Clear coating, the epic continues..

[skiddz]

I polished my 1st piece of steel today, a shift lever from my 4 wheeler. Took forever to sand all the dings and pits out, but polished up like chrome. Once it was done, I hosed it down with brake parts cleaner then let it sit for about an hour before clear coating with VHT.

Talk about crappy results. The VHT sprayed nice enough, but ended up "migrating" into little bumps as it dried. I was able to strip it all off with laquer thinner and tried again with the same results. I thought it might have been a bit too cool to spray (It was almost 70 here today) so warmed up the can in a bucket of warm water, did the laquer thinner thing, let it dry for 20 mins and tried again. Same friggin' result...

Does this stuff "smooth" out when you heat cure it? I'd hate to have to bead blast cured clear coat off the part and repolish if it doesn't. I do want to keep the part from rusting and Zoop just isn't in the budget right now. Anyone got any tips on how to get this VHT stuff to gloss over? The couple times I tried it on aluminum it came out pretty nice. WTF is the deal with steel

[customandsound]

i tryed clear coat in a car on a steel part .. it dulled the shine... as soon as i get a chance the fuel rails are off to tom... nissian has been keeping me busy ...

[tomg552001]

70 degrees isnt too cool to spray at all, so thats not the problem. However i have no experience with VHT. I can tell you, powder coating a piece of chrome looked extremley nice. I'm sure you saw the picture. You may want to contact a powder coater and have them powder coat it for you with a 200+ gloss poly.

[customandsound]

that is right .. i saw the pic .. i was amazed ... of the turn out.. skiddz it looked perfect .. not dull at all ...

[customandsound]

i know what you are saying about zoop ... i polished alot of steel parts under my hood and i waxed them with carnuba wax.. the only problem i have is when it is time to clean it it is going to take me a week to get all the polished stuff clean and to shine like the sun.... i did 95% of my motor .. and half of the engine bay is polished and the painted compartment is sprayed with plastic dip .. to cut on noise and it looked good when i dripped it all over .... pic are soon to follow!!!! what out judges i am taking it home !!!!

[skiddz]

Yeah, I saw the pic. Unfortunately, it would be cost prohibitive to have the 2 or 3 steel parts I'm polishing sent out for clear powdercoat.

I'm going to have to try again with the VHT or some clear enamel.. I'm going to try a different tack with cleaning the part. I'm thinking the brake parts cleaner or the laquer thinner left something on the part. The VHT can says to use Acetone so I'm going to fully submerge the parts, let 'em sit for 20 mins or so then let 'em air dry all day and try again.

At this rate, it'll be October before I finish this friggin' 4 wheeler... hehe

[customandsound]

i was wondering if clear poly would work better ?if so you can have it sprayed at any body shop for a few bucks ...

[skiddz]

welp, I repolished the shift lever one more time. Blingitty bling bling!! This thing is (err was) shiny shiny shiny! Did the acetone dip and let it dry for an hour.

Left the arm and the VHT clear out in the sun for an hour to warm 'em both up a bit. (High 60s today) Sprayed the clear on again. OK, much better. Nice even coat, seems to be glossing well.. Let it dry for 30 mins then into a 250 degree oven for 30 mins. Let it cool to room temp, then in to 350 for another 30. Looking decent, but you can tell the shine isn't like it was, still it's acceptable. Let it cool to room temp then into a 650 degree oven for 30 (just like the VHT label says) mins.

Timer went off, I shut the oven off, pulled the part out and hung it in the shop to cool. I'm going to have to strip and polish this thing again. The VHT turned into a translucent black/grey film, kinda like black-chrome.

As soon as the part cools enough to touch, I'll take some pics and post 'em here:

http://users.adelphia.net/~skiddz/

[skiddz]

Pics are finally up. Ran outta storage space and had to resize all the pics to clear up some room. Looks like I'm going to have to buy more space or try to host some of this stuff from home.

[tomg552001]

Wow, that dodnt turn out good. I suggest getting it powder coated. You seem to be putting a lot of time, which equated to money....powder coating isnt that exspensive, but thats my 2 cents . Good luck and like always post your results!

Tom

[non-stick]

is it necessary to force the solvent out of the VHT? I'm not familiar with the product or what it says on the can at all but I'd think your main problem here is the heat. Is it possible to not put it in those eleveated temperatures?

[skiddz]

The label on the can says (and I quote) "VHT Flameproof coatings will air dry in 15 to 30 minutes. Baking at 250F for 30 minutes, then 30 minutes at 400F, then 30 minutes at 650F, improves finish and provides a durable surface for solvent resistance.... Run heat source until hot then let cool for 30 minutes, run the heat source again until hot then allow to cool for 30 minutes."

I'm pretty sure I followed the directions well (although I did the 2nd step at 350 instead of 400) and looking at the part in the sunlight, it appears as if the part blued *and* the coating turned dark. It's actually kinda cool looking, but not what I was going for.

As for the time vs. money thing, that's a valid point, but I've got enough of the former, none of the latter. This project has gone way past what I'd initially budgeted and my Master Card is starting to melt.. heheh

[customandsound]

i did the same thing that the stated and i got better results from the heat on the motor ... the oven changed it bad .... but i was using a red not clear

[skiddz]

I'm going to shoot a note off to the VHT folks to ask 'em WTF is up with this. Got the brake lever polished up today (man I hate polishing stamped steel) and am gonna clear/cook it just up to the 400 degree mark and see what happens. The shift lever looked pretty good when it came out of the 350 degree cook.. Maybe 650 is too much for a 1200 degree rated coating. hehehe

[skiddz]

Finished polishing up the brake lever and shot some VHT clear on it.. let it dry, looked pretty good. Not quite the "in your face" shine the non-coated part gives ya, but good. Preheated the oven to 250, chucked the part in for 30 mins, let it cool.

The VHT definitely discolors a bit. It took a bit of a yellowish cast with just this one curing step.. I'm not too happy with the results using this stuff.. I'm not even going to attempt the 400 degree step...