On Saturday the weather was still bad, so I put a tarpaulin over the shell and pushed it outside. It was only showering now and then, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. A few hours of filling and sanding later, I was still finding slight ripples and having to re-fill bits of it. Another few hours of filling, and it looked OK, so I gave it a finail air sanding and got ready to paint with the new 1.4mm gun I bought from Machine Mart. It didn’t paint well, and left spatter marks in the paint. I messed around with the gun, and got a slightly better result, but still wasn’t happy with it.

On Sunday, after fixing everyone and their dogs PC’s, I got out the garage about 5.30pm to have a look at how the paint had dried. It was rough, and had blistered in a few spots. The cheap moisture trap on the compressor had been filling up a lot, so I pulled the compressor out and undid the seal on one end. When I tipped it up, at least two pints of rusty water sloshed out. I kept tipping it till no more came out, cleaned the filter and the fan, and fixed the noisy rattle from the cover. I air sanded the door, cleaned it off with air and clean cloths, and mxed up some more paint.

The result from the gun was still dissapointing, but a little better. My backup plan was to try out the 1.2mm Devilbiss SRi gun I had bought on e-bay. I was genuinely amazed at the difference between them. It was smoother, the paint went on much, much flatter and lasted longer. In the end I ran it out on the wall of the garage as I’d painted every bit I could. You can see the result in the pic above. I’m going to pick a colour and shoot a door as a test next. I’ve got plenty to choose from!