Have you bought any auto paint lately?
 

Wholy cow! $550.00 for a gallon of black base, 2 quarts of white base, and one gallon of clear, and their respective reducers, and hardeners.
This is not even the good stuff. Just mid grade valspar.. Ouch.
I'm starting to think that a gallon of rustoleum and a roller may have been the better idea..

Yes I have. One thing for sure the technology and performance of the prep, primer and paints have increased dramatically. Down side is the price has too. I'm re-doing the paint inside the cab and under hood of my '56 Chevy rat-rod truck to the factory colors of aqua green / ivory white two-tone.

I bought:

Gallon special H2K primer that adheres to any surface including glass
Gallon special sealer
Gallon of aqua green - single stage
1/2 gallon of ivory white - single stage
1 gallon reducer
Activator
_______________


= $575+!!!!!

I KNOW!!! I thought I had a cheap do DIY project when I upgraded the aero on my race car. Stupid me bought the nice Devilbiss gun before the paint. All the supplies were $900! I ended up going with the cheaper Sherwin Williams Automotive Coating…Still $750. In the end, I spent 10 hours of work and toxic fumes to save $400 from the paint ship bid. Never again.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1436538206.jpg

Well, I'm a DIY kind of guy......but I don't paint for a living. I'm short of brain cells and have killed off more shooting paint. The compressor is on the floor and the supplies are on shelves. Over all, most of my tools have paid for themselves.

As a one shot deal, painting cars is an iffy proposition.

The price of paint is a given....but name a material that whose price has dropped.
The price of paint elicited a "humm".....but I got on with it. You pay for it either way.

I hired out my last full paint job ($7K).....but it needed to be a 3 footer......not a 10-20 footer like my race car.......that would have cost me 3-to 10 ( pick a number) times more than a DIY job (but saved a couple million brain cells).

As a comparison, I got my money back on Porsche specialty tools that I had purchased 10-12 years before. That said, my painting tools are almost worthless.

Says it all right there. :D

Whats sad, is that I am doing this for fun!!

Hay, I tole you up front.:D

Guys, guys, guys, you are paying way too much for paint! I overpaid myself before finding this place.
Automotive Finish Products
I use the Kirker paint on the Unimogs and it works great. I love the hotrod black for the chassis, fenders, bumpers and inside.

That's frikkin ridiculous - most cars will get banged into again by some doofus or a shopping cart or whatever within a few months, rendering all that expensive paint worthless. For a show car? Fine. For anything that gets driven on public roads? Umm, no.

Welcome to my world.
A typical 911 refinish stripped to bare metal, epoxy primer base, 2K primer ( 1 gallon w/hardner), top quality top coats ( single stage or two stage, doesn't matter) I'll have no less than $3500.00 in materials.

Loved my '83 T-Bird, Turbo Coupe but got smashed in the front end by a auto parts delivery guy making a left turn in front of me...dead center.
Upshot was that I bought a used bumper, grill, and hood from some guy on Craigslist...they were '84 parts and Light Maroon and not the Ford Bright Red.
Already had the compressor and gun so I priced out the supplies and was shocked.
I planned on selling the car anyway (back in 2006, selling and getting out of CA) so I looked at Rustoleum at Home Depot...bought a spray can of Sunrise Red enamel just to see if it would match.
What the hell!...a dead ringer. I bought 2 quarts, a quart of light grey primer, and a quart of Acetone, for a quick kick (Rustoleum dries slooowwllyy), shot the parts in my back yard on saw horses on the lawn one sunny day and they came out beautifully.
Waited a few weeks to buff and it looked exactly like the clear coat on the rest of the car.
I told the buyer what I did and he marveled. :cool:

Forget the brand, but one gallon of gt3 orange was $600cdn locally.

I'll be using tremclad real orange on my 912. The color is almost identical.

Yeah I just bought a PINT of UNO single stage to paint a fender on the 62 Beetle in my sig. I figured I'd do the bodywork and paint myself to save $ and learn some. Borrowed a gun from a friend and set up paint 'booth' (old shower curtains taped together and hung from the garage door track.

Over $100 for the pint of paint w/ activator and reducer, then another $50 for the compatible primer/activator/reducer.

I probably saved some by doing it myself, and it was fun....but the paint was definitely more $$ than I anticipated.

And judging by the odors of the stuff I'm sure I killed some brain cells (I used a respirator)

A respirator only protects your lungs( marginally) Chemicals in paints can be absorbed thru your skin. Your liver is a sensitive organ that can be quickly and severly damaged.

My really good friend Ken, who has been my body/paint guy for the last 25 years , is fighting a loosing battle with lung cancer right now.

I bought this in 2013:
Lotus Chrome Orange (PPG Deltron 2000)
1 Pint of Base
1 Pint of Top coat
1 Quart of Clear
1 Quart of Reducer
1 Hardener
Total: $413. For 3/4 gallon of products. Crazy.

I just finished repainting my 1972 Corvette. I used Nason (Dupont low line) A gallon of red base and a gallon of clear with hardeners and reducers was < $240 plus about $24 shipping from Southeast paint on Ebay. 2k primer was about $95 gal. I have about 1/2 gal primer left over and about 1 pt of base for any touch ups.
The local CARQUEST near me sells the same stuff for almost $30% more and also charges sales tax. red is usually the most expensive. I also used their single stage urethane to repaint a fiberglass boat last year. A gal of white with reducer and hardener was about $120.
I,m very pleased with the results from both jobs ,although I haven,t seen any long term results to know about durability of the lower line paints , someone warned me the nason clear will yellow with time ,although shouldn,t b a problem for a complete.

Glasurit single stage - orange. $800 for one gallon
Orange apparently has a lot of pigment.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1436572855.jpg

Here is a really cheap job Nason base clear about $300material and 40 hours work in the garage behind the carhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1436576497.jpg

I just paid $96 plus shipping for 3/4 gal. of viper red and the hardener from Kirker. They make Porsche red as well for the same price! They have great prices and make a boat load of different colors. If painting the whole car and you don't care about changing the color, you can't beat price! Plus they make all kinds of primers and clears as well. I am sold on the quality of their products and have been using them for the past 5 years on the Unimogs I redo.