Restore Along Part 31
Welcome back to the Restore Along with Julia and Tulip. Previously, Julia has applied one full set of practice coats of paint to Jill, the Featherweight donated to her for practice purposes. After assessing the results, she stripped all the paint off Jill and reset for another round. You can catch up on the journey so far here by catching up on last week's installment here:
Previous Week Restore Along: Part 30
With the coats of primer applied and dried, the time for applying color is here. One reason Julia is thoroughly practicing her painting skills is the learning curve required for this step. She is using PPG automobile paint, Mazda Soul Red Metallic, in her brand new Fuji Spray Q5 Platinum sprayer. Mazda Soul Red Metallic has two separate colored coats, and there is a very short waiting period between applying the coats with no sanding in between.
The need for speed and accuracy with her new sprayer makes for a challenge, and Julia is very grateful to have Jill for practice.
Julia starts with the first coat, which is a brownish-red.
Julia sprays it on in a nice, even coat. It looks good!
The second coat is a tinted, translucent coat that created the finished red:
It is hard to see in the photo, but the second coat has a slight crinkle finish to it. Tech Support thinks the coat went on a little too light, creating that crinkle effect, but Julia thinks it looks nice! Too thin turned out better than too thick, at least.
Julia allows the paint to dry overnight before applying the final, clear coats of paint. The final coats are not without their “learning moments” as well. Debris from the shop is in the air, and bits of fluff and her own hair land on the paint as she sprays. She does her best to remove these without leaving any marks, but some marks (the one from her hair in particular) aren’t going to buff out easily.
Julia also finds herself at odds with the paint jar, which bumps against Jill occasionally as she paints, removing paint in the process, or drips condensation. She has also found that the cutout area under the bobbin thread tensioner is very hard to paint without over painting the surrounding area. For Tulip, she plans to either hand paint it or mask the area and paint it first.
These difficulties aside, after the clear coats are dry, that Soul Red paint is pretty striking!
After this second round of painting, Julia is feeling much more confident with the paint sprayer. The results really speak for themselves: