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What's the latest for a durable paint finish

3K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  DanielC 
#1 ·
15 years ago when I took some body shop classes, I used DuPont Imron to paint a couple sets of wheels for my '55 Mercurys and had a really good match for the original red. With life coming together after the divorce, I'm starting to think I might be ready to start shooting interior stuff like dash and door trim stuff this summer. I wanted to check and see if there might be anything better that has evolved or if Imron is still going to be a pretty durable choice.
 
#2 ·
I'll go first..... Ahem.

STI.

The fuse is lit.

In the meantime, for small interior parts all the way to the entire car you have 2 main choices. 1 step, epoxy urethane, or 2 step color coat/epoxy clear. Either system is tough as nails after a few days. (BTW - I miss the old Imron enamel even though it made your hair sticky)
 
#4 ·
Any quality base coat clear coat system of signle stage system will serve you well. I can't think of anything that would touch the durability and toughness of Imron, but I don't think it is available anymore? I usually use base/clear as my preference, but a quality Single stage system will work as well. The biggest part of durability is the prep work prior to the top coat. If you prefer to use one of the major companies brands, then take youre pick, PPG Deltron or global, Dupont Chroma-premier, Standox, Diamont, Glasurit. sherwin-williams and Martin-senour also have quality products, but I don't know the name of their products. I Personally use Standox or PPG Deltron for base coats. I use another company called southern polyurethanes (SPI) for epoxy primer, urethane primer, and Clear coat. Any of the top shelf products from the above companies will serve you well.

Kelly
 
#5 ·
Oh boy... ok so I saw the SPI thread in paint and now I'm wondering what I'm behind the times about in regards to primers. DP40 was great and I used it 15 years ago. In fact my dashboard was primed and sanded just waiting for paint back then, but I'm going to have to work on other parts including some that get plated before paint. So I'm reading unfavorable things about DPLF? Seems like these days SPI is getting recommended for epoxy primer?

For my black chassis stuff, I did already get a frame powdercoated. For the rest I bought Eastwood stuff - epoxy primer and chassis black.

At least Automotive Color Supply still seems to be around, maybe when I'm ready to start getting paint I'll just get their recommendations.
 
#10 · (Edited)
I was taking auto body classes at a local community college when Imron first came out, in the 1970's. as far as I know, Dupont Imron was always catalyzed, if you did not catalyze it, it did not set up.

The catalyst was pertty toxic. it was stressed do not even do a test spray pattern without a respirator.

About the same time, Dupont also brought out Centari. it would set or cure without catalyst, but you could add a catalyst, one part per 8 and make Centari set up faster, and harder. the Centari catalyst was just as nasty as Imron catalyst.

I also think both were an Acrylic based paint.

To be honest, these are both old paints, and may not be available much longer. I am trying to get used to modern Urethane based paints, the Centari was much thicker, but required pretty high air gun pressure to atomize well.

With the new stuff, I seem to get "flow indicators" too easy
 
#11 ·
When I was in my body shop classes in the '90's I was working with Dulux so I could use original paint codes on the body of my '55 Mercury wagon, but I had found a really good Imron match for the red and since all '55 Mercury wheels were painted red I used that for the wheels. At that point Imron was polyurethane. Dulux was alkyd enamel. Centari was acrylic enamel. Also used Dulux on my first paint job on my '55 Ford in '88 before I graduated high school.
 
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