Archive for the ‘automotive paint’ Category
Car scratches eventually appear in a way of almost every car owner. There are many methods of dealing with them however painting it over with an auto spray gives the best result. If you have enough experience you will be able to paint over even a big scratch but a beginner also can manage to repair imperfections on his vehicle. Here are the steps to follow:
First, it is necessary to clean metal from dirt and rust. Dirt is removed by washing the panel with soapy water. When dry, sand out the scratch and surrounding area with sandpaper. Then you need to apply putty on a surface. It should consist of two components (with a hardener). Do not choose epoxy putty otherwise, it will dry for 24 hours. Use rubber or thin metal pallet for alignment.
It will take 20 minutes to dry up with a temperature of 200C (392F). At this stage, you may also use auto filler primer that is specially designed to fill scratches and imperfections and perfectly replaces putty. It can be found in auto stores but if you are after budget repair – putty will work just fine.
Next step, condition the surface with sandpaper of different calibers starting with sharp and then moving to a fine one. The panel should be ideally smooth to the touch. To make it this way use ultrafine 2000-3000 grit sandpaper and running water.
Now it is time to apply a primer. When primer layer is dry, you can start painting. To make sure the colour will match your car, enamel should be selected under number specified in the service book of the car. If you will paint your car in garage, take care that dust and moisture in it would be as little as possible otherwise fine motes will definitely get on a fresh paint.
Use masking tape and thick paper to cover parts that are not going to be painted. Make several light applications of a spray paint on a surface. Paint is put in two layers. First – thin, second – thicker. Time interval before applying second layer is 6 to 8 minutes. Average time of drying is about 2 hours, and full fixing of paint takes 24 hours.
When paint is dry, you can remove paper and masking tape. If you notice some imperfections such as drips or rough edges, you can fix it using ultrafine sandpaper. When finished apply a top coat over the painted surface and let it dry. There is no scratch anymore!
If the scratch is too deep or too many, you can opt to spray paint the entire car with a new color. There are different types of paint you can use:
Water based, lacquer based and enamel based paints do not have the same pressure settings & spraying distance as each other. Due to their different base material composition, these paints come in varying thickness and viscosity. Hence, some training or trial and error might be necessary before achieving the texture results you want!
At Ditchek and Sons Auto Body Supply we use the PPG Variant Deck System as well as the NEXA Autocolor Color Box System as a couple of our methods for matching automotive color. We are proud to say that we give top of the line service to all our customers and because of this, we have been able to grow our business over the past 62 years. We thought we’d take some time to let you in a little on the whole process behind auto body paint and the color matching system. We thought we’d start by talking about what ingredients are in automotive paint.
There are three basic ingredients in automotive paint:
1. Resin
2. Pigment
3. Solvent
The resin holds together the pigment in suspension, provides adhesion to the surface applied, and determines the quality and paint durability.
The pigment comes in a powder form similar to concrete. The average aftermarket automotive paint mixing system includes about 100 colors or toners to be able to mix formulas including metallic and pearl paint colors.
Lastly, the solvent provides the transferability. The solvent is needed to thin the paint’s viscosity in order to transfer from container to container.
For all your auto color matching needs, head to Ditchek and Sons Auto Body Supply. We are famous for being the best in the industry for matching your paint color. And now we are part of the PPG Platinum Distributer Network. We are located in the New York area, so if you’re nearby and in need of any automotive supplies come check us out!
You’re ready to buy a new car and off you go to start visiting dealerships in your area. After looking at what seems like a million new cars, you finally find the one that you want. You go inside to set up your financing and while you’re sitting there, the dealer suggests adding a paint protection treatment that maintains your car’s glossy paint job. He promises that it will protect the paint from weather damage and can make this one time offer to you for a mere $1500.00 extra. You might think this is a good deal because certainly you want to make sure that your car continues to look as good as it does now. Before you sign on the dotted line, there are some things that you need to be aware of.
Costly paint protection systems from dealers are only costly to you. The dealers paid very little for them and jack up the price, depending on how much they think the prospective client may be willing to pay. This is why when you balk at the price, they offer to do you a favor and cut it in half. This might seem like a better deal but what you should consider that if he can offer to cut the price by 50%, he could’ve offered it to you at that price in the first place. This is already a hint at his dishonesty.
Now that you see that you are dealing with a person who has questionable ethics, your radar should be fully engaged. Common sense dictates that a business man is out to make a profit, usually a substantial one and uses you to obtain it. If he’s cutting the price in half, he can usually go a whole lot lower. If you take a moment to read the fine print in the warranty for this “exceptional value” as he might put it, you will note that it’s your responsibility to take the car in periodically, usually every 60 days, to have the protection renewed. Failure to do so will void the warranty and you just spent all that money for nothing. Dealers do this because they are playing the odds that most people are not going to bring the car in for all of the scheduled treatments. Things come up in life, people forget or they can’t get the time off from work to take care of it. This puts the odds in the dealer’s favor, so they get to sell paint protection plans and warrantees knowing that they will be getting paid for doing little or nothing.
There are many paint protection systems on the market that you can do yourself at your own leisure. They will cost little in comparison to what the dealers are offering to sell it for and you can be assured that you will get the same quality protection at a fraction of the cost.
After you have politely listened to your salesperson’s spiel about why you just have to have this paint protection system, smile and say no. Take your car home, do some research and find a protection system you can use do and maintain yourself.