Goto paint brand

[js79]

Good morning everyone.
So, I started teaching my 16 year old son how to wrench and work in a garage and how to do basic maintenance on a car. We decided to build and restore his 1st car together. It's nothing fancy, just a 96' Nissan 240sx.

We've done all the necessary body prep work to have it ready for paint, but rather than paying a body shop to do, thought it would be much of a better experience for us to share it together, hopeing that I can teach him a thing or two.

So we're now in the process of building a paint booth in the garage out of PVC pipe and will be looking to paint soon. Leaning on a standard base coat and clear coat, and we have the necessary items to paint with the hvlp gun compressor and all. Just now looking for an automotive paint brand.

Can anyone recommend a brand that comes with base, reducer and hardener along with clear?

Thanks gents.

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[jeepinerdeep]

Acme/Finish 1 is pretty forgiving. I get good results as a novice.

I've used bases from Sherwin Williams, Summit and Nason. I'm not savvy evough to tell the difference.

Some of these paint suppliers on ebay will pre-reduce and mix the base to code.

 

[cgrutt]

I'm not a pro so take it for what it's worth, but I've had good luck ordering online from http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/ I believe brand is "house of kolor" but not sure if that is a TCP house brand or if it's widely available. They ship quick but I believe it has to be sent ground. Good luck with your project.

 

[customh]

I'm not a pro so take it for what it's worth, but I've had good luck ordering online from http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/ I believe brand is "house of kolor" but not sure if that is a TCP house brand or if it's widely available. They ship quick but I believe it has to be sent ground. Good luck with your project.

This post is hilarious to a guy who knows paint. House of Kolor is a well known and actually very well respected line.

 

[cgrutt]

This post is hilarious to a guy who knows paint. House of Kolor is a well known and actually very well respected line.

All joking aside, as I said I've had good luck with it in the past.

 

[txvwnut]

Kirker is a good brand for a learner but your stuck with whatever colors they have. Acme is good it’s a PPG economy paint line and you can get it at your local paint supply shop that deals PPG. Both of them flow well so if you get the spray pattern right and lay it down decent you’ll get good results.

 

[metlmunchr]

Check to see if there's a dealer for Wanda paint in your area. It is an Akzo Nobel brand and pro painters who have used it swear by it. Its as cheap or cheaper than the economy lines from PPG (Shopline) or DuPont (Nason) but it covers like the PPG and DuPont high end lines.

The differences that make the Wanda cheaper is that they don't have a bunch of tech reps on salary for hand holding, nor do they do things like give away new bass boats to the owners of large shops to entice them to use a specific brand. Wanda is a full line system so they have the formulas for all current colors as well as all the variants of those colors.

Actually, my own preference is Wanda base with Southern Polyurethanes Universal clear. SPI's clear flows out really nice, is reasonable in price, and most importantly, it can be color sanded and buffed easily even weeks after application while many other clears will be hard as a rock in a week or less to the point where sanding is near impossible.

FWIW, TCP Global does have a house brand and they do sell House of Kolor, but House of Kolor is not their house brand. House of Kolor is great stuff but its too expensive for learning on.

 

[SteveH-CO]

We've done all the necessary body prep work to have it ready for paint, but rather than paying a body shop to do, thought it would be much of a better experience for us to share it together, hopeing that I can teach him a thing or two.

Congrats on a great father-son project! I don't know your experience level, but this helped me:

• Check out some car painting books from the library in advance
• Get a couple junkyard hoods and shoot them - create runs, dry spots, orange peel, etc. Some body shops will loan you the parts if you return them after you paint them for scrap value.
• Be prepared to (within a day or two) buff out the clear coat to remove normal orange peel. If you know any painters, they can give you invaluable advice, as a power buffer can be a dangerous tool in (at least my) hands.

 

[Stooge]

I've used House of Kolor a handful of times, I like it but it can also be relatively expensive, especially for a hobbyist that isn't going to be making any money off of it.

I have also had good luck with the TCP global Restoration Shop brand line. Can be bought in kits, lays down well, is pretty forgiving and also very affordable. I used to paint my last project and will probably use it to paint my current project. Each color has a few different varieties that it is sold under, single stage, and the specific basecoat clear coat flavors.

http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/Restoration-Shop/

 

[sanddan]

I like PPG best but for most of my projects I've been using Omni which is a PPG brand but less expensive than their top brand.

 

[IndyGarage]

I've bought Nason brand for several small projects recently - it has worked fine for me.

One of the things I didn't realize from back in the 80's when I hacked a car paint job together is the paint guns are totally different than they were back then. The ones you use now are gravity feed HVLP's and they use a fraction of the amount of paint the old ones did - A half pint of paint will do a couple of panels. I bought a gallon of black from SPI for a project - painted an entire car and probably have half of it left over.

One of the other things I recommend is the dekups system or the similar 3M PPS system for your gun - makes clean up about 90% quicker and easier.

 

[dr_clyde]

Highly depends on what I'm painting.

For equipment, I use a DP-90 primer followed by a good single stage. DuPont Centari is my favorite, and Dupont Imron is outstanding if you can still find it.

Cars, when I worked in a body shop, we used House of Kolor 2K primer for just about everything, and usually PPG color with a House if Kolor clear.

Chances are good anything your local paint jobber mixes will work great for you.

 

[js79]

Thanks for the comments. I looked at tcpglobal and found that they were locally in San Diego to my surprise. Just my luck, came in and spent a good time picking their brain about diy painting and settled on hot rod flatz in matte black.

We still have a few weekends of sanding to do for prep, as well as taking apart the front and rear windshields to lay down a good spray and replace the old dry rotted moldings.

Just wanted to say many thanks.

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