JoannaD

I have been off and on working on a restoration/painting project. This is my first brave attempt and I have to say, it's not going great... It looks great. Really great. Then the lacquer paint just flakes off the lacquer primer. The lacquer primer stays on the original paint and if I sand down and paint the base lacquer on the old paint, it sticks.. BUT the lacquer primer and lacquer base won't stick to each other. They are the same brand and meant to be used together so that's not my issue. I tried a different primer (Rustoleum self etching) to see if the primer was defective but got the same result. There is a small part I have literally painted 5 times trying different variables to see what I did wrong. No luck so far.

Where I can, I am just painting the base paint on the original finish and it holds well but there are sections where the original paint doesn't exist and I am confident that it's not going to just stick to bare metal. I went with lacquer because it's recommended by Dave McCullum (the only fairly extensive resource I had on painting sewing machines) and is generally considered more forgiving for newbies. Second guessing myself though!

Anyway, I know some of you have painted machines successfully. Any insight you could provide or suggestions would be helpful. I should maybe add that I am just rattle can painting.

Also, maybe what has worked for you in the past so I know what products I should use if I forget and decide to try something else again in the future.

I apologize in advance to any of you I have offended by painting my sewing machine. I promise it isn't rare and wasn't looking great when I started.