talking car paint: How much does all this cost?

I recived an e-mail that asked just that question and this is in substance my answer

Are you down to bare metal anywhere? You will want a spray can of self-etching primer for the bare spots. Lets say $9.00 maybe a spray can of adhesion promoter to help paint stick to those problem plastics say $12.00 per spray can

You will probably need some bondo (generic name for polyester body filler) $10.00 to $20.00 /gallon.

Some polyester glazing putty (same thing as bondo but very much more refined very creamy and very smooth for easier sanding) $20.00 to 26.00 / qt

Primer I recommend urethane primer the generic primers are pretty good say $50.00 to $60.00 a gallon they mix a hardener $25.00 to $35.00 a qt and reducer $10.00 a quart. The name brand primers are going to be way more expencive but only marginally better.

Now you may not need to use any bondo or primer but you will need some wax and grease remover to get it really clean $12.00/qt

Okay now to the important question the paint. Dupont, PPG and Sherwin Williams all have thier top of the line paint that is great for color match and if you were painting the fender on a 2004 BMW I'd say go with the paint that is going to match the best. It's the hours of paint matching tecnology that you pay the premium for. But you're doing a complete paint job onan old Chevy Pickup right? Lets use the lower priced paint in Dupont Nason is the economy brand for PPG it's Omni and Sherwin Williams it's Dimension. These paints are substantially less money.

White and black are less expensive than red and yellow and any color that has a lot of pearl is going to be expensive. A gallon of white base coat is going to cost about $100.00 and a gallon of the premium red is well over $500.00 Urethane Clear coat sells from $45.00 to $300.00/gal or more for the high solid European clears. The paint and clear need reducers and hardeners that range from $35.00 a gallon for reducer and $25.00 to $85.00 a quart for clear hardener. Confused yet? I'm not even considering custom paint like House of Kolor or Alsa the sky's the limit with them.

Where I work at Allen Paint we sell a paint kit that has 3 quarts of color 2 quarts of reducer a gallon of clear the hardener for the clear and we throw in a couple of rolls of tape and a couple of sheets of sandpaper for $189.95. We can't make all the colors for that price but we can make about 12,000 colors. We are not the only or even the first paint store to put together a paint kit like this it has been good for our business, we sell a lot of kits every week.

When your shopping for supplies remember that the big paint companies want you to use their system from top to bottom and that makes a lot of sense to them if they are selling to big shops that want the paint companies to stand behind them if there is a paint failure. However no mater what they say any urethane clear coat will work over any urethane base coat and any base coat will work over any urethane primer.

There are lots of little things little expenses sandpaper, tape, masking paper, tack cloth, lacquer thinner for cleaning your gun and please wear a good charcoal respirator. These are serious chemicals not to be taken lightly in some people breathing this stuff even once has been know to bring on chemically induced asthma