am going to be making a paint booth of sorts in my garage as an alternative to doing it in the outdoors.

I am shooting my wife's '91 LeBaron 'vert in the next couple weeks and I'm looking for some advice.

The paint store suggests single stage as they say it will have less of a chance of getting contaminants in it in less than ideal conditions. In a DuPont Chroma One I am looking at about $220 for material, under $200 in a Nason. I am having the color computer scanned. Not doing jambs or mouldings.

My concern is mottling of the metallic, or metallic "stripes" so to speak. I have tried metallics in a singel stage before and they only look good on small areas, I realize part of that is my gun skill, but every pro I talk too advises a base/clear for better results.

Cost doesn't bother me, I am looking at around $350 for Chromabase and $250 for the Nason equivalent.

I have also seen some fantastic base/clear jobs done in garages that you would swear were done in a downdraft booth.

What do you guys think? I have shot my share of paint before, but need some advice.

Eric

 

Eric, in the very limited painting I have done, I shot BC/CC and single stage. Personally, I would rather do everything in BC/CC if I could. I like it, and I personally feel it gives a "deeper" shine to it.

Alot of your contaminates can be eliminated with a faster drying clear coat. The sooner it "flashes" or "dusts off", the less time it will spend being like fly paper. I don't know where you planned on buying your paint, but if you go to Auto Paint & Equipment on Television Circle (which is where I get my PPG paint) and tell them what you are doing, they can help you out, they are great about answering questions.

P.S. let me know when you do it, I'd like to come over. For a few beers, I might even be willing to help prep.

 

one thing i'd like to add is single stage paint is a huge mess. it gets everywhere. a friend of mine painted a car red in a paintbooth and the paint got throught the cracks of the door in to the shop and gave 3 cars and everything else a red dusting of paint. i'd go with the bc/cc. like the last post.

Nick

 

Price is the main complication (color depending). If it's a daily beater, go single stage. If it's something you're proud of, 2 stage (bc/cc). Contaminates (i.e. dust/dirt) is truely only a problem when your painting white.

 

Well I have decided to go with base/clear. It just comes out nicer even though it's more money.

Bernard- I have been buying my supplies from Auto Color which is directly across from SAM's club near 516 close to my work. THey have been great, sell DuPont products.

The reason the guy at first tried to steer me to single stage was because I told him I was painting a '91 car, and he thought that meant it was a shoot-n-sell sort of a deal. After I explained that we had shopped new, comparable convertibles similarly equipped we decided replacing the top, rebuilding the tranny and a repaint were not so bad.

I would be MORE than happy to accept any offer of assistance I could get. If it stops RAINING! I will be doing prep this weekend and spray next hopefully.

I have the next two weekends to get this done, she was cool with me spending $500 on some cylinder heads for my truck so now her ride gets painted

Again everyone thank you for the advice!

Eric

 

dirt and so far are a biggger problem on darker colors as opposed to white...White tends to hide defects, such as not so great plastic work and dirt and what not b/c it reflects less....like if you look in a black car it is like a mirror and a white car is shiny but it is in no way like a black car....I JUST...JUST like 2 days ago used base coat clear coat on my 88 IROC vert and the booth we have in my school is **** and tons of dirt get in the damned thing but it is much less noticable then the black and...basically any other color that came out of it...but i am gonna cut and buff the whole car ne way so it does not matter...we will see. Also might i reccomend going ICI ValuPro...that is the line i used and it is a nice economy line.. I liked it alot, i spent around $400 for 3 qt kits of epoxy primer, 1 gal kit of high build primer 1 gal of base, 1.5 gal of clear. 3 gal of slow and mid reducer(should have used the mid) Now, the epoxy primer came out to be like just over a gal mixed, 1.5 gal or so ready to spray high build, 2 gals of base and about 2 gals of clear. So you get LOTS of paint cheap. And well, it shine's just as good as our BASF RM paint line we use at school but that is like over double the price.....I am telln you..check it out (also ICI is a PPG company). I have pics, i will post is still be put back together but you know, and i still have to cut and buff and this was the first time i ever spray base and clear on a WHOLE car, i have sprayed base and clear on parts and panels and what not but this was the first time a whole car...okay so bear with me, i messed up twice with a slightly dry area on the trunk and a 2" horzontal sag right above the left side front blinker....k?
Let me get those pics up.

 

The car was taken apart as i was changing from one white to another and i wanted that ****y old door jamb panit out b/c it would just make all my hard work not with it.

 

in the booth

 

out of booth

 

spoiler

 

ahhhhhh.......memories......

 

 

Well I went with the Chromabase, here's the results!

Eric

 

It wuld help if I actually posted the things I guess!

Eric