Fiberglass Evercoat Maxim System

Yesterday I attended a class given by Fiberglass Evercoat promoting their Maxim repair system. I'm a fan of Fiberglass Evercoat they have a good range of products and they are a very forward looking company.
The Maxim (click on the video icon for and overview) system of plastic repair, seam sealers, foams and adhesives are all packed in two part cartridges that use a standard caulking gun. There are four good videos on door skin replacement, bumper repair, bumper tab repair and body filler and putty. The video's showed me some mistakes I was making using the products and I will be changing some of my in store discussions of how to use them. I recommend that you take a look even if you have years of experience or if you are just getting started.
As with all product promotions they want you to use every product in their lineup but you should pick and choose as it fits your needs. There are good suggestions here and it is worth checking out


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Chrysler sold what's next for American Cars

So what are we to think of the sale of Chrysler?
Damler Benz has cut loose the Amaerican car maker for the bargin price of 7.4 billion dollars a company it bought in 1998 for 36 billion. Billed as a merger of equals Chrysler was a drag that DB was no longer willing to support. Yesterday it was announced that the Chrysler division lost 2 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year.
With Ford and Gm also running up huge losses can automobiles be produced profitably in the United States? Toyota seems to be able to do it. Maybe if the big three started making dependable, economical, fuel efficient cars that people fell love with there can still be a domestic auto industry.
Here's the thing that strikes me when I sit down and watch TV which admittedly is not that often, the advertising is for big trucks. Expensive gas gusselling trucks, that has to be a dead end I mean how many big trucks can Americans drive now that 4 dollar a gallon gas is looming



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In 1941 Chrysler made only 5 Newport Phaeton duel cowl roadster. These cars pushed the envelope of design of the time. They toured the country showing design features that would be coming in the next five years. The war intervened and many of the design and styling features were not followed up on. The actress Lana Turner bought one and painted it red, the fifth was used as the 1941 the Indianapolis 500 Pace Car. Later repainted from the original gold to Walter Chrysler’s favorite color green and was kept by Walter P Chrysler Jr. as his personal car.







Ralph Roberts designed the car an aluminum body on a New Yorker frame at the LeBaron factory. The Newport and the smaller Thunderbolt introduced the envelope theory of design that is a single flowing surface from the front of the car to the rear. Before this fenders were bolted on to the body. The car also incorporated hideaway headlights an aircraft style cockpit, an electrically operated convertible top that folded automatically into a compartment behind the rear seat but in front of the trunk that also was electrically operated. It was powered by a 137 H.P. straight eight and a 3 speed manual transmission.

We made touch up paint for the car that was the lead car in Denver’s St Patrick’s Day parade. I would like to thank Karen Floyd for her photos of the parade.


I had a chance to see the car after the parade and it is one of the very most impressive cars I have ever seen

For more information and pictures see
The Imperial Club
The Walter P. Chrysler Museum
The Detroit News
and my Flickr page




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Anti Trust Settlements

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has reported that Sherwin Williams and PPG have preliminary approval of their part of the class action price fixing lawsuit. PPG will reportable pay 23 million Sherwin Williams will pay 16 million. DuPont has already settled for 36 million and BASF for 12 million.
Visit Auto Paint Litigation for more information.



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Automotive Paint Code Locater needs your help

I am stating a new project and would like your help. The car companies have not made it easy to find the paint code. The paint code is not in your vin (vehicle identification number) the dealer can call up your paint code by entering it into their database but it is a pain for you and them.

So where is your paint code? Now it would be logical for the manufactures to get together and standardize where the paint codes are but they can't even standardize them selves. General Motors has at least 19 different places that they hide their paint codes.

So I'm starting to make a web page where you put in the year the make and the model and it will display the resulting location and photo of the tag or sticker that contains the code.

Now this is where I would like your help. First is there a web page out there that already does this, if there is I'll save myself all the work. Second I have pretty good access to where the paint codes are in cars from 2007 back to about 1996 before that the information is much more sketchy if you can contribute to the knowledge base please do. Third take a picture of the paint code of your car and send it to me. Include the make the model and I'll credit you for your help

So far I nominate Honda for the most sane paint code sticker it’s on the driver side door and it simply says color and the code. Volkswagen for the most illusive tag often in the well where the tire is stored and once you’ve found the tag you would never know which number you need.

So please e-mail me at jlyons47@ gmail.com if you can contribute or if you would like to see an advance look at the site.

Right now I have a design that is still a sketch on a napkin and allot of data that I am transcribing and am trying to get into a logical form.

Please send paint code locations you know of, criticism or photo to jlyons47@gmail.com.

Thank you

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Mixing Paint Accurately

The feedback that I get indicates that there is confusion about mixing ratios. We want to be as accurate as we can with out causing too much brain damage.
Common mixing ratios are 4:1, 8:4:1, 2:1 and 4:2:1. Let's use 4:2:1 as our example this is a common mix ratio for urethane clear. It means 4 parts of clear to 2 parts of reducer to 1 part of hardener. That means 4 ounces to 2 ounces to 1 ounce or 4 gallons to 2 gallons to 1 gallon or 4 buckets to 2 buckets to 1 bucket.
Using a graduated container pour the clear in to the 4 then the reducer in to the 6 then the hardener to the 7 then stir.
Before you leave the paint store make sure you know what the mixing ratios are and know what kind of reducer/thinner you should be using
I would like to see all paint companies have this prominently written on the label but it isn't always there so ask the paint store employee he should be able to provide you with a product data sheet
Thanks to Sherwin Williams for the diagram and to view more on the sbject including how to use a graduated stick visit Sherwin automotive mixing ratio page





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Flickr links to Great Car Pics

Looking threw Flickr this morning I came across a couple interesting new groups. and a Bog I think is just great.
For those not familiar with Flickr it is place to post your photos pictures of family, friends things we love (not surprisingly cars) I post there . This mornings finds are the car directory with more than 2,000 members and 20,000 photos cool cars, the Art of classic cars, and Classic/collectible cars and motorcycles
When your at car directory scroll down and it will show you the groups that are associated with it.
I also found a link to the Car [directory] that is a best of car pictures from Flickr

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Ford's Bold Moves

Ford is in big trouble. I would hate to see them go away but they have real problems and I think they are dealing with them in smart and productive way. They are designing new vehicles that will, hopefully, get them through this rough patch.

Go to a clip from their Bold Moves internet marketing campaign

Waterborne paint is coming

With the deadline fast approaching for the adoption of waterborne urethane in Europe, Bodyshopbiz.com reported that General Motors has announced that "Sherwin-Williams' AWX and Akzo Nobel's Sikkens Autowave waterborne paint systems have received approval from General Motors for use in North American collision repair centres."
What does this mean for small repair shops and hobbyists? Well I guess I'm going to put a UV curing light on my Christmas list. Seriosly this is going to be an advantage to the biggest shops and another impediment to the small guys.

Sandpaper for Every Step in Auto Refinising

The folks at Carborundum came up with a refinishes guide, let me paraphrase .
Use 36 grit grinding disks for grinding welds and preparing a panel before applying body filler.
For shaping body filler use 40 grit then 80 grit on a file board or 40 then 80 with an 8" mud hog.
For finishing body filler before use primer 80 grit then 180 girt usually on a 6" DA.
For stripping paint down to primer or bare metal use 80 grit on a 6" DA.
When you use replacement panels with the black factory primer sand with p320 on a 6" DA or scuff it with a maroon scuff pad.
When you feather edge use 80 then 180 then 220 once again usually on a 6" DA.
In general 40 grit will take out a 36 grit sand scratch 80 grit will take out 40 grit scratches 180 takes out 80, 220 takes out 180, 320 takes out 220 and 400 will take out 320.
For preparing primer basecoat use 500 or 600 grit and this is the point that I recommend you should use wet sand paper.
For preparing a blend area for your clear use p800 or p1000 again with wet paper or a gray scuff pad.
For clear coat problems like orange peel use p1500 or p1200 or minor clear defects use p2000 or p2500 grit also wet paper.
Now I know that people have other ideas about what sandpaper to use and when so please send some your comments








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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

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Aluminum Repair with Mike West

Mike West likes to say "Aluminum repair isn't difficult it's different" read his great article in this months Body Shop Business were going to see more aluminum parts and Mike's article with great photos will be a great help to any one taking on this new challenge.


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Self-etching Primer

When doing major or even minor work on older cars your going to run into rust. The steel that is your car wants to turn itself back into the puffy red iron oxide that it was when it was mined. Whether you’re sanding, sand blasting or chemical striping to get rid of the paint and getting down to the metal the first thing you need to apply to the steel is self etching primer.

Self-etching primer is composed of an acid and zinc. The acid, usually phosphoric acid, forces the zinc down into the top couple of molecules of the steel. Chemically impregnating the steel like this cannot reverse the rust but it can stop in from getting worse. So it’s important that you get all of the scaly rust off.

Wipe the surface with wax and grease remover to get it clean enough so nothing interferes i.e. fingerprints. The self-etching primer is usually gray or olive drab gray but the color is just there to show you where you’ve put it on and it is very thin and one thin coat is enough. Putting more of the primer won’t make it work better. You can apply it over paint or bondo but it is only effective on bare metal. You can apply your high build primer or body filler over the self-etching primer but be careful it is not a finished product by it self.

In other words you can’t apply it and then push the car back outside, it has to have a sealed surface over it, water will reverse the reaction and will pull the zinc back out.

Self-etching primer comes as two parts or ready to spray and also comes in aerosol.

I use it when ever I see bare metal or if I’m putting one metal against another. For instance steel screws in aluminum or on welds.

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Slow for Summer Fast for Winter

Now that summer is here we increase the stock of slow reducer and slow urethane hardener at the paint store. There seems to be a good deal of confusion as what slow means.
Automotive paint has a mixture of different solvents and we can adjust the solvency so in the winter when were painting at 60 degrees Fahrenheit we want the solvent to evaporate fast so the paint doesn’t run on us. Now that summer is here and were painting when the temperature is getting up to 90 or 95 we want to slow that solvency way down so the paint droplets will flow out one into the other so we have gloss.

I don’t think it is a good idea to paint when it’s colder than 60 because the chemical process of urethane just about stops at 50 degrees and your paint may never get hard.

And you don’t want to paint when it’s hotter than 95 or so it’s just too uncomfortable wearing protective clothing and respirator. And there is nothing to ruin a good paint job like a drop of sweat falling onto the hood of the car.

Set your self up with 3 or 4 different reducers and cocktail them together to give yourself good flow out and good gloss to meet the conditions of the day.

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Lacquer Primer does not Protect

Every year some one comes into the store and wants to buy a gallon of lacquer primer and says, " I'm just going to prime it now and I'll paint it next summer."
Sounds good, seems to make sense the thing is lacquer primer does not protect the metal and because it is porous it actually holds water against the metal. This is the result.

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OSHA alert

If you have a shop in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas or Missouri you could have a visit from OSHA. Dupont Refinisher News reports that "OSHA's Wichita office began randomly selecting area auto body shops for comprehensive site inspections".
The article goes on to say that the main thrust of the OSHA crackdown is isocyanate comliance.
Keep those MSDS handy and make sure all labels are clear.
Just a heads up

Paint match problems

Now that spring is upon us it’s hard to work inside. But I’m lucky enough to be able to walk out into the parking lot to look at paint codes or admire or to customers paint jobs. I always tell my customers to bring in their cars when they get them done. I like to see great looking cars and I learn a lot.

In the past week I’ve taken a close look at two cars with the same problem. One was a 2004 Buick and the other a 1934 Ford Hot Rod.

It is my understanding (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that Buick bodies are made in one plant and the doors hood and trunk are hung on at the Flint Michigan plant. The Buick was a pewter color that had a warm reddish cast to the fenders and roof and a gray green cast to the hood and doors.

The old Ford was a bright Yellow that a green cast to the body and a more orange shade on the doors. I asked the Ford owner if he had painted the doors separate from the body and he said he had.

When you have the car apart paint under the hood and do your door jams and any other parts that need to be painted but put it all together when you paint the outside. The other point I’d like to make is if you’re doing a repair and are having trouble getting the paint to match it may not be your fault.

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Abralon by Mirka polish your clear coat

When we think of sanding we usually think of cutting the finer the grind of the rock the finer the scratch. Mirka the Finnish abrasive manufacturer makes an innovative 6 in DA disk that uses knotted nylon instead of aluminum oxide or Silicon Carbide. Abrilon (no I have no idea what it means maybe it’s Finnish for something) comes in 800, 1000, 2000, and 4000 grit. I don’t know the application of the 800 grit but the 2000 and 4000 have some very enthusiastic fans for polishing clear coat. There is real attration for me to use my DA rather then hand sand. However not every one that tries it likes it. Here are Mirkas’ suggestions for use

  The following information is designed as a starting point when repairing
 clearcoat defects such as dirt, orange peel and runs. Final grit selection
 may be changed to meet specific application requirements. Abralon should be
 used wet....
 Place sander on the part before starting. Using moderate pressure, level
 sand the surface....
 2000 grit Abralon must be used wet. Place sander on the part before
 starting. Using moderate pressure, feather the leveled area to match
 the sheen of the surrounding surface. Abralon will remove the grit marks
 and bring the finish of the repair area to the desired gloss level.
         For ultimate gloss, repeat with Abralon 4000 grit.    

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New Hybrid Saab uses No Fossil Carbon

I think that there is a basic misunderstanding among many people about the global warming crisis that’s looming. The problem is not about heat production i.e. concrete gives off a lot of heat as it’s curing, it’s not about burning wood, it’s not about humans or animals breathing or farting. What it is about is pouring tons of fossil carbon in to the atmosphere. Fossil Carbon is the carbon that has been locked up as oil or coal for millions of years; we are releasing it faster than it can be locked up again.

The earth is not heated by human or animal activity it is heated by the sun. The sun warms the earth and that energy is radiated back off into space. Over the past million or so years there has been equilibrium between the amount of carbon that enters the atmosphere and the amount of carbon that is locked up again as plant and animal, biomass. Burning wood does not change this burning fossil fuels does change the balance. Pouring tons of carbon into the atmosphere changes the amount of heat that the earth radiates back into space.

The new Saab 9-3 is a hybrid that uses 100% ethanol. So here we have a technology that is carbon neutral. It is a technology that I hope General Motors, Saabs parent company, jumps all over. Read all about this new car at the auto channel

The Spray Max 2K clear has arrived and it's as good as advertised. This is the real stuff real urethane clear in a spray can. See my post about Spray Max 2K Primer