Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I've resprayed the rear of my +2 with cellulose.





This is with it cut back but not waxed. It is still soft a week later. By soft I mean it can be easily marked by pressing with a cloth.

How long does celli. talk to fully harden?
WIll waxing it prevent hardening? (As in slow down the evaporation of solvent.)
It has a lot of coats, presumable this would also slow it down?

Thanks.

I think that the short answer is that sealing the outside will stop it drying.
So it could take several weeks.

Hmmm. I've seen cellulose spraying done without a booth before and I don't recall it taking that long to set.

According to https://www.jawel.co.uk/jawel_pdf_data/ ... int%20.pdf

"12 hours you are ready to cut and polish." (with a 1:1 ratio of cellulose paint to thinners).

I guess patience is your friend, Vince. Here, have some of mine..




...oh hang on, I have none!

It is firm enough to cut and polish. The wet / dry comes off as dust, it does not pick up.

Just if pressure is applied - boot hinges / aerial etc it marks the surface.

I'd say that it's not fully dry yet.
Lots of layers means lots of time.
As Jon says you'll just have to be patient.

Once I've set the suspenders I'll roll it out into the sun.

Which just happens to have vanished after baking me for the last few weeks!

Have you got any halogen heaters or better yet electric linear quartz heaters? I?d have thought an hour or so would finish off the job!

When I was regularly painting with cellulose, cutting and polishing was never done sooner than five days after final coat application and often longer. If you polish too soon there is a chance you will take too much off and produce slight colour changes in the finish. Also panel edges are very vulnerable in the first few days after application. One of the advantages of waiting a bit before polishing is that any shrinkage or settling is usually revealed after 4 or 5 days and you can rectify it, though this was very rare owung to the regimen we used. Finally, we used wax-free cutting compounds and never waxed a car before giving it back to the customer or selling it and never once had a complaint.

elanfan1 wrote:Have you got any halogen heaters or better yet electric linear quartz heaters? I?d have thought an hour or so would finish off the job!

Linear Quartz Heater? Never heard of it, are they the latest? I might be able to swing one as an emergency
conservatory heater and gain brownie points at the same time.

nigelrbfurness wrote:When I was regularly painting with cellulose, cutting and polishing was never done sooner than five days after final coat application and often longer. If you polish too soon there is a chance you will take too much off and produce slight colour changes in the finish. Also panel edges are very vulnerable in the first few days after application. One of the advantages of waiting a bit before polishing is that any shrinkage or settling is usually revealed after 4 or 5 days and you can rectify it, though this was very rare owung to the regimen we used. Finally, we used wax-free cutting compounds and never waxed a car before giving it back to the customer or selling it and never once had a complaint.

I was using Farecla G10 but could not find out if it had any wax or silicone in it. However it does mention Palm Oil?

Thanks for the input, I'll leave it another week in indirect sun (if any). Luckily there are no signs of crazing anywhere so the surface is sound. I just do not want to risk fitting the boot etc and marking it.

I assume that as it dries by evaporation it is from bottom up so the very top is the last to harden. As it has the solvent passing through it? Is this too simplistic?

Quartz heater are relatively expensive but are basically infrared heater. Amazon have Halogen heaters for ?8.99 pretty cheap if you or know someone with Prime. Note your missus will be disappointed if you buy it as a conservatory heater as it doesn?t heat the space as such but would warm you if in line of sight.

nigelrbfurness wrote:When I was regularly painting with cellulose, cutting and polishing was never done sooner than five days after final coat application and often longer. If you polish too soon there is a chance you will take too much off and produce slight colour changes in the finish. Also panel edges are very vulnerable in the first few days after application. One of the advantages of waiting a bit before polishing is that any shrinkage or settling is usually revealed after 4 or 5 days and you can rectify it, though this was very rare owung to the regimen we used. Finally, we used wax-free cutting compounds and never waxed a car before giving it back to the customer or selling it and never once had a complaint.

This is what I did when I painted my Elan, under instruction from Robin Alabaster. He knew a thing or two about painting. I think I left my paint 2 weeks before doing anything with it.

Thanks for the feedback chaps. It's been about 10 days now (very hot days at that!)

I've leave it alone for another week (unless we have some good sun) and see how it goes.
There are about 6 coats on in places.

As it happens I knew a chap who used to paint Jag C and D replicas.
His routine was :-
3 coats of primer + a contrast guide coat.
Rub down dry.
4/5 coats of colour, final 2 with increasing levels of thinners.
Leave for a week +
Flatten with ???? paper with lots of soap.

Hi vince

To answer the original question wax does slow down hardening ,

I have also just finished spraying in cellulose , you seem to have achieved a much higher gloss than I did , but I certainly had a hard finish within 24hrs

I?m not sure if it?s the gun , the pressure , the cellulose formulation or the technique , I also applied around 6 coats then a couple of coats with 200% then 400% thinner , it?s a good finish but slightly orange peel like

I also found that sink back can be seen around a month later so it keeps on doing something

Steve

Concrete-crusher wrote:I?m not sure if it?s the gun , the pressure , the cellulose formulation or the technique , I also applied around 6 coats then a couple of coats with 200% then 400% thinner , it?s a good finish but slightly orange peel like
I also found that sink back can be seen around a month later so it keeps on doing something

Steve

400% thinners???

Mine was done in 2 stages. The first did do a strange bit of shrinkage at one spot.
I flattened that after a week and the next few coats have not shown anything - so far!
Yellow is a bu**er to spray! It is transparent and, worst of all, is difficult to see a wet edge.
It must be the light. Despite having 6 long LED strips around the car .