I am planning on at least 4 paint jobs this spring/summer. Here are my questions.

What have users worked with before? I have sprayed PPG's Omni AU about 6years ago, both 1 stage and bc/cc. Both have faded or had other issues after time.

What brand and line can I use with a minimal budget, and end up with decent results? PPG, Du-pont, Napa, Valspar?

I was considering Du-pont, or maybe even Martain Senoir from Napa, We painted a Vermillion Red f-150 2 springs ago still looks decent.

Here is the truck list of projects. I hope to hear sucess stories, good products and questions.

I would like to select a paint line and stay with it, as much as possible. I do have supplies for the omni AU, but I am leaning away from it.


1996 F-150 (light blue)
1995 E-350 (white)

Then 2 cars of the fleet. Above list subject to add more trucks. lol

 

I have used Omni ,,it takes too many coats to hide , you end up buying more material than you would with a higher end product ,,,use a good clear ,,no issues ..I use PPG exclusively & I have always had good ,long lasting repairs


I still use single stage ,depending on what the intended use for the veh after repairs .Single stages require more attention than BC 's , especially if they are not garage kept...(no matter what brand you use...)

 

Action, Which single stage are you using? I know you stated PPG. My familyi n the refinish used to exclusively use Dupont then when paint store changed brands, went to PPG.

 

Most times just an acrylic enamel or DCC Concept (don't use single stage often)..

On my trucks ,usually single stage enamel ,,it holds up very well...

 

As far as cheaper basecoats, although I've only used each of the first two mentioned once, these are the two best I've used so far. You only find out what you like better for the money by trying different products.
Pro-spray if you can find it. ProsprayWhen I checked price on the color code on a car I sprayed last year, and it was half the price ppg dbc would have been in the color I was spraying (ultra silver). That color covered for me in two coats, metallic sprayed even without much effort, and like the pricier ppg dbc and dupont chromabase it is a polyester based basecoat which will mean faster drying times, and less chance of solvent popping in your clear if you don't leave plenty of time between applying your color coats and clearing (enamel based are slower). Kind of hard to find, pro-spray doesn't market too well. I had to order it from someone on another forum and have it shipped so I could give it a try, since no jobbers around me carry it. I did a complete, but it looked like it would have even been a fairly close match to what was originally on the car (omni usually quite a bit off, since they have limited tints to mix from).
I also used utech from sikkens on a job, again a silver and black metallic two tone. Both covered well and sprayed well.
I've shot a lot of limco and omni base before I tried the others, and not too impressed with either. Have had some major coverage isssues at times, not as good metallic control, and they are both enamel based. I've already gone through a gallon of these too on a complete with jambs ect, and I have a base gun that doesn't waste much paint.
I like ppg deltron base too, and used it quite a bit, except don't care too much for how expensive it has gotten, when others that seem to work just as well can be had cheaper. 80 bucks for a pint of a blue pearl color is just nuts (and more then likely has gone up since then). I've shot a lot of dupont chromabase too years ago in bodyshops, and it wasn't bad, but have heard people complaining about coverage with it at times too, when the cost is like it is. And the fact they have a special basemaker, so you are forced to buy there over priced reducer/activator, vs using another good grade of reducer and adding a capfull of your clear hardener for activator, like you could do with dbc or many other base coats. And this post what people were finding doing test panels is just scary if you ever did need to make a repair of a decent sized boo boo in your dupont base. Lengthy read. Interesting test on sanding base coat paint (against the data sheets recommendation)

Usually you want to use a good clear. Not quite as outrageous for a good clear as some colors. Some have better uv inhibitors then others. I like ppg's concept clears like 2021, but lately I've been using Southern Polyurethanes. I think it is a very good clear for the price, and lays down beautifully and seems to buff out easier then any other clear I've buffed. If I did have to try to find a complaint about it just a bit on the soft side. I suppose any clear will have somewhat of a compromise, somewhere between less mar resistance of a softer clear which can be buffed out, vs less chip resistance of a harder clear.

Unfortunately unless you paint a lot for yourself, keep it around, and have used it quite a while ago, you can't see how well one product holds up long term vs another, and products are constantly changing. Most cars as probably smucked up or traded long before the paint is done. One I painted totalled his 3 months after he got the car back, and my mom totalled her car that I painted way back in tech school (with centari enamel with the ultra performance pack no less), about 6 months later. I used cheap omni mtk singlestage on one of my beaters and I had the car 6 years. I was holding up very well, but then again it was white. I bet if it were red (single stage) it would have been fading quickly.

 

Kenseth17,
Thank you for your descriptive reply and summary.
I am in the debating process and re-evaluating process of which line to go with. I am not afraid of change or options so that being said.

We used Omni-Au as I stated, and on some vehicles used deltron. Before that my dad was in the automotive industry for the 60's and 70's he sprayed lots of lacquers and enamels from semi's to pintos. In any case I have been searching for the best alternative. I am really looking to find a good combination and use it. I would like the trucks to last and look good, without breaking the bank. I have 2 small geo prizm's (toyota corolla's) that I want to paint also. I intend on keeping most of these as I own them with no payments.

What spray gun do you use, you stated you have little waste with doing jambs etc. I am not expert and only have sprayed 3 vehicles myself, however i have been the paint mixer and formula checker since i was 12.

I guess my biggest decision is going to be a product line and a bc/cc or single stage enamel.

I have a few parts stores that have a paint line, but no dedicated automotive paint store any more, that I left behind in pittsburgh when I moved.

 

I have used PPG base coats, PPG Clears, Omni base with PPG clear, Omni single stage, Autocolor (Once when owned by ICI, another when owned by Nexa, now owned by PPG), NAPA brand paint (not sure who made this) and keystone automotive paint as well as Transtar clear. I know someone that uses DuPont at his shop and SHerwin Williams at a truck shop. Here is what we both have observed.

PPG and DuPont are real good paints no matter what you use. Sherwin Williams he said is also a good paint (but he has only used single stage so far) Omni (and yes it is owned by PPG)and Keystone bases can take more paint to cover that it says, especially depending on color (The old chevy gold paint took about 6 coats to cover decent) Transtar clear I personally think is by far the best clear out there. The high solids clear is great to lay down, it flows real nice and I have hardly had much orange peel with this compared to PPG clear. The NAPA paint (it was the nasty enamel that sticks to EVERYTHING) was a decent paint as well. I painted a enduro race car with it and it held up pretty good even with all the bumping and banging.

I used to work in the Glidden (ICI) paint plant when ICI owned Autocolor. Here is what I learned about paint making and quality. All major manuf make their own paint during first and early second shift. Then the lower grade lines or other brand paints (ICI made Kmarts paint) gets made on late 2nd shift and third shift when supervision is at its lowest and mainly where they put the new hires.

Depending on what I am painting will determine what paint or brand I will use. Since you are painting fleet vehicles, it just might be better to go with a single stage enamel paint. The cost will be cheaper than bc/cc. If you were painting show cars/trucks or street rods or your own vehicle, I would suggest a good brand of base and Transtar clear.

 

Wow, Again great information.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I am looking for this exactly. I know enamels like NAPA's Acrylic Enamel called crossfire did stick to everything, but it made a nice coverage on the truck in a red.

I am going to look into a transtar clear for sure, someone else did mention that line to me also. I am at least a month or 2 away from doing any major paint jobs, but I am trying to get prepared.

What primers would we recommend, stages and types?

 

Again with the primers its all gonna depend on what you are doing. If you go to bare metal, I suggest a self etching epoxy primer first. Then just use a standard primer over it and any body work. If you were doing a show car, street rod, Etc I would use a polyester based primer after the body work for a much nicer paint job.
I have used PPG DP primer (Epoxy) and DZ primer (Acrylic). The old DP with lead was much better than the DP that out there now, but nothing anyone can do about the lead. DZ primer is real nice to work with. I have also used Transtar primers. I used their 2K line, self etching line, and the 2k EZ Sand primer. The self etching was pretty good, the regular 2K pretty good, but I found that the 2K EZ sand was a little to light and well, to easy to sand. I would rather have to work a little more on sanding the primer than to have to recoat and resand.

If you want to try Transtar clear and primer or for more info just go to Transtar Autobody Technologies, Inc. - Manufacturers of Autobody Finishing Products then contact us and find a local sales rep. They can either tell you who sells it, or like the one I met, he said he can deliver it when in my area.

 

I use a accuspray model 10 for base, have been using it for years. Gun can make a huge fan, and sprays metallic basecoats usually pretty nice for me that I can spray fairly wet and usually not have to do a mist coat to even things out. It really does like to have a high flow regulator on it though. But the couple times I tried for clear, I couldn't get it to spray it too well. Its actually a pressure feed gun. It looks kinda chinzey looking at it, pretty much mostly plastic, but have not had any problems with mine in 14 years of occasional spraying.
I've been in the stone ages to recently using some conventionals I first started spraying with for clear. But somewhat recently bought an iwata lph 400 lvlp for clear coat. I have only used it for one complete so far. Haven't painted too much lately, and no longer do the painting part for my job. I bought the base cap iwata sells for the lph400 too, but don't really see using it for base, and dedicating it for clear. Although I only used it once, I can see it will be a lot more effortless laying higher solids clears of today, without having to hog it on, or go back over something again. And there isn't a cloud of overspray lingering around you are trying to look through, like so many years with the conventionals. The iwata is a pretty pricey gun, but it should soon pay for itself with the saved material and less effort pulling the trigger.
I sure am not an expert on guns. Not having painted for a living for awhile, I am not up or tryed too many different models of guns.
I bought the iwata because of what people were saying about it. I used some hvlps when they were still fairly new to the market, and ones I used back then were either junk, or you had to jack up the pressure so far to get them to spray decent, really wasn't any less fog or saved material then a conventional, not to mention being more expensive. I bought some model of sharpe hvlp off the snap on truck back then, and after trying once told him to take the pos back the next week he came to the shop. The accuspray ive been using has been around for awhile though, and bought it because a shop I was working at in the early 90's had one, and I really like how it sprayed the base. Looks like hvlps have come a long way. Sometimes change can be good.
But if you paint a lot of fleet vehicles, depending on budget, you might want to use a decent polyurethane single stage, or a polyurethane clear, because of the abuse they get. I work on semis at work, and they use a lot of imron, centari 5000 and 6000. We use transtar urethane primer at work, it seems decent enough. Have never tried there clear. Bare metal areas, I use a epoxy primer down first (epoxy should be non porous and unsolvuable), as long as its clean and sanded. Bare metal is best to use a "direct to metal" type primer or epoxy first, even though a urethane would stick if it were sanded. Urethane primer is somewhat porous and can soak up water and allow to reach the metal if given the chance.

Metallics I would consider using clear to give the ability to buff if needed and for the added ease of spraying the metallic. Also clear shoul provide more uv protection to the color then a single stage, so would also a good idea over metallics or colors that are likely to be prone to fading.