Raptor Paint Makeover

I have had it in mind to respray my Landy with Raptor liner for some time now as the original paintwork was starting to look tatty. That being said, for a twenty three year old vehicle I reckon it's done really well.

The end result, which I must add, I’m very happy with

Around a month back a good friend offered me the use of his workshop, air compressor and tools, and I jumped at the opportunity. Undaunted by the fact that my total vehicle spray painting experience consisted solely of my first ever car, a Volkswagen Beetle that I converted into a Baja Bug, and if the orange-peel effect was what one was after, it was a one hundred percent hit, I quickly jumped online and ordered the paint through Takealot. Thereafter I shot into town to purchase all the other necessary paraphernalia and made arrangements to start the very next day.

I, for whatever uneducated reason, had it in mind that it would take me a week, ten days maximum to get it all done. Matt just laughed, and under helpful direction from him, I naively blundered onwards, not really knowing what lay in store.

Needless to say it wasn’t without its challenges and took a tad longer than anticipated, three weeks in total to be honest, plus an additional week due to a major hiccup.

This, in more pictures than words, is how it all unfolded.

First things first ... bullbar, rear bumper, gullwings, headlights, indicators, taillights, spare wheel and bracket, rear registration plate, roof tent, roof rack and bonnet all off.

Then a shit-load of sanding down using 200 grit water-paper.

In the middle of doing the above, the Takealot delivery arrived and I took a break to get all eight bottles tinted to a colour close to the original. The reasoning behind that was firstly, the original colour had grown on me, and secondly, I had no intention of fussing with painting inside the door edges and jambs.

The two boxes of black paint were for the bulbar and gullwings.

Back to more sanding, after which a full day plus some change taping and covering up everything I didn’t want painted.

After doing a bit of online research, I opted to use a normal gravity-fed spraygun with a 2mm nozzle and to thin the paint down to the recommended maximum of twenty percent, as I wanted a slightly smoother finish than that obtained when using the Raptor Schutz gun. It worked perfectly and the end result was great.

So, tape off, all the bits and pieces back on and voila! There you have it. Chuffed.

However, around a week later after a night of rain, I came out to a car with white water marks all over it ... not so chuffed!

I also noticed on closer inspection that there were a few light scratches on the bonnet, which according to the Raptor specifications and claims, was very much out of character. The paint clearly hadn’t hardened properly and was porous.

Back to the online research where I found someone in Australia who had written about similar results and had a U-Pol representative out to inspect. From what I could discern it appeared I had one of two possible issues, or both. Either the paint had reached its shelf-life, or my paint to hardener mix ratio of 3:1 was out ... or both.

I couldn’t find use-by dates on any of the boxes or bottles and not being the most patient individual around when wanting to get a project such as this completed, I moved on to the next potential issue.

I noticed in the online videos regarding Raptor Paint that everyone spoke about using 50ml of tint when colouring their paint, and in fact the bottle in which the paint is packaged allows for only 50ml. Then add in the supplied 237ml of hardener and shake up well.

To obtain my chosen colour 100ml of tint colouring was used in each bottle. Now, I realise that this doesn’t constitute a major deviation, after doing the maths and sticking exactly to the 3 to 1 required ratio, but 33ml too little is 33ml too little ... and after all, I was grasping at any potential straw presented.

Long story short, I resigned myself to the fact that I would need to get four more bottles of paint, only this time from a local vehicle paint supplier after having confirmed that it hadn’t been sitting on their shelf for forever, and go through the whole schlepp again of removing all the bits and pieces, lightly sanding down the whole vehicle, taping up, re-spraying a final coat, tape off and then replacing all the bits and pieces.

The Universe, not wishing for me to have too easy a time of things, decided that another challenge was in order. This time in the form of white spots of gunk in the second bottle of paint. Eish!

Out of concern that the remaining two bottles of paint may have been the same, and after chatting with the local paint supplier, the decision was made that the only thing to do was for me to filter the remaining paint through a pair of ladies pantyhose, pick off the white globs and carry on, including spraying over the previously white-glob-infected area.

Which is what I did; and therefore the extra week mentioned at the beginning of this blog.

The result? ... It appears to have worked. Chuffed again!

The paint actually feels drier to the touch, is definitely more scratch resistant and isn't staining white when wet with water. The added bonus is that I prefer the final texture finish I managed to get second time around. Which, gives credence to the saying, even though unplanned and not really appreciated at the time, ... "practice makes perfect".