ultimate paint

[samthedog]

How many coats of paint and clear would be equal to what a new ferrari has OEM?
I want this 124 I'm working on to have a deep look to the finish,and don't mind the time it takes to do it.

[azygoustoyou]

This is 3 coats of base and 3 of clear.

[mdrburchette]

It depends on the color you are using. Red colors are very transparant and will require more coats than a color such as yellow or blue. I have three coats of base and three coats of clear on mine and I could have used another coat or two of base. The brand of paint is also very important. You can really tell a big difference in the depth of the clearcoat between brands.

[samthedog]

Thanks for some feedback. From talking with a few custom rod owners,and a builder, doing what I want to do,the cost is off the chart. I have a large building,and decided to build my own car paint booth.
We have exaust fans, stacks, filters, air compressor, cup guns, DA sandersetc.
Plan to construct it with pipe,and skin it in heavy plastic.
Found the Ferrari red made by PPG. Will do some research about what to sand with, wet sanding,etc.

Am restoring a rust free Karmann ghia vert. Amazing one owner car, that was garaged,and driven very little.
It has been soda blasted,and in need of paint. By building my own booth, the payoff will be huge, saving me a lot of needed money, to play with cars.

Appreciate the help. I knew nothing about the 124,until after I bought it. I was searching for an A Healey,and came across this car of Craigslist. The more I see it , the more I like it.

[mdrburchette]

PPG has some awesome epoxy primers but we weren't please with their clearcoat when we owned a body shop. I would ask painters in the area which they prefer and why. Some paints are so user friendly and they can tell you the characteristics of each.

[maytag]

I'm a realy big fan of the Dupont Chroma-system, base / clear-coat.

Good stuff, and very forgiving for beginners.

But I agree with dscussing it with other painters in your area, because paint can be very susceptible to changes in humidity & temp.

[samthedog]

Will talk to local painters as suggested.
Plan to find a body shop painter, and have him come in to shoot a coat or two.
The County my building is located in TN is 20%. Should be able to find someone who wants a couple hundred
dollars in cash.

Question: ther are some areas on the rear fender that are rusted to metal. Surface rust.
Before the first coat is applied, we will have it sanded smooth.
Q; What are the number of grit
Is there any benefit to bringing the entire car down to bare metal?

i watch several TV shows, like West Coast Custom, and I see them strip cars bare,as well as the show Chasing Classic Cars.
Sure they have unlimited budgets, but there must be some reason they do this for appearances.
I'm sure not a wealthy guy, but have the ability to do the best paint on this car possible, because I can do it myself, given I have a building and all ther related equipment, materials, and labor.
This building has a large Powder Coating system in it also. So we are also powder coating every part that would benefit from it. The major part of what is powdered, is that it needs to be able to hold up to 400F for about 17-20 minutes.


I'm close to haveing a complet written plan for the paint. Just need to learn

[azruss]

The reason for going down to the metal is to rid the car of any bad paint. Cheap repaints are sensitive to solvents and fast paints and can lift. PITA! My spider has only 2 paints on it. factory and a very nice redo. Did not feel the need to take it all the way down except where i suspected bad metal underneath. If you go down to metal, leave the surface rough with a grinder. 80 grit or rougher. Always worthwhile to do a metal conditioner if you are in damp climate. I am priming with a Northstar epoxy. I'm very impressed with it. forgiving to shoot, sands like a dream, tough as nails. I do a heavy prime, let it cure for 30 days or more (most tell me this isnt necessary with epoxy). I do it because i want all the shrink out of the paint before any sanding. I block till flat with 80 grit and finish with 220. this makes it ready for a final prime to get it super flat. If your car is already flat (mine isnt), you can skip this step and go straight to finish sand. I finish sand with 320 dry or 400 wet/dry. My painter tells me he gets a smoother top coat with a 400 wet sand.
As others have said, a lot of color coats are very transparent. The higher the quality, the better the coverage. I'm using PPG ($225/gal) for my color coat. I bought matrix for a clear coat. havent shot enough of it to form an opinion, except so far, so good.
For a paint booth, I use a 2x4 vertical frame and tie ropes between them. cover all sides with clear 3-mil plastic and use clothes pins for fastening to the rope. You can also make the entire frame from wood and staple the plastic on. For a fan, i have a 3000cfm squirrel cage out of my old house AC and mount it to a piece of plywood. Cut a hole in the end of the booth and staple it to the plywood. For filters I go to an auto paint supply house and buy sticky filters. they are about $15 each. staple them over the fan exhaust and blow into the booth. this pressurizes the booth so it doesnt suck any dust in. leave a seam open at the far end of the booth for egress. Can get a very clean paintjob with such a booth. Using an HVLP gun. got the primer down, but still learning how to shoot the color without excessive orangepeel. get yourself a first class resperator.

[samthedog]

azruss, all good info. I appreciate it.
From everything I can tell this car has the original OEM orange.
Should be good paint,and not want to come up after new paint is laid down.
But there are a few areas the car is down to the metal, like on the top of the rear fender.
Strange place to find rust on a car.

The bottom of my car is rust free, even the rockers and door bottoms are solid.
One section behind the drivers floor pan has a 1x1 square that aparantly the car ran over at some point.
New steel was laid inside, but I removed it,and plasma cut it clean and welded in new steel.
That's the extent of the rust under the car.
Will read through yor notes and comments and begin work this week.