My 31 year old Toyota desperately needs a proper paint job, but I lack the funds to get it done. While having a 6 tone paint job is great for intimidating those who would violate my right of way, the growing rust patches have become worrisome.
A couple years ago I tried replacing my clear coat with spar varnish. At first it worked shockingly well. Here's a couple of pics from April 2023 which nicely contrast the spar varnished areas with the areas of dull paint, bereft of clear coat:
The difference is akin to a scammy television informercial for a poly coat product.
Alas, the spar varnish could not handle the combination of car flexing and summer heat and began to peel off by the end of that summer.
Well, the rust has grown worrisome, so I'm trying a crude hack yet again. This time I'm going more primitive with plain old boiled linseed oil with a bit of paint thinner to keep the coating thin enough to properly dry. (Using mineral spirits paint thinner is a cheat. To be properly medieval I should use turpentine, but turpentine stinks!)
So far, I have only done the parts with visible rust. Here is the hood:
Linseed oil has brought out the shine about as well as the spar varnish did.
And the trunk lid, which was getting scary rusty:
I took the picture in the morning and this shot had serious glare issues. Much of the white here is simply glare.
So far, things are looking good for linseed oil. Alas, the thinned linseed oil had a tendency to run when used on steep surfaces:
Another problem is that boiled linseed oil takes WAY longer to cure than spar varnish. I applied the coating late Monday morning and as of Thursday afternoon, it is still slightly tacky. And there is still the issue of whether the linseed oil will get moldy.
I'm not too worried about the oil applied to the actual rusty spots. Rust acts as a catalyst to make linseed oil crosslink faster. That's the reason old barns were red: iron oxide mixed with linseed oil. (Lead oxide also acts as a catalyst to cross link linseed oil, and unlike iron oxide, lead oxide is white, which allows many colors. Lead paint is excellent paint -- save that it's toxic.)
I'm hoping that the softness of the linseed oil will allow the new coating to last longer than spar varnish. This won't be a proper scientific test, as I am applying in the fall instead of the spring.
On the other hand, if it fails to fully harden and has a mold problem, maybe I'll get some finely ground iron oxide and repaint the car red. Should stand out nicely in this age of bland paint jobs...
Tags: car repair
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