Auto-air paint over anodizing

[Dustmagnet]

Hi all, new to the forum and I was thinking about doing a paint job on one of my cooler master wave master computer cases. Its clear brushed anodized aluminum and I was wondering if I may need to do more than a quick sanding with 800 grit paper and Im not sure what would be the best base coat or clear primer to use with Auto-Air paint? I want to keep the clear brushed aluminum affect if I can. I was planning on using their pearls and candies. I appreciate any help on this. Thanks, Bob

[redneck]

dustmagnet , welcome to this corner of the internet, I do not know how -to answer your ??, someone that know will step in soon, tell us where you are from and anything else that you need to tell us

[Gerard Marum]

Hi and how do. Not 100% on this and I'm sure someone will have done a similar job on this forum and know better. I use auto air myself and when in doubt of paint adhesion, I clear the base first. Give it a light rub down and then a light clearcoat followed by a couple of wet ones, then scuff when dried. Or if you are doing some graphic work, you might mask up machine and scuff areas to be painted, followed by autoair base coat sealer applied in very light coats when building it up. then whatever fancy bits you decide after that. Hope this helps.

[Dustmagnet]

Hi redneck and Gerard, I'll give you the whole story on my born again airbrush revival so to speak, I'm more of an old school car model painter and looking around the net I could not believe some of the paint jobs people were putting down with airbrushes these days, simply amazing. that reminded me of a vintage wave master computer case I have had in the closet for some time and although it is new in the box the reason its still in the closet is it needed some touch up work, it has a few chips in the paint. ( metallic enamel I think?) anyway I dug out my dusty, trusty, low end single action, can fed airbrush and realized I was going to have a hard time filling these chips with a single action airbrush because there is small factory logo lettering near by the chips that I didn't want to paint over and I didn't want to mask it and leave tape lines. so I decided to upgrade a bit and bought a dual action Air pro PS 900 brush. Its not high end but works very well. I did manage to match that paint by mixing up some old Testors paint I had laying around. with that job pretty much done I started eyeballing another Built anodized silver wave master computer that I have and decided it could use a little color. I've been seeing a lot of people using these water based with great results on metal but I'm new to these water based paints and not sure about durability, not that my computers are going to see a lot of rain and weathering but it is very humid here in Arizona in the summer time and a swamp cooler running most of the time to cool my house and wondering if these paints stick well when sprayed in high humidity. I just have a hard time being sold on water based paints and also was not sure the best way to use them over something like anodized aluminum with only a clear for primer. I was planning on doing something fun and fairly simple like several base coats of clear with some three color lightning bolts more clear and a water drop effect ( I've read enamel is best for water drop) over that followed by more coats of clear for depth and keep the silver brushed aluminum back ground. I was pretty sure the water based paint would not have any affect on the anodizing were a solvent based paint may? I've read up some on auto air paint but I'm still a little confused on their clear bases. or maybe use a different brand of paint for this job? Thanks Bob "Dustmagnet"

[redneck]

dustmagnet, you came to the right place, we got other members from arizona also

[lsabourin]

Dustmagnet, this might help to start

"Fishing on Nine Mile Lake"