# Painting a vintage tractor



## unclejack (Apr 19, 2013)

Hello all, new to the forum and have a question regarding paint. I have painted a few cars in my day but never a tractor. I attempted to paint the neighbors vintage sears lawn tractor. He had went to Tractor Supply and bought Majic brand paint, reducer, and hardner. I layed it on with my automotive HVLP gun with about 25 psi at the gun. When I read the directions on the reducer it called for an airless sprayer capable of 1500 psi! The directions for the mixture of paint, reducer, and hardner were to use one pint of reducer, one can of hardner, for one gallon of paint. I mixed up about a quart of paint. I used about a quarter of the hardner and a quarter of the reducer. It has been about 26 hours and the paint is still soft. Not sure what I may have done or didn't do. Although I did lay about 5-6 coats of paint on the tractor without a whole lot of flash time between coats. Maybe I layed it on too thick? ALthough what is strange is the leftover paint that I left in a cup is still very much not curing at all. I know the automotive paint that I had left in a cup that had hardener in it hardened up a lot sooner than that, hours I believe. Any ideas what may have occured or what I may have done wrong? Thanks in advance!:usa:! Jack


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## ftorleans1 (Jul 12, 2009)

Did you end up with any curtains or sags?


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## unclejack (Apr 19, 2013)

No actually it sprayed fairly well. I think the paint is finally starting to cure.:usa: Jack


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## ftorleans1 (Jul 12, 2009)

Jack, Sounds good. May just be the 5 or so heavy coats. Give it plenty of time to cure. Michael.


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## Ed_GT5000 (Sep 30, 2003)

I have found that Majic brand tractor paint in spray cans is slow to dry. Directions say 24 hours to recoat and must be followed. You can recoat right after the paint gets tacky say in an hour and it will work. This is like just putting on one thick coat. If you recoat in 2-8 hours it may turn into a wrinkled mess. This has happened to me on a fender. over all I do like the paint and I guess the slow dry time is due to the rust preventive properties. The paint has a great shine but it stays soft a long time. also you have to lay it on thick to get the shine


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