Thread: Picking a paint.

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I'm getting closer to spraying my 1st car and am stuck between two paints. Being my 1st paint job, I'm leaning toward using a acrylic lacquer so I can go back and sand and buff since I wont have access to a booth. This is going to basically going to be a track car so I'm not looking for a 100 point job. The other paint I'm looking at is a single stage acrylic urethane. I know the urethane will hold up much better, but if this car sees the sun twice a week it will be lucky. I have seen a single stage urethane job when finished and it looked really nice considering not sanding/buffing was done after being finished. So what do you pros think? One thing to keep in mind its a blue metalic that I want to use and I was planning on spraying most of the car in parts (doors, fenders, hood, trunk lid then body) its all apart now anyway.

Jason

First you will find it is hard to find a shop that can mix lacquer today. It is an antique compared to the urethanes. 99% of today's shops are not interested in buying it......so very few carry it.

Paint manufacturers are not interested in creating lacquer formulas for new colors, since there is no real market, so you would be limited to older colors.

Urethanes will give a better color match on metallics, than lacquer, since they are less sensative to variations in spry pattern, temperature, and distance. They are also engineered to dry with a uniform metallic angle.

Catalyzed urethanes can be sanded and buffed, but I would not attempt it with a metallic, unless it has 2-3 coats of clear. Since you are painting outdoors, I would plan on sanding and buffing, since it will need it, without doubt.

The urethanes are a better choice than acrylic enamel, for a dusty environment, since they flash faster.

Hope this helps.

i still like acrylic enamel with harder for the price may be better for first time but if a metalic could be tricky to get the metalic even and shiny to .so then urethane base clear. but you can clear the acylic enamel with urethane clear to with i did many times i still think this works very good but slow going but you can get a very nice job, there is not any thing that makes the urethane single stage better then enamel if you try to spray them out they may both may be hard for you to get i nice even lay out of the metalic. if you sand them to wheel them with no clear the paint will be weak for hold up you are better to sand and wheel on clear