Question for the paint guys (automotive)

[lendaddy]

I am doing some touchup work on my Tundra and am having a hell of a time getting the paint to match.

The truck is my war horse and I am not trying to create a perfect finish, just fix some areas that are starting to rust before they get too far gone (bottom of the tail gate, rockers, a couple corners, etc..). I just want to keep the truck presentable as it is already a salvage title and 350k miles on it, never gonna be perfect and don't need it to be.

The truck is white (Toyota natural white to be specific). I did the basic prep work on the first area around the tail light where some surface rust was forming including removal of all corrosion and white primer. I then applied a few light coats of paint (yes the cheap rattle can stuff in the factory match color). I noticed it looked "off" when dry, had sort of a gray hue. So I decided I made a mistake by going cheap on the paint and set off to redo the one small area I started. I pulled the tape and paper and the color difference was even more obvious, definitely has a gray tinge to it.

So, I went to my local refinisher supply and had them mix me up a pint of proper paint for the gun. I re-prepped the area and went at it again. Ill be damned if it isn't almost the exact same grey hue as the rattle can stuff. I pulled the tape and paper again and there is a definite difference, very noticeable. WTF???

Now I started to wonder about the paint code, being a salvage truck it had obviously been repainted so I thought maybe they shot it with a slightly different color. Well, I had been sideswiped while parked a few months back and they repainted one of the quarters and a door, the match on those was very good. So I called them up and they had the exact mix records in the file and it was the standard mix for the factory color. Add to this that the jambs and underhood stuff match as well and I'm convinced it's just the factory color.

So, WTF? Is there something I'm doing in the prep that is jacking this all up? The finish looks great,no orange peel or anything weird, just a gray tint.

[Eric Coffey]

Whatever the case, it's usually best to bring in the car (or a paint chip) to custom-tint the color exactly. That will get you as close as possible, and will compensate for variations in the original mix/respray, UV fade, etc. Even the shops that do rattle cans should be able to do that.

[DanielDudley]

If you sand out all around the area with 600 and blend the paint out, you can often buff out the panel without being able to see the interface between the colors. You have to sand to prevent flash or interface when you buff.

[H.G.P.]

I'm no paint expert, so I can't recommend any real advice, but this is how I do my own touch-ups: I'm now able to achieve "perfect" (near perfect) matching on my touch ups, on all my cars, just using the Perfect Match cans from Advanced auto.

1. I usually have some paint "flakes" that have come off the car, or are coming off the car. I use the paint flakes for match.

2. I'll take some of the paint flakes down to the store and lay some of the "flakes" on top of the matching caps (can caps). I choose one or two of the cans near exact match. (sometimes I have I return to find a better match, but not often)

3. Using a good primer and absolutely smooth primer perfectly, no feel of lines whatsoever against where there will be the overspray for the blending (transition which is not perceptable to the eye). Naturally, Chrome, lights, glass, tires, rubber, etc, all well taped/masked/papered from overspray

4. The paint has to match perfectly (#1, #2 above), and to be sure I shoot the paint on a piece of plain white paper first, NOT on the car. I do all this outside in natural light, as inside can look different when he car is taken out in the natural sunlight.

5. I then lay/compare the paper shoot to the paint on the car as a first check.

6. If satisfied, I spray a very small light on a primed spot well below the main area. I step away, to check the color match from all angles and varied distances OUTDOORS.

7. If satisfied that I have an exact matching color, I very gradually move up to the greater visual areas of the job, with my border-transition overlapping onto the "original" painted area, for perfect blending "tricking" the eye.

8. I've become so good at this that I do not need any tape, except when priming before sanding, and of course to block off areas such as glass/chrome/tires/larger areas etc., from overspray. In fact I don't like the tape so I have don't have to worry about line problems from tape, but it takes a very steady experienced hand.

Hope you've been using a good auto primer.

[Buckterrier]

What color primer are you using, (gray I'll bet)? You may not be putting enough topcoat on. Paint has what's called black & white, (in Ford's case red & white, why I have know idea), hiding. Think of a square where opposing quadrants are black & the other two are white. You spray until you can't tell which is which.
Whites have poor hiding in the first place. You generally need 1.5 mils or more. If the paint is 50% solids that means you need to spray 3 wet mils to get hiding. Try spraying a piece of primed scrap metal at various films and see if the match get's better with higher DFT, (dry film thickness)..

Good luck.

Just thought of something else. Maybe the color code is a bc/cc? The clear can 'yellow' up the basecoat somewhat.

[Tim Hancock]

Yep.... Mark is most likely right about the gray primer being the culprit. It takes a BUNCH of coats to hide gray completely with most white paints. Just go buy a can of white primer (readily available at most car or home improvement stores) and give that a try on a scrap. I bet it solves your problem.

That said, at one point I owned five white cars (BMW's and Porsches all with different paint code/colors) and I did paint repairs on most and had to do a bit of custom blending at home on some of them when the factory paint color mixes from the paint store were not quite matching.

[lendaddy]

Thanks guys, good info.

That being said, I used white primer not gray and the area where I "blended" over the original scuffed up paint also shows this same gray tint. It's weird.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by lendaddy

Thanks guys, good info.

That being said, I used white primer not gray and the area where I "blended" over the original scuffed up paint also shows this same gray tint. It's weird.

Ok.... scratch that theory. You can try taking the truck or maybe your fuel door in to an automotive paint store and have them check it with their color measuring handheld scanner gizmo (if they have one) and see if they can derive a formula to match. Sometimes it works... sometimes it doesn't.

Some stores also may have employees willing to try making some small test batches to try and get a match. Last tough match I did, included having my mother who is very good with colors help me out to get a match on my daughter's 924S which had been repainted by the PO. After I wasted a couple trips to the local Dupont dealer she told me I needed just a touch of Okra (spelling?) to get a match and she was right. I had the paint store give me a couple ounces of Okra paint and took it home and mixed/sprayed some sample cards until my mother said it was perfect.

PS: I am partially color blind which makes it difficult for me to accurately judge colors.