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Maaco Paint Jobs
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These days, I enjoy my music as a hobby and use my '01 Odyssey to haul my equipment. A recent accident required replacement of the sliding door outer skin, moulding, and paint match (no bodywork). For this, the tariff was $1500+, paid under the other driver's policy, and required five days by the shop (my choice) who had previously re-painted my BMW 320i in 1984. Back then, it cost $1500 (no bodywork).
Some bondo, 600 grit sandpaper and some leftover paint and you get a corduroy hood and a two-tone car for only $600. Bargain?
Sometimes, we have to learn from experience. Years ago, a guy I knew from the rust-proofing business expanded into auto painting. He called his the "Miracle" paint job for something like $159-189, depending on the paint (solid color vs. metallic). Body work, extra.
The only "miracle" was how long it would last before the top coat began peeling. And how long he'd last in the business. Not very long, as it turned out, and a lot less than the warranty. Too bad, he was a nice guy, but he should have stuck to rust-proofing and detailing services.
It was repainted by Maaco (original color)when it was about 5 years old, and I had the car until it was 12 years old. Paint job looked good, polyurethane clear over the color coat, and the paint held up much better that the steel that it was applied to. Ha,ha......
>:o[
1) antipollution requirements. all that 10-to-1 solvent-carried enamel or lacquer means for every quart of paint, 10 quarts of volatile petrochemical solvents, usually hazardous material in addition to being smog engines, are put into the atmosphere. be thankful that they can't make a latex paint level out on cars, it was tried, or you would have to repaint every two years and wash off the mildew.
2) non-black. old Duco black enamel was all the model T ever needed, right down to where the rust finally showed up as it wore off. oh, wait, nobody likes that on a $50,000 car, do they?
3) crystal-clear, deep-as-river, miracle wonder paint formulations in all colors of the rainbow, with metallics and pearl. one scratch and the customer blows up.
4) super-duper improved formulations of above. now it's harder to scratch, but the early versions crazed (crack in all sorts of random patterns like cheap glasses put in boiling water) and peeled and cracked... and the new chemistry was expensive, like several hundred dollars of resin alone to make the paint for each car. we also started getting second-generation editions of "*$#**& paint won't stick!" problems due to incompatibility between primers, paints, clearcoats, and even the galvanizing of the body panels themselves.
now in the third or fourth edition, we're into the two-thousand dollar repaint when using these materials in some cases.
-0-
mix and match your favorite villains, and start a flaming war against progress... that's what usually makes things last longer, cost more, and when they screw up, really makes a mess in every way possible.
since ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries LTD) bought the Dulux brand from DuPont and Glidden brand and businesses from SCM Industries, don't know if/where you would get that old-time alkyd enamel. the obvious call is to Automotive | Paint and Supplies | DuPont in the yellow pages.
be advised this is seriously out of favor nowadays as a paint type. the old rule is "anything over lacquer, only enamel over enamel," and the base line of non-fancy paint anybody stocks should be lacquer. the bottom end of enamels back then was usually acrylic enamel, and it should still be out there in most of the major brands... DuPont, PPG (including formerly Rinsheld-Mason), Sherwin-Williams (and parallel label Acme), BASF, and I would assume in the private-label auto store paints such as NAPA. Don't think Sikkens distributes low-end paints in the US.
You will probably find that without a sales tax number and maybe an A-car training certificate, these guys won't sell to you. There are business reasons as well as environmental reasons for this, and which are more important depend on which day of the week it is
no, I wasn't a professional body person, but I have slapped and shaped some fill and fiberglass... and have done OK with cans of diluted premix, sometimes availiable from an automotive paint supplier, most usually DupliColor, which ain't a half-bad lacquer. don't know about their "truck" colors, which are a basic enamel. I did my surface prep with 99% isopropyl alcohol and 1000-grit Tri-M-Ite abrasive paper.
you now know all that I do. you are now very dangerous :-D
In recent years I have spray painted with what used to be called INDUSTRIAL enamel. As recently as a year ago, I spruced up a trailer to ready it for sale using Coast-to-Coast machinery/industrial enamel, and the results were quite good. Such paint works well on lawn furniture and other metallic objects, but I couldn't bring myself to shoot it on a motor vehicle, I do not believe! (:oÞ
And DupliColor? I "saved" a GM paint job with it once... a long story involving a GM district manager.
if you really LIKE broken cheap brush hairs sticking partly up all over, brush marks that wear unevenly as well to really give that leprous effect over a fine patina of rust, and the inability to ever repaint that machine again without stripping down to bare metal everywhere, by all means get your Hank's Best Exterior Enamel tinted and have at it.
but leave some duct tape and masking tape flapping all year round to finish off the fine overall effect of the job you'll have a car the Beverly Hillbillies would ogle all day.
if you expect fifteen layers of precision-applied premium product, you will not get it at a competitive price.