BarryK's tips on how NOT to do things.....part 1

[BarryK]

ok, so all the parts of the top of the motor are off and I've scrapped and cleaned a lot of the block to retouch-up the paint in places. Time to start painting.

oh wait, i know I'm not dumb enough to try to paint by spray can under the hood and risk overspray everywhere including the new paint job on the body so I get smart...... I know what to do, spray some of the paint into a cup and than use a small brush to do the touch-up painting. Yeah, that will work!

ok, so now i have some paint in a plastic cup, carefully hold it over the engine compartment so I don't risk dripping any over the fenders and I start painting some areas of the block. So far so good, everything going fine and nice to see fresh paint helping the block look better.

I wasn't smart enough it seems.......
Hey, why does my hand all of a sudden feel wet and cold?? :confused
look down to see paint dripping all over the hand holding the cup that USED TO contain the paint.
See Barry's hand all orange, see Barry's nice, neat engine compartment covered in drops, drip, runs, and puddles of bright Chevy orange paint - all over the frame rail, fuel pump, heater hoses, spark plug wires, EVERYTHING!! :eek :eek ad ad :cry

Now see Barry search the garage FRANTICALLY looking for something to get the paint off everything before it dries and it's too late. Does Barry have any paint thinner? No, of course not, that would have been too smart to think about to buy any. Ah ha! I have a couple cans of brake cleaner - that's a pretty good solvent.
I grab them and start spraying all the spilled paint in the engine compartment. Now see Barry start to breath again and heartrate drop back to only twice normal speed as the brake cleaner is washing off the orange paint.

yes, I got all the spilled paint cleaned up and learned some very valuable lessons.
One, paint WILL very quickly eat thru a plastic cup. Two, don't take any job, no matter how simple it may seem at first, for granted that it will be easy and not cause problems. Three, ALWAYS, no matter what the task at hand is, have a back-up emergency plan BEFOREHAND to get yourself out of trouble. Four, always keep a good supply of brake cleaner cans around because they are handy for all sorts of jobs. Five....... oh, I don't know, but i'm sure there is another lesson in here somewhere.

Man, NOTHING goes easy for me! ;squint:

 

[Andy]

Lets buy a BARRYCAM!!

I would have loved to been a "fly on the wall"...watching that setup..

LISTEn, why not setup a webcam in your garage. Hell, we could charge the price of admission. People all over the country can watch you do these things...

Should I even let u near my car with a boxcutter next week???

Seriously, lets bu a "BARRYCAM"..

Andy

ok, so all the parts of the top of the motor are off and I've scrapped and cleaned a lot of the block to retouch-up the paint in places. Time to start painting.

oh wait, i know I'm not dumb enough to try to paint by spray can under the hood and risk overspray everywhere including the new paint job on the body so I get smart...... I know what to do, spray some of the paint into a cup and than use a small brush to do the touch-up painting. Yeah, that will work!

ok, so now i have some paint in a plastic cup, carefully hold it over the engine compartment so I don't risk dripping any over the fenders and I start painting some areas of the block. So far so good, everything going fine and nice to see fresh paint helping the block look better.

I wasn't smart enough it seems.......
Hey, why does my hand all of a sudden feel wet and cold?? :confused
look down to see paint dripping all over the hand holding the cup that USED TO contain the paint.
See Barry's hand all orange, see Barry's nice, neat engine compartment covered in drops, drip, runs, and puddles of bright Chevy orange paint - all over the frame rail, fuel pump, heater hoses, spark plug wires, EVERYTHING!! :eek :eek ad ad :cry

Now see Barry search the garage FRANTICALLY looking for something to get the paint off everything before it dries and it's too late. Does Barry have any paint thinner? No, of course not, that would have been too smart to think about to buy any. Ah ha! I have a couple cans of brake cleaner - that's a pretty good solvent.
I grab them and start spraying all the spilled paint in the engine compartment. Now see Barry start to breath again and heartrate drop back to only twice normal speed as the brake cleaner is washing off the orange paint.

yes, I got all the spilled paint cleaned up and learned some very valuable lessons.
One, paint WILL very quickly eat thru a plastic cup. Two, don't take any job, no matter how simple it may seem at first, for granted that it will be easy and not cause problems. Three, ALWAYS, no matter what the task at hand is, have a back-up emergency plan BEFOREHAND to get yourself out of trouble. Four, always keep a good supply of brake cleaner cans around because they are handy for all sorts of jobs. Five....... oh, I don't know, but i'm sure there is another lesson in here somewhere.

Man, NOTHING goes easy for me! ;squint:

 

[BarryK]

I would have loved to been a "fly on the wall"...watching that setup..

LISTEn, why not setup a webcam in your garage. Hell, we could charge the price of admission. People all over the country can watch you do these things...

Should I even let u near my car with a boxcutter next week???

Seriously, lets bu a "BARRYCAM"..

Andy

yeah, you funny guy Andy.........
be nice, remember where your car will be next week!


hmmmm, maybe i'll wait and try the painting thing again next weekend when I have your WHITE car in the garage with me. OPPS, sorry Andy, the nozzle on the spray can must have been pointing in the wrong direction.......... :gap

 

[Tom Bryant]

Barry,

I can set here and chuckle a little over your mistakes but the truth is we have all learned these lessons at one time in the past or else we still have them to learn. I'm glad you got the paint off before you had a real mess to repair. How many times do we read advice about spraying a little paint into the can cap and then dab with a brush? This makes you wonder if those folks have ever actually done it. I rescue a supply of coffee cans and other smaller cans that have plastic lids on them from the trash. These are great for paint and solvents. You can use out of them or drop a small part to clean in them and snap on the lid. Keeps it from vaporizing and avoids the smell in the garage.

 

[paul67]

Barry,
I have used the plastic top of the rattle can and a Q-Tip for the paint for many years without incident. Was it a foam rather than a plastic cup?

 

[JohnZ]

That's why I keep a fair supply of small glass jelly jars on hand - nothing will bother them, and they have good sealing lids. Gotta love Smucker's Grape Jelly .

 

[SMR 67]

I'm sorry, Barry but....

Love the web cam idea. Better yet - have it miked up so CAC members can bark out orders to you while they watch you work. "No...not the 3/8" wrench Barry!!!! Don't forget to re-torque those bolts, Barry!!! Hey Barry - is that a spot on your new paint job?" :crazy

Good luck just the same - step back from it when you need to.

Scott

 

[IH2LOSE]

Well I was afraid of what I would find in this thread,But its not so bad.

My best advice to give you is what my Dad used to have on every peice of heavey equiptment or truck he owned

THINK

 

[Mac]

THINK

Great advice... I wish I could remember to do that before instead of after...

-Mac

 

[BarryK]

:duh I didn't think of the spray can top! that would have been much thicker plastic. This was just a standard el-cheapo plastic drinking cup left over from a past party.
I have glass jars but they were all too big and neck too small (mason type jars).
I'll sacrifice an extra coffee cup next time if needed but NO MORE plastic cups for me.

oh well, live and learn.

 

[Vette66AirCoupe]

This reminds me of the old days of high school and college when I worked in a gas station. EVERYTHING got cleaned with gasoline it seemed. One day, the boss had one of the guys cleaning the white curbs with a rag and gasoline. He decided to put some gas in the first thing handy, a styrofoam cup, milk shake size. The gas slowly ate the styrofoam. As he was wlking from one side of the station to another the bottom just fell out. The gas went all down the front of him and soaked through to some private parts. As he hopped around hollering the rest of us were laughing hysterically. Too bad we had no web cam then. The scary part is that I really mean that we washed EVERYTHING in gasoline. Guys would go out to the pump at the end of the shift to wash their hands with gas before hitting them with the hand cleaner. This was leaded gas mind you. I shudder to think how much lead was absorbed through my skin in those days. Not to mention the fumes that ran right in my face as I crouched behind cars with behind the license plate gas fills. On a sunny day you could see the gas fumes billowing out of the fill neck as the tank filled and pushed the vapors out. Also, most of the drivers didn't have the courtesy to shut off the engine. ad Oh, one more healthy thing we always did. Before dismantling the old brakes while doing a brake job we'd get the air hose out and blow all of that asbestos off real good! Talk about live and learn. The guys we made fun of because they were flippin' burgers at Mickey D's while we were twisitng wrenches will outlive me by 20 years! :cry

 

[JL66REDCPE]

I think I posted this before however here goes. I play a lot of Tennis. I keep the empty plastic ball containers for just this purpose -- touch up painting. I cut off the bottom of the tennis ball container to make a 3" cup. It works great. I use the lids for smaller jobs. Neither the paint or laquer thinner will eat through it.

Barry I hope you cleaned the engine before you painted it with a prep sol or acrylliclean -- otherwise -- it may not stick.

 

[paul67]

Barry,
That is what I use for my graphite lube manifold treatment. And I used it yesterday for some small nicks on my garage door. The latter I snuck in yesterday (garage is unheated) when it was over 60F. Today is 40F and paint doesn't dry well at that temp.

BTW, be careful with petroleum-based fluids such as brake cleaner around your paint. It's not as bad as lacquer thinner but....I look forward to your further adventures. May prompt me to get honest as well! Want to know how to mushroom the threaded end of a rear bearing spindle? It's a 20-ton story.

 

[Kid_Again]

Ah, that explains it...plastic drinking cups...I also was confused about melting the plastic because I use the rattle can top pretty frequently...NOW you know why you buy the plain paper drinking cups....i pour everything into those things, including acetone for brief periods...when in doubt, i use half pint size mason jars...bought a case years ago and my estate will probably sell the leftovers

just be glad you didn't get it over the body

 

[Tossin]

It sounds like we've all got painting stories.

Late September was spraying the Corvette. Now, me being the brilliant person I am, I didn't get a paint suit (was wearing old clothes). Nor did I decide to wear a hat when painting. So I've sprayed the car and turn around to spray the hardtop. Get the first coat on that and as I turn around, I feel two drops of sweat fly loose from my forehead. And (I kid you not), in SLOW MOTION, I see the two drops of sweat land on the freshly painted hardtop.

At least it was the first coat and I was able to get it taken care of between coats and it came out fine, but the list of explicatives that was uttered was impressive.

 

[BarryK]

Well I was afraid of what I would find in this thread,But its not so bad.

My best advice to give you is what my Dad used to have on every peice of heavey equiptment or truck he owned

THINK

The worst part Larry is that I thought I did think it thru pretty good. knew not to spray under the hood, knew to hold the cup away from the body, knew to go nice and slow and careful.......... i really figured I had thought it thru well.
I just didn't know paint would do that to a plastic cup. A solvent, yes, but paint?!
Live and learn

 

[Geek's 65]

Barry I am agreeing with the web cam thing. Seems very recently John Z and VNV were discussing some TV show on timing where they didn't know schmatz but said they did. Your situation where you don't think you do know all that, admit it, try your dangdest to learn it, and then do learn it is perfect golden potential. CAC to the next level. Think about it man.

 

[BarryK]

Barry I hope you cleaned the engine before you painted it with a prep sol or acrylliclean -- otherwise -- it may not stick.

don't have either of those but did the best i could with what i did have.
after wiping the dirt and grease and grime off I wiped it down, than wiped it again with brake cleaner since it was really the only type of solvent I happened to have around at the moment, than wiped it down again with a scruffy sponge with warm water to get rid of any brake cleaner solvent.

You know, to add insult to injury, after this fiasco i'm not at all happy with the small area I was able to get done before the paint went everywhere. because I can't spray under the hood I applied it with a small brush - approx 1/2" wide. Way too many brush marks for my liking so i'll have to try something else next time around. Maybe i'll try some of those cheapo foam sponge brushes.

It's REALLY a good thing I don't have a hoist and engine stand because it's REALLY temping to just start unbolting a bunch more things and yank that block out so I can spray it proper...... And don't anyone start telling me that hoists and stands aren't that expensive because I know that!

 

[BarryK]

Barry I am agreeing with the web cam thing. Seems very recently John Z and VNV were discussing some TV show on timing where they didn't know schmatz but said they did. Your situation where you don't think you do know all that, admit it, try your dangdest to learn it, and then do learn it is perfect golden potential. CAC to the next level. Think about it man.

I HATE being in front of or on camera. As it is I have to do just that for work and be on a nationally broadcast TV show on camera LIVE but i only manage to do that because they pay is decent when i'm on. other than that i'd rather not be on camera being watched and having everyone watch me make my mistakes, of which there are plenty.
Think about it this way......... at least now i can pick and choose what mistakes i make that I relate to you all. Yep, there are a lot more things than what I DO mention. :ugh

 

[Vette66AirCoupe]

I'm going to add another painting story. I collect O gauge trains. Years ago, I was working on my layout and I needed some "chrome" paint. I found an old pint and noting that the price sticker was from a store that went belly up about 20 years ago I figured I'd give it a shake. Low and behold there was still liquid inside! So I shook the hell out of it. Put it down on the table and pryed the lid off with a screwdriver. The lid flew off, hit the ceiling and came back down and hit me in the head before I realized it was open. Chrome paint was splattered everywhere (fortunately not on any of my prized engines). I cleaned it up best I could and decided that was enough for the night. When I got upstairs, my wife laughed hysterically. What? I asked. She said you look like Terry the Tinman. I went and looked in the mirror and she was right! I reported this on an O-gauge train forum and someone told me to read the label. Sure enough: "DO NOT SHAKE". And that's how I got the nickname. So when you're around your Vette (or trains) read the label!