My plan to refinish the covers of my Kenwood TS-430S hit a snag this afternoon. Enter Mr. Murphy.
The top cover — the one I really needed to refinish — turned out very well. The bottom one should be a piece of cake — so I thought. For some reason, the bottom of the case seemed to have an oily film on it. I washed it down in detergent and hot water before I wet sanded it, but apparently too much of the oil was still present. As I started spraying the bottom cover, the paint began to fisheye — which means the paint didn't flow smoothly over the surface, but formed round craters where the paint refused to flow due to silicon or oil contamination.
In the automotive world, fisheyes are a sign that you missed something in the prep step. You can use a product called (appropriately) FEE (fisheye eliminator), but all that stuff really amounts to is liquid silicone, the theory being that if you contaminate your paint, it will flow over the cotaminated area.
Dealing with a spray can I didn't have that option. I immediately quit spraying and let it dry. I washed the cover later in hot soapy water and wetsanded the fisheyes out of the finish. At some point in this process, common sense walloped me up side the head and whispered that this was too much work for a cheap-ass HF rig. I finished the wetsanding anyway, common sense be damned.
The second attempted went better, though the area was still showing signs of contamination. I went on and sprayed the cover completely, and the fish eyes disappeared once the paint settled and dried. I sprayed a second coat and it was done.
Wow, what a difference the covers make! The paint dries nearly flat, which is what I wanted. It's a dead ringer for the original color and texture. I've already reassembled the bail, legs, etc. on the bottom and reinstalled it on the radio. Murphy showed up this evening again, this time for the top cover.
I had it sitting by itself on the kitchen table when my wife comes in and unloads a shopping bag of notebooks — sitting them on my perfectly refinished cover, of course. I discovered the notebooks about an hour ago, and yeah, the cover of the one in contact with the cover was partly stuck to the dry-but-slightly-tacky paint. ARRGGH!
I ever-so-carefully separated the notebook from the cover, which has a minor mark on one edge due to the notebook. I might respray the cover just to touch it up, or I might just leave well enough alone.
The color and the paint is great, but the spray cans are rinky dink. The nozzle on the can I have was giving me fits on that last coat of paint on the bottom. It was spraying a stream of paint instead of a pattern. I don't know if all of these kinds of nozzles suck or if its just the one that came with the can I received. If I thought the nozzle wouldn't screw up I might spray a coat on the top cover. I may do a test tomorrow before I decide. The practical part of me says don't fix what really isn't broken.
I won't be gun shy on painting another rig's covers with this guy's paint. It's good stuff and its reasonably priced. It's pretty amazing at how much it improved the radio's looks. It hardly looks like the same rig.
I've got to finish reassembling the top cover before the rig is complete; I need to add the speaker grille clothe, speaker, vox control labels, etc. I'm going to let the paint dry overnight before that.
That's all for this installment. I hope Murphy's work here is done for the night.