Anyone recommend a good brand of paint to use with spray gun?

T

timdhawk

Been Around the Block
Im getting ready to shoot my tank, seat and headlight bucket soon. Im looking for a good brand thats easy to shoot, user freindly, durable, etc. Of course $$ is a consideration, but I don't want bottom barrel stuff and I don't need $500 a quart quality either.

Any recommendations?

Thanx
 
Re: Anyone recommend a good spray gun paint brand?

sata jet or devilbiss are both good guns
 
Re: Anyone recommend a good paint brand for spray gun use?

Sorry guys...kinda confusing topic start.... topic title changed!!!

Im looking for brand of paint to use in a spray gun, NOT paint guns!
 
Re: Anyone recommend a good spray gun paint brand?

I thought your question was about brands of paint, not paint guns. I'll answer both though. I use Iwata guns and I only paint bikes. I use an LPH80LV and an LPH-300LV, in 1.2mm and 1.4mm respectively. You wouldn't want to buy one to shoot just one bike, they are expensive, but they are great guns. I don't want to get into a war about it, but I think they are more user friendly than Sata guns.


As for paint, I use PPG products for my prep work and House of Kolor for everything on top of it. You can buy all of the materials you need to do a bike, no matter how exotic you want to go with effects, for a basic cost of less than $300 but it will cost you about $12 per color for anything more than three colors. There are some products that add expense; marbelizer, flake, pearls, that sort of thing. Most bikes can be painted with high quality products and some nice effects for a little over $200 if you are starting from scratch and have to buy everything from epoxy to clear coat.


Living out in the dead center of nowhere, as I do, I have to mail order all of my paints. That is not exactly true, actually I drive about 50 miles (one way) to go to a speciality automotive paint shop that stocks PPG products for my primers and fillers. As I said, I use House of Kolor for my paints. While my 'local' guy has some HOK products I still don't buy from him. He has very low turnover of that sort of thing and I want fresh paint. So I order mine through TCP Global. Their prices are good enough and they have everything you could possibly need. The only down side is they only ship from San Diego and so if you are in the east it takes a good while for the stuff to arrive; I normally assume arrival a full week after the order is placed and don't miss it by much.




On Edit: I should add this, if you want to save a little money there are some very good clear coats that cost less than House of Kolor's standard fare (UC-35). One that I have not used myself, but comes very highly recommended by some fellow's who's opinions I have a great deal of respect for, is the Clear Coat made by Southern Polyurethanes, Inc (SPI). Their Medium-Solids clear gets rave reviews and cost about half as much as the HOK stuff. I've been meaning to buy some of it for ages but you know how it goes. One really good thing about the SPI products is you can get on the phone and ask the President of the company any questions you might have, and he'll give you a straight answer.
 
Ppg is all I use so far. I did use some montana high build on my frame to help fill and blend, and both paints lay well and wont break the bank. BIG factor for poor ppl like me!
 
I switched from PPG to Dupont a while ago because I didn't like the paint shop I was dealing with.
I have had great sucess with the Dupont products as well and turned out some great finishes.

If your looking to something nice, and not too exotic, dupont has a budget brand i use alot called Nason. It comes in both base/clear or urethane applications, I sprays much the same as the upper end stuff and the finish is really good as well at 1/2 the price of the Chromabase line.

You can get it in everything from solid colors to really nice metallics.

Just remember you can buy the most expensive paint, and still turn out a very crappy finish if not applied right.

Here are a few tips to a great finish.

1. your paint job is only as good as your prep work. So take extra care to get it perfect and finish in 400 dry, and then alot of times I go as far as 600 grit if i am shooting a metallic color.

2. Make sure your shop/booth is clean, blow everything down, turn the fans on to suck any dust out, and wet down as much as possible, floor benches anything that may stirr up dust. Clean your lights as they trap dust like crazy.

3. Wash all your parts with a wax and grease remover, do it twice if need be, blow everything down while wiping with a clean rag, and then use a tack cloth and gently glide over the surface of your parts to pick up any remaining dust.

4. Your now ready to shoot. Mix the paint exactly as per the instructions. Too thin and it will run easily, too thick and it will be blotchy.

5. 3 light coats is key, use the needle stop on your gun so that your not shooting too much paint. and fan the paint out as much as possible till you get about an 8" fan from about 12" away test it on a piece of masking paper before you shoot.

6. shoot from about 10-12" away from your part, do your edges first and then the center of the panel, the oppsite way I always end up getting poor coverage on the edges, or runs because you put down too much paint. Follow the contour of your part.

7. your first coat should be fairly transparent, keep the temp up in the shop as much as possible and allow 5-10 mins between coats, you can touch a piece of the masking paper or something with overspray on it to see if the paint is sticky/tacky if so you are ready for your second coat.

8. Again shoot a light coat, dont be in a rush. If you still have soem transparent parts, you will cover them in the last coat. Dont worry about scheen yet you will worry about that in the last coat.

9. once the paint is tacky ( like a glue should be almost stringy to the touch) you are ready for the last coat. Again shoot a light coat and now look for transparent spots, go over them again till they are gone,and dont get agressive!!!! Also you can now start to look at you scheen, and if the surface looks dryand orage peely you can add some more pain to smooth it out. Go slow and you wil have a great finish.

10. ALst but one of the most important. Don't go in and out of your booth 100 times checking the paint. shoot it and wait and then shoot it again. I know its exciting but this is how you stirr up dust. so the less movement arount the parts the better. Do it alone and take your time, and clean your gun outside.

Let it dry with as little air movement as possible other than a fan to evacuate the fumes.

Good luck!!! Yo can do this no problem.

If you need any more tips just msg me.

Cheers.
D.
 
Sweet Jeebus, Man! Thats Gold right there...thank you! And I will...


Rattlecan said:
I switched from PPG to Dupont a while ago because I didn't like the paint shop I was dealing with.
I have had great sucess with the Dupont products as well and turned out some great finishes.

If your looking to something nice, and not too exotic, dupont has a budget brand i use alot called Nason. It comes in both base/clear or urethane applications, I sprays much the same as the upper end stuff and the finish is really good as well at 1/2 the price of the Chromabase line.

You can get it in everything from solid colors to really nice metallics.

Just remember you can buy the most expensive paint, and still turn out a very crappy finish if not applied right.

Here are a few tips to a great finish.

1. your paint job is only as good as your prep work. So take extra care to get it perfect and finish in 400 dry, and then alot of times I go as far as 600 grit if i am shooting a metallic color.

2. Make sure your shop/booth is clean, blow everything down, turn the fans on to suck any dust out, and wet down as much as possible, floor benches anything that may stirr up dust. Clean your lights as they trap dust like crazy.

3. Wash all your parts with a wax and grease remover, do it twice if need be, blow everything down while wiping with a clean rag, and then use a tack cloth and gently glide over the surface of your parts to pick up any remaining dust.

4. Your now ready to shoot. Mix the paint exactly as per the instructions. Too thin and it will run easily, too thick and it will be blotchy.

5. 3 light coats is key, use the needle stop on your gun so that your not shooting too much paint. and fan the paint out as much as possible till you get about an 8" fan from about 12" away test it on a piece of masking paper before you shoot.

6. shoot from about 10-12" away from your part, do your edges first and then the center of the panel, the oppsite way I always end up getting poor coverage on the edges, or runs because you put down too much paint. Follow the contour of your part.

7. your first coat should be fairly transparent, keep the temp up in the shop as much as possible and allow 5-10 mins between coats, you can touch a piece of the masking paper or something with overspray on it to see if the paint is sticky/tacky if so you are ready for your second coat.

8. Again shoot a light coat, dont be in a rush. If you still have soem transparent parts, you will cover them in the last coat. Dont worry about scheen yet you will worry about that in the last coat.

9. once the paint is tacky ( like a glue should be almost stringy to the touch) you are ready for the last coat. Again shoot a light coat and now look for transparent spots, go over them again till they are gone,and dont get agressive!!!! Also you can now start to look at you scheen, and if the surface looks dryand orage peely you can add some more pain to smooth it out. Go slow and you wil have a great finish.

10. ALst but one of the most important. Don't go in and out of your booth 100 times checking the paint. shoot it and wait and then shoot it again. I know its exciting but this is how you stirr up dust. so the less movement arount the parts the better. Do it alone and take your time, and clean your gun outside.

Let it dry with as little air movement as possible other than a fan to evacuate the fumes.

Good luck!!! Yo can do this no problem.

If you need any more tips just msg me.

Cheers.
D.
Click to expand...
 
Yep, those are pretty good general rules to follow. Let me add a little bit to it.


Every reputable paint manufacturer has tech sheets for each of their paints. The tech sheets are generally one page write-ups that will tell you all you need to know about applying that particular paint. It will tell you what reducers to use at what temperatures, it will tell you tack times and pot life, it will tell you how far to go in pepping for the stuff, it will tell you what size gun to shoot it with, and on and on. Most of them can be found on line. Know your products before you order.


There is very little reason to hunt for the cheapest price paints when doing bike work. For most paint products the smallest quantity you can buy is a quart and at that size the difference in price between an economy line and a top line is not much money. By the way, you can paint a half a dozen bikes with a quart of black base coat. Clear coat can get expensive, well sort of. Actually its the catalyst that makes the clear so expensive. Catalyst has a short shelf life after being opened and is expensive in the first place, the clear itself (like all basecoats) lasts until used.


On that patterning the gun. Every gun is different but it is very good advice you got to blip out a little test pattern on some masking paper to check the gun before you start. Every gun has an optimal pattern height, and every good gun manufacturer provides that information with the gun. You should chose your gun to match the size pieces you are shooting while paying attention to the cap size the paint manufacturer recommends. Cap size has a lot to do with how fast some of the solvent load in your reducer flashes off because of the drop in temperature right at the cap. Get that wrong and some of your paint actually turns to dust at the cap and gets blown out along with the air spray. You inadvertently create your own dust as you paint. Anyway, adjust your fan height within the limits suggested by the gun manufacturer and find that sweet spot where you have plenty of height but with a little bulge in the middle of what is otherwise sort of a cigar shaped pattern that has consistent coverage top to bottom and side to side. You make the adjustments with the fan adjustment knob and the cap pressure adjustment knob, if your gun has one.


In general if you are getting runs or sags up your air pressure a pound or so. A lot of guys like to run their triggers full open, but I suggest you open it up about half way if you are new to your gun and then make your adjustments as you shoot your first coat. I presume you have no intention of shooting water-borne paints and I would not recommend them to a beginner so I'd say lay that first coat on there a little lean but try to get coverage by the second coat. If you shoot candies count your coats and shoot every one of them exactly the same and in fact try to shoot them all in the same room at the same time. Same thing with pearls. Otherwise its very difficult to get good color match.


On those candy colors, mix your own if you want several colors on the piece. You can buy toners or intensifiers that you just mix with clear and shoot. There are special non-catilized clears (called intercoat clear) that you use for this purpose if you like or you can do it with regular clear coat. No matter what you do, and particularly on intricate paint jobs, its generally a good idea to shoot a catalyzed paint, often times clear coat, after six or seven coats of non-catalized paint. It locks down everything under it and if something above fails you can sand back to it and not lose everything.


Use good tape and keep your tape clean. Do not lay your masking tape roll on its side on a dirty surface, it will pick up lint that will wick paint and destroy a clean line.


As Rattlecan said, prep is everything. After you have sealed your metal and you are laying on your high-build make sure you give it plenty of time to dry between coats. If the manufacturer says to tack and shoot ignore them and give it at least a half hour to dry and don't go back and seal it for a full day after block sanding it. Give those solvents all the time you can to evaporate and for the primer to shrink down to size.


Speaking of solvents, its the solvents in the reducer that matter most to you. Use the reducer recommended by your paint manufacturer and pay particular attention to which one they recommend at what temperatures. That said, for the highest luster possible in the final paint job use the slowest reducer you can get away with. Don't reduce your paint until you need it. While reduced paint will keep for quite a while and in fact "Ready to Spray (RTS)" paints are sold in small bottles, 2 or 4 oz., and are tempting to buy for specific jobs they will at sometime begin to separate or the pigments or inks (candy colors) will flocculate out of the solution and look like little specks of dirt floating in your paint. Its why I don't buy pre-mixed paints.


If you go to the House of Kolor web site, and I think maybe even through TCP-Global's web site, you can find the HOK Technical Manual, which is a compilation of the tech sheets for all of their products as well as hundreds of color samples. You can learn an awful lot about painting just from reading that manual. It is essential that you understand paint products in order to get a good job - but not to worry, its easy stuff. I will also tell you this, HOK Shimrin (BC) series paints are very easy to shoot and with just a little bit of care will give you stunning results that will be very long lasting. Basically what HOK has done is to duplicate the full array of their candy colors and pearls into base-coat paint. it is very easy to apply and at forty bucks a quart is pretty affordable. Once again, a quart is enough to shoot a half a dozen bikes.


And that's all that comes to mind at the moment. Painting can be fun, I've always enjoyed doing it. You have to be careful though. Always wear a good respirator rated for the materials you are using. I'm about done painting now, for health reasons, and I've for friends who used to paint who won't go into a booth nowadays. Sooner or later it gets to everyone so be careful to keep your exposure to a minimum. This is particularly true of catalyzed paints and your clear coat. Wear full protections, a paint suit, gloves and if you have access to a fresh air system, use it. Otherwise start the day with fresh filters. This stuff is nothing to take lightly. Its one of the big reasons so many companies and shops are going to water-borne paints only - even clears I am told. I did a couple of paint jobs using Auto-Air and hated it.
 
Thats some more great advise Kong. I'm sure there are some other members here that will get good use of this.
I can't stress enough the use of a good respirator either, I dont shoot much anymore either mostly just for myself, but still feel crappy after shooting clears and urethane based products, even though you get such great finishes from them.
Stay safe, even using rattlecans use a mask, this stuff makes smoking look good.
Cheers, n post lots of pics of your results.
 
if its your first paint job, i say use dupont (nason, to be specific). HOK sucks, and ppg clears are very difficult to apply.

as far as guns, i highly reccomend a sata mini jet with a 1.2 tip with fairly low pressure.
 
I believe that "house of kolor sucks" is a minority opinion, what is it about them that you don't like? They're pricy, and they have one product in their lineup that I'm inclined to agree with you on, but overall they make some of the best paints available. There is one thing I am certain of, go to any automobile or motorcycle custom show and at least 75% of the vehicles on display will be painted with HOK products. In more practical street applications I find their paints to be great - they don't fade or discolor and they don't chip easily (UC35).


As for Nason; everyone wants their own bike to look really good, to have that perfect paint job. I'm just saying that trying to get it using Dupont's cheapest paint line might not be the best way to get there. That said Nason's single stage black is a great black.
 
Kong said:
I believe that "house of kolor sucks" is a minority opinion, what is it about them that you don't like? They're pricy, and they have one product in their lineup that I'm inclined to agree with you on, but overall they make some of the best paints available. There is one thing I am certain of, go to any automobile or motorcycle custom show and at least 75% of the vehicles on display will be painted with HOK products. In more practical street applications I find their paints to be great - they don't fade or discolor and they don't chip easily (UC35).


As for Nason; everyone wants their own bike to look really good, to have that perfect paint job. I'm just saying that trying to get it using Dupont's cheapest paint line might not be the best way to get there. That said Nason's single stage black is a great black.
Click to expand...

house of color is the best stuff to use if youre trying to do a candy paint job or true flames, but the only reason ive EVER had to use their paints was for flourecents and their flourecent line i was less than impressed with but they are the only ones you can get that kind of color from so you are stuck using it. it bleeds like a son of a bitch (even if you use their black sealer) and you have to put about 12 coats on to get proper and even coverage (no exhageration). so maybe those experiences are the ones that have given me the bad taste in my mouth about HOK.

oh, and im assuming this is his first paint job which is why i reccomend the nason line. its cheap, forgiving, and if he messes it up who cares? cuz then hell only be into it for $100 rather than $250-$300 and chances are since its his first paint job its not gonna be a show car finish anyways. give it a shot with the nason line, get a feel for it, then next winter paint it again with better paint if you feel more confident after the first paint job.
 
Thanx everyone for the replies so far. This will be my first nice paint job - sort of...
I used to paint industrial power units back in the mid 90's and have done a few things over the years since that didn't require as much attention to detail like a bike or car, but I still remeber the technique. And industrial paint and Por-15 is probably much more idiot proof than what will go on my bike.
 
I used summit racing's line of single stage urethane (relabeled Kirker??) on my last bike project. I have very little experience with automotive paint, but it laid down very nicely and seems to be holding up well. It was pretty cheap at about $30 a quart for color and you can use the same reducer and activator throughout the line of primer, base, and clear. I spent a little over $200 for three different quarts of color, and quart of clear, a quart of primer, and activator and reducer and fish eye eliminator, inline filters, paint cups, a few other things. More than enough paint to spray a few bikes. Summits customer support was pretty good, fast and cheap shipping (like $12 and arrived in 2 days) and it was easy to buy all the required components from their site (much more user friendly than TPC global or others)

The only gripe that i had is the primer did not spray well through the 1.4mm tip i had. The data sheet said 1.4-1.6 mm recommended tip size, but not matter what i did with the gun settings I could not get it to lay down heavy enough. If using this primer i would recommend a larger tip. I used a TPC global $50 gun, not sure if this had something to do with it, but the gun worked well for the base and clear.

Summit also has good documentation aimed at beginners detailing every step of the paint process using their products. Any uncertainties I had up to this point were answered by these documents.

Keep in mind i have no experience with other paints, but from a beginners perspective, factoring in cost and ease of use I would say that the summit paints worked well for me. Almost all of the other reviews I have seen have been good as well.
 
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