Primer application order

I got a gallon of featherfill yesterday and went to mix it today and the bottom three or so inches is just a think goo. I know these primers need to be mixed well but it was put on the mixer yesterday at the store when i bought it and shook it again by hand today then opened it and went to mix it and it feels thinker then trying to mix filler. Is this normal for this primer to separate and thicken this much or did i get a bad gallon?

thanks
-Matt
 
If the primer was shook good on the machine then it should not have been that badly seperated when you brought it home in my opinion.. It settles out pretty bad when setting on a shelf..

Did it all mix together nicely for you after allot of stirring??
 
I got one of the mixers that go into an electric drill and after about 5 minutes or so of mixing with that it was thoroughly mixed.
 
perfect-you're fine if it mixed ok. Make sure you strain it when filling the gun.
 
I Went through about half a gallon of the featherfill doing the doors and fenders on my el camino. The place I bought it from didnt have anymore and didnt seem like they were getting it soon. They had slicksand though which Ive also seen some people that liked and im pretty sure he had it cheaper. Is it okay to use slicksand once I run out of the featherfill or would it be best to find somewhere else that has the featherfill.

I probably should make another thread since its a different topic but dont know where to ask so...
Im starting to look into my basecoat and not sure what to go with. Ive read some guys here that like prospray so may try them. The thing is im looking to do a gunmetal color but whats the best way to get the color I really want from an online retailer. Is there somewhere I can get sample paints chips from to have an actual manufactured color instead of just "gun metal"? I want a color like this http://aclassblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/kjgerz_011.jpg

Then Im planning on going with a spl clearcoat. I read the uses of each of the clearcoats available but it didnt really help me decipher which would be the best for me. does it depend on whats used for the basecoat?

Sorry for all the questions on different topics
thanks for any help
 
It's ok to switch to slicksand-they are all compatible. Check with Chad on here for a quote on prospray and deciphering your color or try to find a car with the color you want and use that paint code or go to a paint store and look at color chips. If this is your first paint job Universal Clear is the easiest to spray and works well.
 
yesterday I sprayed two coats of slicksand on the quarters followed a couple hours later with a light reduced coat of epoxy as a guide coat. Today I went out to start sanding and one quarter has several areas that are still soft while the other side seems fine. they were both sprayed at the same time.

What could I have done wrong? maybe i didnt mix the activator well enough into the primer

more important though what do I do now? should i let it sit longer and see if it harders its kind of humid today and supposed to rain later as well as the next couple days so dont know if it will harder in these conditions or should i just try to strip it off back to the epoxy underneath and start over again? I feel sandpaper will just clog right up would a razor blade or scraper work better?

thanks for any suggestions
 
right now its about 80 and says 60% humity on weather.com but feels like more than that and yesterday was about the same but humidity felt lower.
 
about 85% of the drivers quarter was gooey like filler is in the can before its mixed with the activator. It all scraps off. What I dont get is why the area that I started spraying the first gun load with seems all hardened and well adhered to the epoxy below and the rest was not. Could spraying it too think potentially have caused it not to cure although I had no runs so I dont think it was to thick. I sprayed to coats onto each quarter.

Any other Ideas of what i could have done wrong besides somehow mot mixing the first batch well before I attempt to spray it again?

pictures of the disaster
DSCF6521.jpg

DSCF6522.jpg
 
Sounds like it wasn't mixed well if some cured but some didn't, if the MEKP/hardener was dead none of it would have cured-I've had a mess like that and it's no fun for sure. Spraying it on thick wouldn't have hurt the cure. There's a date code on the bottom of most MEKP tubes but I can't remember how to decipher it.
 
Was all the material mixed simultaneously? Was there anything different under the primer of the two sides?
 
was mixed in three different 16 oz batches. two out of the same tube of mekp and one out of another. mixed up 8oz more from some of the remaining mek today and it all hardened as it should. Both sides had the same combination of epoxy primer then filler with sanding that brought a lot down to bare metal so sprayed two coats of epoxy two days earlier. The day of spraying the slicksand I sanded the epoxy with 180 grit to roughen up the epoxy and wiped everything down with wax and grease remover.

after several hours of work I am close to being back were I should have been at the beginning of the day. I guess I must of someone just mixed up a batch badly somehow.
 
I'm stumped. Sorry it happened. Sometimes I throw out tubes of MEKP that have been sitting too long. Can't say if it was a factor in your case. Sometimes a weakly hardened poly product will harden in the cup due to the extra heat where it would not do so on the panel. It could be something as simple as the outward facing side going below a certain temperature. Do you have an infrared thermometer?
 
no dont dont have an infared thermometer. I have thought about getting one several times but haven't purchased one yet. the car is in a carport with just the ends open not the sides so its not like the sun was just shinning on one side or the other, it should have all been around the same temperature.

since I removed and resanded the bad primer I have mixed and sprayed two more batches of the slicksand and havent had any issues so I guess it must of been me who managed to make a bad mix or something.
 
Glad you got it figured out, there's such a small amount of activator/hardener that goes in-I think it's like 50:1 or 50:2 that it's easy to get a poor mix if it's not stirred up enough. Another common mistake people make with poly primer is not straining it-they think it's so thick it won't pass through the strainer and what happens is if poured directly in the gun oftentimes small clumps of uncatalyzed primer end up going on the car. These lumps will show as small bubbles later after the job is done and it sets in the sun. Everything that goes in a gun needs to be strained and mixed well.
 
MEKP Tip

I was told by a poly resin manufacturer to keep tubes of MEKP hardener stored away from light to keep it from going bad. This was after I had a problem with resin not hardening.
I don't know the science behind their recomendation but it is easy to put the tubes of MEKP in a box in a cabinet out of any light for storage.
It is unfortunate that you discover the problems only after applied to the work :(.
 
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