner and some health safety of no ISO exposure. I'm going to be spraying a few coats of non ISO primer on our '64 Beetle in the next month or so in prepping it for urethane paint. I'm not going to put down the actual paint coats, though, because the ISO scares the #@$% out of me (I kinda enjoy breathing and don't want to take a chance on not doing it anymore!) so someone with a downdraft booth and fresh air ventilation system will be handling that part. So, I thought if I had alittle hardner left over, I'd mix it with alittle Rustoleum and shoot an old panel that I have laying around and see how it turn out? Maybe if it cures, try wet sanding it, buffing it, and put it out in the south GA sun behind the shop and get a feel for how it would age for a few months.

Anybody ever tried this before? If so, please report? If nobody says it's a fail, I'll give it a go and shout back the results in a few months. Nothing to lose!