[tcb] Re: What paint should I use?
- From: Sammie Smith <slsmith@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: tcb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 10:18:36 -0500
Ronnie:
Any good quality acrylic urethane. Omni is a cheap brand of au paint. For
a single stage (non clear coat) my paint gurus tell me that all of the top
quality au paints are about the same. I have been using PPG Concept. It
ain't cheap. I just bought a quart of black for touch up work. Paint
only, no hardner or reducer, price, $52 per quart. The color only is going
to run you $150-$200 per gallon. Hardner is something like $25 per
pint. For the paint and materials on a bus you can probably figure
$500-$750 to shoot a quality single stage paint job. The au paints spray
about like the old laquers, which makes it easy for the amateur to shoot
and it dries really really fast. Acrylic enamel is ok but takes a long
time to dry which gives you all kinds of problems with sticky overspray and
bugs and dust in the paint before it dries.
Shoot it with au single stage one day. The next day (and for about the
next 30 hours of work on a bus) color sand and buff. Color sand in one
direction with 1500 wet, then color sand the other direction with 2000 wet,
then with the buffing pad and some 3m compound, buff the entire thing. It
will shine like new.
Note on primer. Have lately been using Transtar epoxy primer with good
success. According to my paint seller and the directions of the
manufacturer, you can shoot it on bare metal, it's high build, and you
don't have to seal it before shooting the color. It appears to work really
well but don't have any long term experience, i.e., I don't know what it's
going to look like 5 years down the road. Had a friend that just did his
58 Porsche Coupe with it then color and clear and seems to be really
pleased. The last car that I took to bare metal and shot with PPG etching
primer then PPG high build primer. I had some real problems with the
primer during the shoot and now a couple of years later I appear to be
getting some primer shrinkage. So I'm off of the PPG primers right
now. The Transtar is about $100 for a gallon.
I haven't shot clear in a while. I like the single stage paints for the VW
and for the amateur painter. Clear is not correct for a VW, is more
expensive, is much tougher to shoot and get a quality job, delicate to
color sand and buff, and much more difficult to later go in and touch up a
scratch or some other blemish.
Quick summary: Shoot good quality AU paint. It's easy and I think you
will be pleased with the results. Wear full clothes and a good
respirator. AU is caustic.
One final note for paint and body work in general. These are VWs
guys. It's pretty easy to put a $10,000 and up paint job on a car. That's
probably OK if your talking about a $100,000 plus car. But this is a
volkswagen. You're probably gonna drive it and your probably gonna scratch it.
One final plug for PPG. Maybe some other manufacturers can do this also,
but PPG dealers can. If you have the VW color code, such as L87 Pearl
White, they have the cross references in their computer so they can match
the VW paint code. My local PPG dealer (English Color which has stores all
over Texas) has also done a really good job with the digital photo color
duping. Take them a good panel with the paint color you want to match and
they can shoot a picture of it and digitaly match the color. My experience
has been excellent with their color matches using this process.
Please note my disclaimer. I am not a professional painter. Just an
amateur who likes to mess with it. I have learned a lot by talking to
auto/body guys about paint. Every time I meet anyone who shoots paint I
pick their brain. My buddy with the Porsche had never shot paint on a car
before. He thought if Smith can do it he can too. He talked to a lot of
paint guys. He had someone else do the body work. He shot the Transtar,
did the block sanding, shot the color, shot the clear and did the rub
out. His car has a gorgeous silver paint job.
Sammie
At 10:18 PM 4/7/2005, you wrote:
>Talk to 10 people, get 10 different answers.
>The painter that painted my old dune buggy suggested that I use OMNI
>Acrylic urethane. I was about to buy some OMNI AU for Sparky, but last
>night I started reading a few websites and saw that most people aren't to
>impressed with the lifespan of OMNI AU.
>
>I went to a paint shop today at lunch to pick up some high build primer
>and talked to the guy there and said OMNI AU is good if you want a car to
>look good for a year then sell it. He suggested 3 coats of acrylic
>enamel, single stage - no clear coat. So now I have several conflicting
>views. The OMNI AU is about $150 cheaper than the AE.
>
>I would like to hear what you guys think. Sammie I know you have painted
>several of your cars in the driveway so I would definitely like to hear
>your opinion and Lonnie your paint looks good. What did you
>use? Anybody else got an opinion?
>
>Help!
>
>Fracdog
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