Painting Aluminum Semi fuel Tanks Imron

S

SK13

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I've been asked to paint some new / newer aluminum fuel tanks for a semi and looking into the best most durable final product to deliver, so far my plan is to wash, w&g, sand with 180 on da soft pad, spray 2-3 coats of spi epoxy, wait 24 hrs ,a light sand and denib, spray a 1:1:1 epoxy sealer, then imron basecoat and im undecided if it would be best to clear with imron clearcoat or spi euro. I have never shot the imron clearcoat 8890s, has anyone done something like these? I have been using spi euro for a couple years now and love it , but I dont know how the durability compares to imron clearcoats. Also the imron elite ey basecoat in the tds states flash time from base to clearcoat to be anywhere from wet on wet to 16 hours. The little bit of imron elite ey I have used I let the base sit for 8 hours then cleared with spi euro. I didnt notice any solv pop but this was over white.
any ideas or experience would be much appreciated, thanks in advance
 
It might be a good idea to paint a scrap or test panel just to be sure, but I don't think there will be any concern, especially if you're able to use SPI reducer in the Imron. Durability would not be a concern for me, I would actually trust the Euro more.
 
Get the epoxy on the aluminum as soon as possible after sanding. You don't want to wait 24 hours or more. I would consider 12 hours the max time that have before you need to get epoxy on the aluminum.
 
The wait time in the OP was after the initial application of epoxy, not after sanding, I think. There's no mention of a wait time between cleaning and primering, that should be 20 minutes or so depending on humidity, #700 should be used to wipe down the sanded aluminum.
 
crashtech said:
The wait time in the OP was after the initial application of epoxy, not after sanding, I think. There's no mention of a wait time between cleaning and primering, that should be 20 minutes or so depending on humidity, #700 should be used to wipe down the sanded aluminum.
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Yes , I was going to give the epoxy 24hrs to setup/cure before sanding /denibbing. I usually give the w&g at least 30-45 minutes before spraying. I called Barry on the compatability with the basecoat so Im good there, this Base doesn't have a reducer just an activator. Its interesting to me that the imron basecoat has the same activator as the imron clearcoat, same mix ratio even. I will be mixing base per tds along with adding euro catalyst into base, per phone call to Barry. We will see how it goes.
 
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