Have you done your own paint?

[GRR]

I've been a casual painter my vehicles for many years, doing everything from touch-up to full auto paint. And I've done my share of mild body work too.

I recently bought a nearly-perfect low mileage Interstate that the owner had dropped and damaged the front fairing and left saddlebag. Nothing other than mild cosmetic repair. So I decided to fix it myself.

The body repair went smoothly and came out like new. I thought I'd give Colorite paint another try, and bought their color spray can (Honda specific Black), and their two-part clear kit, which includes an spray head with replaceable can of C02.

I followed their directions to a T, but the result was terrible - the coat wouldn't flow and resulte in  serious orange peel. The two-part paint sets up very hard and would be an excelleent protective layer, but was quite a job to sand back down to re-shoot.

Two weeks later I was surprized to find the hardner had hardened and was unusable, so I had to order more. I re-mixed using my own proportions, this time using quite a bit of reducer to get it to flow. My small test panels came out perfect.

So I shot the parts again, but disappointingly lousy results. The mix, now nearly half reducer, flowed barely well enough, and the sprayer sputtered all over everything.

Just for yucks, it tried a can of Rustoleum black and Rustoleum clear on another test panel. The color is indistinguishable, and worked a lot better.

In fairness, I've seen nothing as a consumer product that sets up as hard as the Colorite 2-part clear, which resists scuffs and scratches exceptionally well.

Anyone else tried Colorite with better results?

[_Sheffjs_]

I am a Casual painter as well, maybe shoot twice a year.  I am shooting a few items gloss black now and I am doing 3 coats. It am on the second coat and will shoot the final coat Monday.  I am using a cheap husky top feed gun from Home Depot. I am using Sherwin Williams dimension paint with a 4-2-1 mixture. I used a catalyzed primer then sanded it with 320 used paint prep then shot my black, waited and sanded it with 600, used a tac cloth and shot my second coat. Three coats might be over kill but that is what I am doing.   I feel it is the good quality paint that is the ticket.  I can only do one color, no stripes or fancy stuff.  It is fun and very frustrating at times dealing with automotive paint. 

[signart]

Instead of more thinner, use a slower thinner.

[Jess from VA]

Like this.  (Only touch up on vehicles.)