Painting the Doka Racks

It is far past time for a project update. Paul and I have been working away, making progress, and taking pictures most Tuesday nights and Sundays for the last year. Now that the weather is cold, and we can't spend long periods of time outside, I have an opportunity to catch up on the blog.

We used this touch up spray gun from Harbor Freight to apply primer and paint to all of the angle iron battery racks we have been fabricating.  There are probably better spray guns out there, but this worked really well.  Much better than rattle cans.  My 5 gallon air compressor was just barely able to keep up.

 

Prep work is important.  Paint will magnify and enhance even minor imperfections - such as paint that is flaking off.  We can't neglect to remove rust, weld slag, oil, or mill scale from the metal stock.  This is Paul working, while I watched and filmed.  The rate is sped up 8X.  Too bad we can work that fast in real time.

The primer is a deep brown color.  This will help get full coverage when we spray the black top coat.  Thin areas will be obvious, because they won't look black.  We are using cheap plastic drop cloths because we aren't trying to paint Paul's patio.

We tried to save time by hanging the small parts, so that we could paint the entire part at one time, instead of painting one side, and waiting for them to dry before turning them over for a coat on the back.  The spray from the gun tends to knock the parts around and get them spinning, which sounds cool, but isn't if you're trying to get a decent looking paint job.  Two wires, next time.

The rack looks good in black.  This is under the rear passenger bench seat, and will house 48 cells.

The cells are wedged snuggly and securely into their new home.

 

The racks under the truck bed are on sliders and they look really good.  It looks like there is a lot of room in this space, but it was ridiculously difficult to turn a wrench inside the compartment.  Awkward angles and no good line of sight on the bolt location for securing the rack to the truck made for a good challenge.

 But it was worth it.  Look at those battery racks.