So many friggin' paints!

Finally decided what color the TR6 is going to be - Toyota code 187, Steel Mist Gray (factory MR2 bluish gray). Should look pretty awesome with some gunmetal gray Panasports. Now I've been looking for paint, and someone told me to check out the Sherwin Williams selection at http://www.sherwin-automotive.com/formula/ .

This brought up a selection of about 20 different paints - urethane, enamel, acrylic, basecoat/clearcoat, different product lines, etc etc etc. I have no idea where to start. I just want a relatively cheap paintjob that looks good enough for a "driver" TR6 (this ain't no show car...well, at least not until I make more than $20k a year, but then we'll be looking at a Toyota drivetrain and other naughty bits).

Halp?

Do you have a shop in mind to do the work or are you doing it yourself. Most shops have a brand that they use and will pick either an enamel or urethane from that line. The urethanes will be the most expensive and most durable. Acrylic enamels are less expensive but if the car is preped well can give you a good looking if somewhat less durable finish.

Ask for a single stage econo paint

I sell an inexpensive line of paint from BASF call Limco 1234.

In their urethane (Limco 3) a gallon of Toy 187 is $79.00, the reducer is LR 12 (medium) $18.50 and the hardener is Limco LHM (medium)and a pint is $33.25 Total $130.75.

It's easy to shoot and looks like basecoat when it drys

^^Thats what I did when I painted my Miata. Single stage paint ~$500 for paint and primer and other supplies at Sherwin Williams.

edit: I was replying to JB's post.

I painted my 944 Turbo with House of Color black and SPI clearcoat. A gallon of base and 2 gallons of clear was around 400. It also looks great and will hold up better than single stage. I used PPG shopline 2k primer for the spots that needed it.

I would agree that if you want the car to look nice go with a base and clear. My single-stage paint still looks decent after 4 years especially considering that I have waxed it only twice in that time but it does seem to chip quite easily.

Okay, it sounds like base and clear is the way to go. This will be a DIY job, for what it's worth. I've never painted with a real setup before, I can do a real damn good job with some Krylon, aerosol clearcoat, and wetsanding, but my color preference rules that out for this job.

How does all this reducer/hardener stuff work? I guess I'm a huge n00b when it comes to painting a car the non-ghetto way. We've got a decent compressor in the garage, but that's about all I know - still need to invest in sprayguns and the like.

You need to mix the reducer/hardener into the paint to activate it. There are different formulas based on the ambient temperature when you are painting the car so it would be best to buy it no earlier than a couple days before you paint so you know what the weather is going to be.

I'm sure there are people that know much more about it than me so I will let them add in.

Invest in a decent gun. For a little more than the harbor freight guns you can hit ebay or a pawn shop and pick up something good like a Sata or DeVillbiss. I have a Sata and it's painted more things than I can remember and never given me any trouble. Even if you go the cheap route avoid the old style siphon guns with the can on the bottom. You're new to painting and the less problems you have the better you'll do.

Go to your local autobody supplier and see what they sell, and ask questions. The major manufacturers are similar in quality, use what they support so that you can get your questions answered. You will get better results doing a good job with inexpensive paint than doing a half assed job with top line paint.

Patience. Take your time, and if you're not happy with something do it over. If something looks bad in primer it will look worse in paint. The supplier will set you up with the necessary reducers/hardeners ect for the paint you chose. Follow the directions, the companies are pretty specific in how they want things mixed for a reason. Ask if there are any upcoming training seminars that you could sit in on. I've gone to a few that were very helpful in teaching me, and they will often let you try the product being demo'd and serve pizza.

It will take longer than you think, it's worth it in the end.

+1 to what Wally said

Prep work is essential. Also, make sure you clean the gun out thoroughly before and after shooting. Cleanliness, and patience are keys to a nice paintjob.

My brother painted for 7 years or so at a high quality shop. He and I have painted a couple of cars at home in home-made booths. It always surprised me how much prep time it took and how surgically clean he made sure everything was before going to the next step.

Take your time and do it right. You will be looking at the imperfections in the paint for a long long time.

I've painted a few of my cars, and about a gazillion sets of race motorcycle bodywork over the past few years, and did an article for Roadracing World magaizine on DIY painting. I'm about to crap in the punchbowl here, so please understand that I do truly have your best interests in mind here:

"Essentially every clearcoat system available today is a catalyzed urethane. There is no approved filter-type respirator for these materials. The only safe way to use these is through the use of a supplied-air system. Failure to do so is to subject one's self to isocyanates which are particularly nasty neurotoxins"

I've done a few things in basecoat/urethane clear so long as they're small and I can work outdoors where vapors dissipate quickly, and I can stay upwind, still, it's genuinely bad stuff, and you can't fix what it does to you.

I recommend the use of acrylic enamels. They're getting harder and harder to find, but PPG Omni works fine, and an acrylic clear is available.

I shot my Sprite with the last of my Speedwell Blue PPG Delstar last fall, and it'll be a sad day when the last of my stash of Delstar is all gone...

Done correctly, acrylic enamels (which use a hardener and a temperature-specific reducer) lay out very well and can be colorsanded, cut and buffed to a mirror finish.

Mainly, as others have stated, it's literally 97% preparation. My Sprite was 2 years of restoring the tub, getting it all straight, priming, blocking, priming , blocking etc. etc. Shooting the paint took about 2 hours, and it was a day to wet sand and a day to buff.

Wally wrote: Go to your local autobody supplier and see what they sell, and ask questions. The major manufacturers are similar in quality, use what they support so that you can get your questions answered. You will get better results doing a good job with inexpensive paint than doing a half assed job with top line paint.

Listen to Wally. Seriously. I sold auto paint for about 10 years, both PPG and DuPont (and their economy lines). They're all just a little different, but spray about the same. If you're set on BC/CC (good idea for a first-timer), tell that to the jobber and listen carefully (and heed to) their advice.

A couple counter guys rented the shop next to ours when we had our race car. They were a wealth of information and could teach almost anyone

motomoron wrote: I recommend the use of acrylic enamels. They're getting harder and harder to find, but PPG Omni works fine, and an acrylic clear is available. I shot my Sprite with the last of my Speedwell Blue PPG Delstar last fall, and it'll be a sad day when the last of my stash of Delstar is all gone... Done correctly, acrylic enamels (which use a hardener and a temperature-specific reducer) lay out very well and can be colorsanded, cut and buffed to a mirror finish.

Why would you recommend an acrylic enamel over a urethane?

Even an acrylic urethane will not last as long as a straight polyurethane, and there isn't a massive price difference between the two (like PPG Shopline JC630 vs JC620 for example).

It sounds like he's recommending it so Slick doesn't damage his lungs. Being the devil's advocate I'll admit to spraying urethane and imron with dust masks, but from time to time my lungs would burn. I didn't worry much because noone in my family lives long enough to get cancer.

Seeing as this seems like it's going to hold him over until he graduates college and can afford a full resto I'd say acrtlic enamel will last him just fine.

For a full paint job get an off-brand like omni, nason, or matrix. There's no need to spend alot on high end PPG, Dupont, or any major brand if your not trying to match the paint to anything.

I did a base/clear PPG (2k I believe) on my MG. There is a wealth of information on the internet. I used the HF purple aluminum gravity gun and it worked like a champ. Just read up on how to set them up and do some tests with leftover cheap paint. Note, you can get castoff color and other stuff from the jobber- I got a quart of miata classic red for $15 (I'd unfortunately already bought the color, but now I have touch up). The material data sheets should tell you all you need to know about mixing, setup, and workable time.

As stated above, 95% is prep. The painting part is actually quite fun. I'm actually looking forward to doing it again.

The best way to a cheap paint job.

ddavidv wrote: The best way to a cheap paint job.

Oh yeah! Forgot about that technique. I think I'm actually going to try that, I'll save a high-quality respray for when the car is otherwise 100%.

I've done it, so know the plusses and minuses. I'd do it again. You can't read enough before attempting it though. Once you understand the procedure it's not bad. It takes longer, but is certainly cheaper and less messy.

Cheaper because you don't need the equipment, or just the price of paint?

Could you spray the Rustoleum//tractor paint/whatever if you already had a cheap gun & get similar results?

I'm going to need to paint the Tempest this summer & I'm considering what's going to be the cheapest and/or easiest way to get a "racecar-quality" paint job. As long as it looks decent at 20ft/20mph I'll be OK with the results.

Rustoleum/Tremclad type paint can be sprayed, although that does introduce an overspray/cleanup issue and makes building a paint booth more attractive.
Time saved applying the paint versus time spent masking and cleaning. Either way, the prep and sanding are the keys to how good it looks.

I was going to try the rustoleum paint job until I saw a thread on Vwvortex where someone did a test spraying regular automotive paint over a panel that had been painted with rustoleum. The rustoleum bubbled and peeled under the real paint so if you were to paint the car for real at a later date you would need to take all the rustoleum off before repainting to get good results. I will try to find the thread with the test.