WBJ1 Has been prodding me to post an update...
Here’s a question for you: “When is a gallon not really a gallon”? The answer is when the item is being sold by a paint manufacturer.
Back in the day I remember buying DuPont Imron paint. It was a catalyzed paint and your so-called “gallon” of paint came in a gallon can, but with only three quarts of actual paint. As I recall you bought a quart of catalyst as well and that mixed together produced a gallon. Well PPG has taken that a step further. Their so-called “gallon" is actually .64 gallons (in a gallon can, of course). The catalyst comes in a quart can, which we all know is 1/4 of a gallon. However, the can only contains .2 gallons of catalyst, and this makes no sense as the mixing ratio is 4:1. Mixing .64 gallons of paint at 4:1 would require .16 gallons of catalyst. Now we’re up to .8 gallons, but you’d have to add a whole lot of thinner (25% to be exact) to get a sprayable gallon. We thinned the catalyzed paint 10% per Eddy’s recommendation, and that seemed to work well.
Before I go further, let me say this about the color choice: If you like the color: Give WBJ1 credit. If you don’t like the color: Give WBJ1 credit. Our overarching objective is to make Snowzilla WBJ1’s version of the ultimate Tucker for his usage. (I suppose that isn’t quite true as he wants a turbo, and that simply ain’t happening with us.) While the color was not our choice, he is the customer after all...
When it came time to spray the color, we decided to spray the inside of the cab and the frame first. Having the two shop cranes made this task a lot easier. We could raise and lower the cab at will to position it at the optimal height for accessing various parts from the interior roof to the frame. That said, it was still challenging, and a team effort. Scott would bend down and crawl under the frame and then stand up in an area between frame members. Then he’d spray what he could, bend down, crawl to a new location and do what he could from there, and so on. But the lighting in the shop is really lousy and that’s where I came in. I’d hold a (WBJ1 will love this) LED light stick and shine that to help Scott. I’d also point out areas that needed more paint. That might come across as being critical, but neither of us took it that way. It was an extra set of eyes from a different vantage point, and the goal was to do a thorough job. It helped to achieve the goal.
Here is Scott just starting to spray the color.
The Tucker truss frame is composed of many individual pieces of steel, all welded together. Each piece has multiple sides and they all need to be painted, and the coverage needs to be 100%. That means multiple spray gun angles to cover each piece and the multiple angles means overlapping paint on adjoining frame pieces. This can very easily lead to runs in the paint as you strive for that 100% coverage. Honestly, I think Scott did an outstanding job. He’s not a professional, and yet there are only a very few number of boo-boos. I can unequivocally say I could not have done as well.
These pics were taken the following day.
We had suspended the cab from a strap on the pintle hitch and Scott didn’t want to spray the strap with green paint. The pintle hitch was sprayed when we painted the exterior.
Periodically I'll go to Tucker's website to see what's going on. Tucker publishes a monthly newsletter and they almost always have information from the service department. It can be worth reading, though typically the information pertains to newer generation machines. Anyway, the December, 2018 issue surprised me.
Check out page three in the link below and look at the front-engined Tucker pictured. (Another Pea Soup Green Tucker. (My name for it. Scott''s is less complimentary...))
http://sno-cat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/volume-10issue-12.pdf
