Dave Yost
Veteran
Location: San Diego Ca, USA
| Well here's the deal. I have been messing with auto paint and clear for about 20 years now, whenever I get the paint question on RR, I tell people what I think and every Tom, Dick and Harry comes up with examples to prove me wrong. So, what the hell, here we go again!
1.Take all of the bottles of AutoAir in your shop and throw them in the garbage. In my opinion, the stuff is junk. I have tried it twice. It's ok for one color, but as soon as you try to mask off lines, it comes off. Bottom line is this, like chemicals stick to like chemicals. When you attempt to stick a water based product to a urethane or laquer based primer, you will have mechanical grip, but NOT CHEMICAL BOND. This is the part where everybody who has ever shot a canopy with auto air starts PM'ing to tell you I don't know what I am talking about. To further support this, find me a professional bike painter that uses AutoAir that is not being paid to endorse the product. If the stuff is so great, how come nobody that paints professionally uses it? Reason: If you have to take a heat gun to it to make it stick, you're wasting time and money. Let's say you have 10 hrs. into a job, and the last thing to do is add a stripe and when you pull the tape up, the paint lifts all the away down to the primer, you're done. It will take 5 to 7 Hrs. to fix it. I am not saying it won't work, I am saying it has its limitations, so why mess with it?
2. Use Urethane primer (Euro Primer 2K). Fills super-bitchin and the paint will chemically bond. Sealer is designed to seal multiple layers of other paint and primer down(restoring a hot rod that had to be sanded and striped as an example) so that when you paint over it, there is no bleed through. On a fiberglass canopy, this is not nessasary. In fact, you want Mechanical and Chemical grip so you can mask without it lifting. Use Urethane primer, sand with 400 wet and degrease. Your base coat will stick like glue.
3. Paint: House of Kolor universal base coat, PPG Vibrance or Dupont Cromabase. PERIOD! You just can't beat the results from any of these three products. I use House of Kolor almost exclusively. GO to TCPgloble.com or autobodydepot.com. You can purcahse House of Kolor in 4oz quantities that are pre-mixed and ready to pour in the gun and shoot. PPG and Dupont will cost an arm and a leg to shoot a canopy with, because most jobbers will only mix it in quart or maybe pint quanities. TCPgloble sells HOK in smaller, more affordable quanities. CHECK'EM OUT! You will never use Auto Air again after you paint with this stuff and it dries in one minute and you mask over it in three minutes and it stays put. Reason: it's Acrylic Urethane. Urethane primer, Urathane paint = chemical bond. See the trend here?
4. Urethane clear coat: Here's where I wander off the reservation a little. I have shot them all, and to be honest with you, I can't find a differce between the cheap stuff and the name brand, it's all equally hard to shoot. Practice is the only way to get good at it. I don't recommend speed clear for canopies, because it shrinks too much over decals. But other than that, Urethane clear is Urethane clear. They say the expensive stuff has better UV protectant, but I have canopies that are two years old, shot with Omni clear (PPG'S nasty cheap alternative) and I just don't see any difference in color or shine form the ones I have shot with PPG or HOK clear. So for helis, go with the cheaper, Urethane clear, and save yourself some money. If you're shooting a $4,000 paint job on a custom bike however,(CYA) use PPG because it has a warrenty.
In closing, Urethane primer, Urethane Paint and Urethane Clear equals success.
Hope all this helps. Cheers Dave
MA Fury Extreme,Vibe 50, JR 9303,YS,Vblades, Don't blame me, I voted for Jimmy Buffet! |
