[Kevin45]

Barry, MartinSr, or one of the other painters......As you know I am currently painting my truck Prowler Orange. The truck was primed in a buff color primer and sealed in the same shade. Now here is the question. If the paint does not cover the buff sealer it would also not cover a grey sealer. Correct? The reason I ask is that this paint (DuPont Chromabase) does not seem to cover. The jobber where I purchased the paint seems to think it is due to the fact that the value shade should be grey and not yellow. I say it is because of all of the pearls in the paint and 2 long time painters said that they have never seen a paint do this and that this is one of the hardest paints they have seen to cover. Even when we shot the inner fenders, hood, back of the cab, and jambs, when we were cutting in, it took 4 coats to get adequate color coverage. And at that you have to pay extra close attention to the edges because if you don't hit them with an extra squirt or two, the paint is tranparent. Now here is the kicker. 2 quarts of paint for jambing in. it will be 5 additional quarts on the truck when done, and an additional 1 quart for the roll pan, filler panel, mirrors, and a few other misc. items. Well let me put it this way. I am buying an additional 2 quarts but might possibly have one left over. I would rather have too much than not enough with the weekend coming up. This paint does not call out for a base coat of any thing other than the jobber recommends the grey sealer as I stated. And like I stated, I think it would not cover either way unless the grey is more forgiving with transparent paint. Either way it is too late to turn around now as we are finishing it up today. What is nice though is when it does get adequate coverage, the paint over the yellow really makes the orange pop out. We had a part that was grey that we painted ( bowtie fro the grille) and the paint over the grey make the paint way too dark and not very eye catching. That and it seems about two shades darker than if it was over the yellow. So any ideas as to what it may be, or if it is just "one of those paint" or if something could have been done different. And like I also stated....two painters that has done this for a number of years has not experienced anything like this. I don't much so mind the amount of paint.....it's the amount of money the paint cost that puts a squeeze on the old wallet. So let this be a warning also to anyone that decides to paint their ride Prowler Orange. Twices as much as regular paint in cost and materials

Thanks guys,
Kevin

[adtkart]

Kevin... I wasn't going to read that post, because it said for experts, and I definately don't qualify, but sure am glad I read it. I would hate to have to spray that color without knowing that. You know how it goes, the more coats that I have to put on, the more chances for me to screw it up. LOL

Aaron

[48cad]

Kevin.... I just shot my 48 Caddy in 2006 chrysler PVE (go Mango), It's very close to Prowler Orange, I actually had a tough time deciding between the two oranges. I used Dupont Chromabase which is a factory pak only color and only available in pints (16 of em @ $38 each). I had the same problem wouldn't cover at all. Shot 5 coats, I thought it was covered, cleared it, next day rolled it out in the sunlight and it still could have used a couple more. I was sick.. Pull it in and scuff it and shot 4 more!! 9 coats of base and 16 more pints!! I used grey sealer under it. I don't know if PPG would have been any better?? I think it is just the color. Alot of the new oranges and red pearls as well as some of the pewter colors are tough to get coverage. Make sure you look at it under sunlight before you complete the job. Artificial lights in the shop don't always show correctly. good luck chris

[dt196]

Kevin,
I've had this discussion with my paint rep for several years. My contention is that coverage is coverage. I use the 1" square self stick targets that are black and white checkerboard colored when I paint. It's known as black and white hiding. When you can't see the black and white through your basecoat, then and only then do you have "coverage"
For example, say it takes 4 coats of a yellow base to get black and white coverage. If you use a sealer that is close to yellow, you may think you have coverage in say 2 coats. But do you? No, the sealer is influencing the color you are seeing. Doesn't matter if your sealer is lighter or darker, you still don't have the true color of the basecoat until you have black and white hiding.
A sealer that is close to the basecoat will make you think you have coverage before you really do. Now I'm not saying it's not a good idea to seal with something close in color to the base. It makes a lot of sense, especially when it comes to those stone nicks and door dings that you'll eventually get.
Just my .02
Dan

[67goat]

ok guys heres my 2 cents, i have shot the color, on 3 occasions all on custom projects, i shot them all with sherwin williams ultra 7000, i have to tell you i had absolutely no problem with coverage, i put a white sealer down ,and i was covered in three coats, i have had quite a bit of problems with coverage with chromabase, i am not knocking it, it is a good product, but some colors are tough when it comes to coverage, i posted earlier in the year about chevy indigo blue man you talking about hard to cover , it is like water. but then again, maybe there solventing all the paint down nowadays, i remember when i could do a whole car with three quarts of sprayable base maybe four, now it seems like it takes two gallons to do an overall, i know im ranting , but base isnt cheap, it has went up about 100% in the last 2 years.im still paying about the same for clear as i was 3 or 4 years ago and high build primer so why the heck am i paying 300.00 for a gallon of red base now??? i could go on and on but i wont. to get back to the question, your prowler orange base should have covered in three coats over your buff sealer. all the base cans say is apply 3 coats to cover if it takes more than that, then i think the jobber should supply you with more paint free of charge, im venting, but thats my 2 cents worth, thanks for listening, mike.

[BarryK]

The jobber can look that color up and get the exact Value shade number for that color and take away all the guess work.

I would guess the value shade will be a very lite gray as I know that color covers white and lite yellow/buff real good.

[Kevin45]

I would guess the value shade will be a very lite gray as I know that color covers white and lite yellow/buff real good.

The think is we are using the buff for a sealer. A DuPont rep explained to my cousin how to make his own sealer using 2k, clear and activator. Mixed in the right ratio. Sealer layed down smooth. The first pass of paint did not cover at all, second pass same thing, third pass you could still see the sealer thru the paint. We went around again to see what it would look like and let it go until the next morning. We nibbed out a few specks and went around with a Sata touchup around all the edges because there was hardly any color at all and the buff sealer was showing thru. 2, 3, and 4 passes on the edges. The we tacked it and shot 2 more coats and finally covered. We had this same problem with the door jambs, hood, and back of cab. One place on the door jambs we had to sand and a small line of teal (previous color) was showing thru. It still did after 4 coats. Thankfully it is where it will not be seen. Yesterday when I went to buy two more quarts of paint the guy at the store told me again that we should have used grey and that buff is almost impossible to cover. Then he proceeded to tell me that even blacks and other colors with more of a pigment will not cover. My thought is that if it does not cover then why even sell it? I don't mind the amount of paint that I had to get as a truck has quite a bit of sheetmetal to cover anyways. We did the inner fenders, underneath the hood, back of the cab, and all of the door jambs. Two quarts of paint but that is a gallon of sprayable material. The jobber thought it all should have been done with half that material. My cousin even thought that was twice as much as regular paint. And factory pak paint is not cheap. And the fact that the paint just took another jump kind of hits the wallet hard. Maybe it is just the fact that the ChromaBase paint does not cover. 48cad....I wish mine was $38 a pint. The Prowler Orange was $80 a quart and just jumped to $87 the other day. So two gallons did get a little costly. You painting that huge Caddy know what I am talking about. And then with the other materials on top of just the paint Just don't do what I did and sit and tally up everything it took to paint your ride. SCARY STUFF!!! Would I paint that color again? You bet Would I do things differently? More than likely. Especially if others have problems painting it over a gray sealer. Just glad to know I'm not in the same boat If I was to do it again I would probably put it over something that is closer to the color that I know covers and then the orange. I would also cut in the areas that we did differently, and overlap a little more. But then again, this is the HELL TRUCK. It has refused to cooperate from day one on anything. From being repaired properly when I first bought it, to the engine being pulled 5 times, to the tranny being rebuilt, to paint going on. The truck has fought back hard for one full year now. I will beat it at any cost. I was too far into it to get rid of it once we got the engine rebuilt and I'll be damned if it is going to win the battle now Then again, maybe I should have painted it red and named it Christine
48cad....Just to let you know, I am looking forward to seeing that Caddy put together. She is going to look super

i posted earlier in the year about chevy indigo blue man you talking about hard to cover , it is like water

67goat....i remember the painter that shot my big truck talking about how hard it was to cover. I believe he used ChromaBase on it also. It was Black Saphirre which is a real deep, almost black, blue. He remarked that he never had a hard time shooting dark colors but that was giving him trouble. So maybe it is the ChromaBase. I don't know. But I do know that everything that I have went thru has been one heck of a learning experience.

[MARTINSR]

"Value shade" one of the most brillant ideas in marketing ever. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons!! You have a paint that doesn't cover very well (poor quality?) and you create ANOTHER product to sell that takes advantage of the original flaw and sell it like it is a GOOD thing! , kills me every time I think of it. LOL

Honestly, when I found it covered so bad while painting the inner fenders and such I would have scraped the color, or at least try it in a different brand of paint.

Let me ask you this, do you think all the componants you are spraying at different times with a transparent color and WITH different quarts of paint are going to match?

I am not beating you up here, I see some troubles in River City and I am just preparing you for them.

Brian

[Kevin45]

Brian,
The way that we are spraying will match in the end. Hopefully. The last two are saved for the final coat. But one plus, is that we are putting ghost flames on the front. Those will be a little more forgiving for a slight mismatch. As long as the cab, bed, and doors are the same then I should be alright. Hopefully. But then again it could go the other way also. The thing is that it's too late in the game now. It's extra work and extra time but it will work out. Hopefully. Thanks to all for your input. If anyone else has any ideas or experiences, please post them as I am interested in knowing what challenges others have had.

Kevin

[Bee4Me]

I talked with my Dupont guy today about your problem and the problem was with using the buff primer.
Dupont states in the specs for that color to use a Value Shade 4 gray primer and coverage is with 3 coats max.

The actual mix for that color is extreamly transparent and can be mixed by a compentent jobber instead of using those joke factory pac's. Buying pints for a complete is just insane but due to some of the custom pearls involved with some of the colors,it's not feasable for jobbers to keep them onhand for freestyle mixing.
I agree that most paint IS crap nowdays and coverage as well as shrinkage is getting redicilious but some of these custom colors are tough to get coverage and "some" thought was done by the paint companys to try and make them work without 15 coats.
I'm by no means a professional but I do mostly "custom" stuff and deal with transparents and I've learned to ask my paint supplier "what" I "should" use under them to keep MY life happy.

Anyone know the best color primer under a metalic Silver?

Dupont is going ALL gray shades with their paint according to him BTW.

For what I'm worth,
Mike.

[67goat]

I Sprayed House Of Kolor Orion Silver Over White Not Too Long Ago And Your Talking About Poor Coverage, So The Next Orion Silver I Sprayed I Layed Down A Med Grey Sealer Covered With No Problems, Mike.

[kenseth17]

I remember many years ago trying to cover buff yellow primer spots with some dupont chromabase, the base in the three stage laser red color, it was unbelievable how long it took to get coverage. I don't think choosing buff colored primer for a base is a good choice most of the time. I looked up the prowler orange on duponts european site, and although it doesn't show chromabase, the lines it shows gives a value shade #4 also, which I would believe would be a medium grey, somewhere in the middle between white and black. Looking at the formulas for the dupont mixing codes on the european site (not registered so I can't look at chromabase ect) it shows mainly gold, and transparent red, which would make sense why it wouldn't cover well. In fact, on many lines on the european site it is marked as a poor hider.
When you first get your paint, stir it. and then take a look at the stick and its edges. If you can easily see through on the edges of the paint stick, and it looks very transparent, you can pretty much be assured that its not going to cover real well. A trick used in bodyshops besides sealing with the right color sealer, often if you have a color that is transparent is to use a different basecoat that is close as your ground coats. Maybe an orange/gold color? Then even though you may not truely have full coverage and may see a little of your ground color through, it will look even, kinda like a candy. Its seems like a lot of colors cover poorly nowadays. After running into a few in a row that took 4 coats or more to get coverage, I asked my paint jobber what the heck was up. I said I didn't remember too many colors that didn't cover in a couple coats years ago. He gave me the excuse somewhat to the effect of with the greater number of high impact more brilliant colors yada yada, that are popular today, there are lot more toners used in the mixing formulas. Okay whatever, I think they are just putting in a greater amount of binder and less tint or something. There has always been transparent red, yellow, ect on the banks.

[Kevin45]

This gets more interesting by the moment. And more expensive I guess it is a process of learning though and you can't learn unless you make mistakes. Today I pulled the bed and set it on horses so we can get it completed, shove it off to the side, cover it, then get the ghost flames on the truck. So in getting the bed ready I decided to scuff it with 1000 wet or dry. With wet sanding and no pressure on the paper I found that in a lot of surface area the paint was so thin the sealer showed thru. By that I mean probably 80% of what was previously shot. And what was previously shot had three coats on it. A DuPont rep was talked to this morning and he was aware of what was spoken about when it was stated the edges do not cover well. His recommendation was when it happens, just quit, let it set, and shoot again later after you know the base was good and dry. Now the big question is....and from reading the previous post...if DuPont is going to all grey for every value shade for their paint, why the hell even sell the buff? Money maker I suppose. But yet some says it will cover and some says it won't. Now it brings up a point that if it does not cover over buff, why did 48cads not cover over grey when grey was recomended? It sounds to me like DuPont is going down the slippery slope with this.

[baddbob]

Originally Posted by dt196

Kevin,
I've had this discussion with my paint rep for several years. My contention is that coverage is coverage. I use the 1" square self stick targets that are black and white checkerboard colored when I paint. It's known as black and white hiding. When you can't see the black and white through your basecoat, then and only then do you have "coverage"
For example, say it takes 4 coats of a yellow base to get black and white coverage. If you use a sealer that is close to yellow, you may think you have coverage in say 2 coats. But do you? No, the sealer is influencing the color you are seeing. Doesn't matter if your sealer is lighter or darker, you still don't have the true color of the basecoat until you have black and white hiding.
A sealer that is close to the basecoat will make you think you have coverage before you really do. Now I'm not saying it's not a good idea to seal with something close in color to the base. It makes a lot of sense, especially when it comes to those stone nicks and door dings that you'll eventually get.
Just my .02
Dan

Dan I totally agree with you. Dupont's valueshade system helps get the poor covering Dupont formulas out the door, but when it comes time to do repairs on these jobs that aren't really covered it can be a PITA. Every paint company has coverage problems with some colors but Dupont has the most problems within it's premium lines. I worked in a Dupont only shop for awhile and couldn't believe how many poor covering mixes we had compared to the PPG systems I had used. And to top it off Dupont got to sell us the valueshade primer and sealers to make the products work. Dupont's valueshade system has always been shades of grey.

Nowadays, I do mostly restoration and custom work and usually shoot a 50/50 black and white test panel to verify coverage. I spray one coat, then mask and apply another, then move the mask and spray another..., so I end up with basically a letdown panel showing the difference in coverage on each coat applied. I've found some mixes taking five coats to reach full coverage! The last one that took 5 coats took two gallons of color for the complete job$$$$. When piling this many coats of base on it's really important to activate the base for good durability.

Dupont's basecoats spray easy but there really is a difference in quality, and coverage between different company's basecoats. I spray more Global than any and now Nexa is coming to this area and from what I here the coverage is good-we'll see. Bob

[dt196]

Bob,
I was beginning to think that I was the only one understanding "coverage". I know what you mean about the repair ability. If they don't have coverage, trying to match the color can be almost as hard as matching candies.. I remember painting an 86 Corvette with the " Flame Red Metallic", I believe it was code 74. I was using Sherwin Williams at the time and it took 7 coats to get black & white hiding. It liked to never dried, as that base coat was uncatalyzed. You could lay a roll of 3/4" tape on it a month later and it would print.
Bob, you might try the stickers. It would save you the time of making a let down panel and they do the same thing. My PPG rep gave me a roll, they're about an inch square and self sticking. Just put them on a edge you have masked up somewhere.
Dan