Vintage Hip Toolbox Refurbish Revisited

You may remember the previous post on this vintage Hip Toolbox Refurbishing. If not check out the link.

To bring you up to speed I ended that post wanting for some 2k Clear Coat to finish the paint before moving on to some other details.

I acquired some 2k Clear, hopefully it won't react with the rattle can paint but anyway, in looking over the interior and exterior paint from the rattle cans... I just wasn't happy with how it turned out.

The main issue I had was the obvious stripping that you can get from rattle cans in places. That, and I just didn't trust the base coat was thick enough. So I decided to spray the whole thing over again. Try and even out the paint and satisfy myself on thickness before clearing it.

Being everything was already sprayed, this time I'll have to mask it off. Which is not a big deal... Last time I free hand sprayed it.

Today was a much better day for spraying than last time as well. Just a slight breeze. Almost like you were in a spray booth. Low dust level, no bugs, low humidity. Great day.

I took it out and the sprayed the interior with the same Krylon Metallic Aluminum, 2 coats, and I'm much happier with how it turned out. It's more even over all.

It looks grey in the pics but it's Metallic Aluminum. Main thing is it's even now.

I'll let that cure a couple days, then update/add to this post as I go along till it's finished as this will be the final post on this toolbox.

One thing I did prior to painting was tweak the two sides on the bottom section. I brought the outer lips in just a bit so it wouldn't scrape the top sides. And brought the tray supports up to a correct 90° so now the tray sits perfect and the lid closes nicely and won't scrape the paint off closing it.

Back at ya in a few days weather prevailing...

Update May 27,2019

It's been a while since the weather have me a break with weather I felt more ideal for outdoor spraying. This Memorial Day though a little higher in humidity than I would've liked was at least sunny, a good temperature and barely a breeze so I opted to continue with the spraying.

Since I already did the inside, I resprayed the outside again to try an achieve a more even coat. That and this time, rather than free handing I went ahead and taped it off.

It came out nice as you can see in the following pics.

I mixed up 2 ounces of 2 Part Clear Coat while allowing the Cobalt Metallic Blue to dry for about 15 minute's. I've never used this Motor City 8041 Gloss Clear Coat before so my mix wasn't perfect for the PreVal I used to spray it with. In my opinion it could've used a little reducer as it was a tad thick for this type sprayer. Probably a 5-10% reducer would've proved a better mix.
But... Though I'm not thrilled with how it sprayed, laid down or flowed out... I did my best as that's all I had to work with.

Fingers crossed it wouldn't react with the Rust-Oleum Metallic Cobalt Blue paint, I laid out a medium heavy single coat after the initial tack coat. The clear coat definitely makes the difference in the look.

It turned out decent. Since the catalyst I was given to use with the clear coat was a slow active catylist it had a chance to flow out even more over the next 30 minutes. After 45 minutes it was dry enough to touch. At which point I moved it inside. After 2 hrs I checked in it again and I was much happier with the finish than at first. It was much smoother. If you're paint is too high a viscosity for your sprayer it'll have a tendency to orange peel. Which you can see in the last pic on the ends of the box.

Not only will it want to orange peel, the sprayer will spit the paint. With the Pre Val the viscosity was just riding the line of being too high to be sprayed. It was a challenge to spray it out. But in the end, as it cured it leveled out pretty good.

I have to wait 8hrs for this to cure, then I'll spray the bottom with clear coat and the paint with be complete.

Update Morning of May 28th, 2019

This morning after inspection I saw a couple sags/runs so I sanded them out. As well given how the lid was open, and using the PreVal sprayer which looks spray direction I had missed some areas under the back part of the lid which was facing down at the time of clear coating. So I decided to spray the bottom, then put another coat on the rest with the lid closed.

I'll have to mask things off again, but for spraying just the bottom things would be fine.

I reduced this mix by 15% with lacquer thinner. Hoping again it wouldn't react with the Rust-Oleum Cobalt Blue Metallic paint on the bottom.

Thinning or reducing the viscosity proved to be the key to the paint laying down better using the PreVal as I knew it would be.

After two coats you can clearly see the difference on the bottom.

The bottom paint didn't react even with the lacquer thinner used as a reducer. But of course there had to be an issue somewhere..  and there was.

I had lightly sanded the leading edge to the bottom knowing I was going to dust just past the bottom... By about a half inch.

I was careful to just scuff it. And for some reason.. it reacted. Crazed like crazy.

Here's a closer shot of the crazing going on on the edge.

I don't know what caused this. If I sanded through the clear coat to the base coat, it still shouldn't have reacted. If it was going to react, it would've reacted with the entire bottom.

If I didn't sand through the clear coat, then why is it reacting? This is 2k or 2 part clear coat. It's already kicked. Over 12hrs sitting, and recommended is only 5 hrs before recoating if you miss the first hour window. I've never had a 2 part paint craze on me before. I'm at a loss as to the cause at the moment. Either way it'll have to be fixed. Which means another day before I can spray again... Which sucks as I was hoping to finish this project today. Oh well...

Update Evening of May 28th, 2019

After 8 hrs the SDS for the Motor City 8041 Clear Coat says it can be sanded. So that's what I did to the upper portion of the tool box less the two ends which were fine.

Rather than use Lacquer thinner as a reducer this time I went with Xylene at 10% hoping it might have been the Lacquer thinner that was the issue.  MC TransStar 8041 has Xylene in it so...

In sanding I blocked it somewhat to rid it of orange peel. I wasn't going crazy about it though. Anyway here it is masked off again rest for another coat of clear...

Xylene worked fine as a reducer as far as I can tell. It actually laid down better than with lacquer thinner in my opinion.

Everything was going fine at first with the tack coat, laid it on a medium coat and it did flow out..  then it started to craze. In spots here and there.

It's crazing the base Metallic coat. Oh well...

It didn't craze the areas where it was just base coat. It didn't craze further what it had crazed previously along the bottom front edge which I sanded out seen above.

While deciding on what to do about this giving I have very little left to fix the problem. I put the remainder from this spray session in the frig. A trick I've used with other 2 part paints to extent the pot life. I don't know if it'll work with this clear coat but it's worth a shot.

After an hour or so I decided to try and force a cold coat on. Not something I'd recommend, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work.

Though it wasn't ready for sanding after only an hour or so, I sanded the heavy peaks of the crazed areas, pulled the mix out of the fridge and let it sit for only 5 minutes in the sun. To the point it was very cool but not cold. This thickens the paint and slows down the set time a tad once it hits the product your spraying. Given the box was warm, it'll warm it and it'll flow out, hopefully as a heavy coat. Basically floating out a coat.

And it worked fine for all of it except the area on the top which actually it made it worse.

But that top back ridge is fine now along with other areas on the back.

Nothing that can't be blocked out and polished up.

It started to run on the front which again can be blocked and polished out.

I don't like spraying this large of an area with the PreVal using this 2k paint I can tell you that. I hope this isn't a sign of what automotive paints have to offer.

Update June 16th, 2019

The Toolbox Restoration is now complete! Finally!!

You can read about and see it in the final blog post on this project:

Vintage Hip Toolbox Restoration Completed

Cheers...