Back to the Futura

After the primer was dry, I started lightly laying on the color coats. The first three went on nicely, although they weren’t covering the primer all that well because I had thinned the paint fairly well. But after three more slightly heavier coats, I was beginning to get the coverage I was looking for.

I originally figured that it would take a fair amount of drying time between coats, because enamel dries much more slowly than lacquer. However, that didn’t seem to be the case, probably because the paint was so thin. I waited until it felt “tacky-dry,” about thirty minutes, between coats.

Then disaster struck! I put down a couple more coats, this time a little wetter than the previous ones. Either the paint was too thin, or more likely, I hadn’t waited long enough between coats, because all of a sudden, the enamel coats began to separate a bit and spots of primer began to show through on a couple of the panels.

One thing I’ve tried to learn over the years is to quit at the right time. So I did just that. Rather than try to fix the problem right then, I set the whole project aside for several weeks. That would give the paint I had applied so far sufficient time to dry and gas out enough for me to tackle making the necessary corrections. In the meantime, I finished up a couple of other projects, which is one good reason for having several going on simultaneously. If you run into a problem with one, setting it aside and moving on to another usually helps reduce the frustration factor significantly and improves your chances of successfully dealing with the problem project at a later time.

Actually, a little more than a month went by before I went back to the Futura. By that time the initial paint had pretty well cured and I was ready to tackle the problem. I still strongly resisted stripping the paint and starting from scratch; although this was a definite possibility, I was saving that as a last resort. I got out the old fine grit sandpaper and went to work, carefully feathering the edges of the problem areas as I sanded them down. In some cases I only had to go down to the primer layer, but in others, by the time everything was smooth, I was back down to the bare plastic. I really didn’t want to go through the whole primer trip again, so I decided I’d attempt doing a repaint, skipping that step.

By this time I was running low on the original paint mixture so I mixed up another batch, this time not quite as thin as the first batch. Three additional coats of the new mix did the trick. It went on smoothly and covered everything completely. I was still pleased with the detail that was still visible through the paint, especially the Futura emblem on the hood.