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Old 10-17-2020, 07:52 AM   #13
Kevin in NJ
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: South East NJ
Posts: 3,398
Default Re: Paint recommendations

What are your goals in your restoration?

If you are going for show correct then your path is different then look close then I want to drive and have fun.

Paint color is pretty subjective. The Paint Handbook gets you pretty darn close. Very few people can actually figure out colors in the end. Quite frankly you could take a perfect factory car to a show today and it would likely lose points because the judges do not know what is correct.

The original paint would have been 'muddy'. That is the pigments were not like what we have today. The paints today are just so much clearer and reflective even without trying. If you are going full points then you need to paint areas like the firewall with flattened paint and the exterior areas that were buff to a shine need to be buffed to be dulled some. BC/CC will just be too glossy no matter what you do.

As for the primers and such, it does not matter. You can get good quality undercoats from places like SPI. Where the most problems in painting come into play is not following directions. Just look at chips in the paints on cars at shows. It is always down to some layer. I bet if you read the directions and talk to the painter you will find out either they did not sand with the correct grit or they put paint on past the recoat window. Get the tech sheets and know the correct grit papers and times when you can safely recoat.

The comment above about not knowing the original colors, well actually I think they have a good clue. There have been many original examples of cars plus the paint chips through the ages. I know on a door on my car there was an area of original paint that did not get much oxygen or any sunlight. When I compared the paint chips with proper neutral colors around they were spot on. I will say I am not the best with colors, like most people, so I took it to an artist friend that could really see the colors that went into the paint.

Here is my favorite question. What is the correct color black for the fenders and such?
I learned there are many different blacks. They each have an undertone depending on how they got to black. You can have red, blue, yellow the list seems to go on along with the pages of black paint samples on the chart.
FWIW, I do not know what is the correct color black. I have heard opinions, but nothing solid.

Last I will say I am far from any kind of paint expert. I tried to learn as best I could. I have screwed up a lot of painting and I do not think I am alone in this. The best advice I have is to read the tech sheets telling how to properly use the paints and be cautious of advice that goes away from the sheets even from 'experts' working in the field. I have been given just wrong advice by guys working in the field for decades. This based on my talking to the manufacturers of the paints. (Brent is not one of them)
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