Thinking about paint

[sparkydave]

I've been told there's a wide range of pricing when it comes to something like paint. Mine has several chips, flakes, scratches and a nice two-tone effect going where I used some rattle can to keep the tin worm from invading. It would be nice if it looked a little more presentable. As far as body work, the only thing I would really like to fix is where one of the jacking points collapsed and bent the outer skin slightly. I fiberglassed a small hole in the driver's door pillar, but that's the worst of the rust spots.

Any ideas on what to look for or where to start looking? Better yet, what kind of $$$ I'm looking at for a halfway decent (not show quality) paint job? I don't think I could paint it myself. This little voice in my head says I should probably stay far away from Maaco.

 

[jaegzie]

When I was looking into getting paint for my 69 I was in the same boat. People may not like this idea but it worked well for me so far. I put an ad to find a painter and put it exactly what your thread here says. I got like 20 calls from different people. Almost all of them kept books of things they painted and looked over the car. Also as I talked to the people you could see people going through the car better and looking at different parts and some just came and looked at it, not looking at trunk inner fenders patch spots. Ended up that one of my friends is doing it but to make sure everythign was straight and body work was prep right it was 1200 average going from 800 - 6000. This was what I found earlier this year.

 

[jlaird]

And you pay for what you get mostly. But find someone with esperienc on LBCs.

This was 3K several years ago.

 

[tao724]

You might actually do real well finding someone through a newspaper ad. There is someone out there with experience and talent who has a home set up. You need the work and this person needs the job. It would be best if they had a vehicle they painted as an example, and photos of their prior work. Quality supplies from an auto paint store would be a must. I went with my painter at the time of purchase. And you would need to know their standard for car preparation. I'm sure there are many descriptions of good preparation that could be offered by experienced forum readers or a google search. The more pieces you dismantle from your car prior to going to the painter, the better your ultimate job will be. That includes the boot and engine bay.....these are areas that seem convenient to skimp on with preparation, and the more you can help out, the more satisfied you will be afterwards. My receipts for the paint and prep supplies came to about $1,100 retail, (FYI), professional fees and 'shop fees', are the other charges.

 

[dklawson]

Dave, are you planning on having the car prepped and painted or do you want to paint it yourself?

I have painted several cars over the years and I have found the materials are getting better and better. I certainly can't attribute the improved appearance of the end results with anything I'm doing differently. The last car I painted was in two-component urethane (solid color, not a base/clear system). It looked very good to start with and then I wet sanded and buffed the top coat. That was using paints from PPG's DCC system.

On my current project (Spitfire) I'll be painting the car one section at a time. As an experiment I bought urethane paint for the hardtop from TCP Global. I was generally pleased with the paint. It was similar to the PPG paint I'd used and was easily less than half the price even with shipping. You may want to Google for TCP Global. While they can mix any color you want, they also have a line of 144 stock colors that cost about 1/3 less than custom mixed colors. You may find TCP a very economical source for paints and supplies IF you want to spray the car yourself.

 

[tdskip]

Doug - did you get color chips from TCP or did you send them the color you wanted?

 

[dklawson]

TCP "sells" a brochure of their stock paint colors. I did buy that but it's really hard to have any confidence in the colors that are printed instead of painted. Still, I was pleased enough with the first paint to have confidence to buy my next color choice.

If you want to buy a stock color, TCP has an online index of OEM colors for most makes. The index for Triumphs included scanned pages from the PPG color chip book. You can zoom in and find the PPG color codes for the factory paint. I assume they'd have the same type of information for most LBCs.

 

[Midget78]

Sparkydave, I have a 78 Midget 1500 and back in May I started my cars paint project. Now being unemployed I had the time also but I still started by stripping the original paint down to the metal doing one fender, door, etc. at a time. I went to the local auto store and found the "better" then average primers and paints ( spray cans ) and went to it. I finished the car about 2 months ago but all in all most are surprised it wasnt professionally done. Prep work portion I took my time (although I drove it everyday) and luckily I had minimal body work. Doing some reading on how paints respond and act is worth while then just do it. I think in the end I spent $120 total and "I" did the work. I always see guys cringe when you mention spray cans BUT the new auto spray paints have special spray tips that do better then the average cans and with the right conditions you can get good results with practice.

 

[startech47]

We prepared and primered and paid for the materials and my son's high school shop class sprayed the color and clear coats. It came out great. Cost of the spray job at the high school was $25.00.