Whats a good basecoat to use nowadays.

well, 150 for a quart or 80 for the gallon after figuring that 500 for the gallon at Mipa would not give us something that would match. At least I am not completely blaming Mipa since its got history as a tough color. I was expecting water thin, but able to spray either 2:1 or 1:1 depending on the necessity of hide you were looking for, got a happy place of 2:1.5.
 
Omg no. Thats old school acrylic enamel. Its like old limco. There are decent bases out there that arent too expensive. Wanda and motobase. Anything below that and your looking for trouble. Either coverage is going to suck and you will need twice as much or it will spray terrible or the longevity of the paint will be terrible. AE bases and single stages are awful. As a matter of fact, after looking at that link it probably is limco and tcp puts their label on it.
 
In the end the price is the price.. Any of these off lines that the majors offer is always going to be garbage, otherwise why produce the top line? Shopline, nason, limco all cover like garbage... I have never used wanda but motobase is my choice on cars for completes. I use urekem on all of these golf carts I do, but I'm not sure I would use it on a car.

I think the last few cars I have done in motobase have been right around $700/gallon. It is what it is. You try to be too cheap and your project is just going to suffer.
 
I guess I would just try my luck with Maaco before I spent all the time and energy to prep a car and put the cheapest stuff I could on top of my work. Just being 100% honest here. Prepping for paint is labor intensive and you will hate yourself if you go through all the troubles and mess of doing it only to see the end result be junk and possibly fail in a short amount of time.
 
Been reading Motobase is 6-700 a gallon. Obviously I know that's very color dependent. Does it get cheaper the more you buy? Or if I need a quart can I take that 700 and divide by 4?
 
I'm about to try "Restoration Shop" urethane BC available from TCP Global at $329 a gallon for a 68 Cadillac Silverpine Green Poly. Never used it before but reviews seem good. It mixes 2 to 1 part reducer. YES, Chromabase and PPG DBC are insanely expensive, got to find a cheaper way. I'm getting the impression that they don't want DIY'er business any more.

I got this for a 97 lumina that needed the bumper cover and hood redone. This is the stuff that I sprayed on and when I sprayed the nason fast clear on it, it looked like the clear just completed the paint. Never saw that in any others I have gotten, just spraying nason like they suggest, dry, then opening fluid a quarter turn each coat. Long time ago, but real easy to spray and it is base clear. You can ask for acrylic enamel or acrylic lacquer like the cars were painted in the 70's for true restorations.
Car has been in the lot for like 10 years, dont think I ever replaced the hood because the 3.1 hollow camshaft split in half and ruined the motor.
 
for most paint lines its generally not cheaper the more you buy. now if the jobber offers some kind of discount then thats a different story.
 
Been reading Motobase is 6-700 a gallon. Obviously I know that's very color dependent. Does it get cheaper the more you buy? Or if I need a quart can I take that 700 and divide by 4?
Smaller amounts usually increase the price a bit, from what I’ve noticed with different jobbers throughout the years.
 
Smaller amounts usually increase the price a bit, from what I’ve noticed with different jobbers throughout the years.
pretty standard that you multiply the price of a quart x3 and you get about the gallon price.

I just want to know what a half pint is because its not 8 ounces.
 
Just a little comment after reading some of these posts. If you are trying to match a color on something relatively "modern" (last 20-25 years) you have to view the "alternate deck" of the color you are trying to match. Jobbers are notoriously lazy about this when a customer wants a code mixed. 90% of the time they will just mix the "prime" for you and never even mention the variants or matching your color to the alternate deck. Some manufacturers have implented VIN identification in their Paint software and that usaully works very well but most have not (PPG!!!) and so you have to look at the variant deck and compare to your color.
And even when you get it "right" if you try to panel paint....it will not match. Blending is always required with the exception of some blacks. Get good at blending and often times you can even blend the prime with a variant of that color. Panel painting a metallic will almost always result in disappointment.
 
I fully agree with blending. I don't care what line of paint your using or how expensive it is you can't expect to panel paint. You can get away with it here and there on a solid if you do some spray outs first and maybe do some tinting. Metallics forget about it.
 
for most paint lines its generally not cheaper the more you buy. now if the jobber offers some kind of discount then thats a different story.
EXAMPLE: Sherwin has a spreadsheet. They have different pricing for different quantities, it is much more expensive if you were to buy it by the pint vs if you were to buy a gallon, vs 55 gallons. Selling their product was a pain because their pricing was so confusing you pretty much had to break out the spreadsheet to try to figure out a price.

When we put a code in for MB it's basically the same per ounce whether you buy a pint or gallon.

From what I have heard from customers, ppg uses a similar spreadsheet for their over the counter sales as well.
 
Getting ready to paint my latest project. I'm letting someone else do this one because I actually care about it. He wanted to use DBC. I got price for Motobase LV from Chad $638. Price on the DBC was $1865. 3x almost. Ridiculous. I left him a pint of Motobase I had on hand, SPI reducer, and Universal Clear to shoot some test panels with today.
 
Getting ready to paint my latest project. I'm letting someone else do this one because I actually care about it. He wanted to use DBC. I got price for Motobase LV from Chad $638. Price on the DBC was $1865. 3x almost. Ridiculous. I left him a pint of Motobase I had on hand, SPI reducer, and Universal Clear to shoot some test panels with today.
Wow. 1865 lol
 
To give you an idea of how well Motobase covers, this 2000 Dodge Dakota has only two coats on it. Completely covered the gray primer and has no variances in shade or sunshine. Just to be sure, I put 3 coats on the tailgate.
Leftside.JPG


Left Bed Side.JPG


Leftside rear view.JPG
 
To give you an idea of how well Motobase covers, this 2000 Dodge Dakota has only two coats on it. Completely covered the gray primer and has no variances in shade or sunshine. Just to be sure, I put 3 coats on the tailgate.



Stuff does seem to cover like ink, had a customer do a yellow corvette with three quarts. Yellow typically doesn't cover well.
 
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