-----Original Message-----
From: High Tech Coatings [mailto:htc@mnsi.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 9:32 AM
Subject: high quality top coat
I prefer the acrylic urethane paint and personally prefer the PPG. But
that's only because that's what I'm used to. Acrylic urethanes have a good
blend of hardness (for scratch protection) and softness (for chip
protection).
If the use of two part paints are out of your skill level or price range,
I have found that good old rustoleum works pretty good.
====
For what it's worth, as an absolute amateur at shooting paint, I used Endura
on my motorcycle (combination of ABS, aluminum, steel, and potmetal parts),
which is a 2-part polyurethane, and I got great results. It's my only
experience with painting, so I can't compare this paint to other 2-part
systems, or to more conventional paints. However, I can say that it was
really user friendly and gave me a depth of finish with 1-2 coats that would
require >10 coats of laquer.
Best of all, the prep is easy and there's no work to be done after the fact.
For prep, obviously everthing has to be clean and rust-free, and metal
parts should be etched, but the primer does fill small scratches, so
surfaces can be roughed up with 220 grit and then the primer does the rest.
No basecoat/clearcoat, no color-sanding or polishing. Just shoot it, come
back a day later, and at first you think the paint hasn't dried - at least
with the high-gloss finishes.
After just under 10,000 miles of hard riding, I don't have a single chip or
scratch in the bike's finish. It's been hit with stones that broke the lens
cover on the front parking light, and scratched the windscreen, but no
damage to the paint. Cracking is out of the question, I think - I let some
dry in a paper cup, and it dried into a puck about 0.25" thick. This puck
could be folded almost like a piece of rubber without cracking. Eventually
it did crack after being folded essentially in half. This is thousands of
times more crack resistance than you'd need for an automotive application.
I'm pretty confident that you could even paint springs with it if you
wanted, but don't take my word for it on something that extreme - consult an
expert.
My helmets are painted with the same stuff, and I have managed to scratch
one of them when I slipped dropped it about 2 feet onto pavement. So I'm
not claiming that it's invincible, just really good, and user-friendly.
This is NOT a knock of any paint system, but my experiences with Endura were
really positive and I'll be sticking to it for future projects.
--
Phil Martin
"I'm a young man at odds with the bible,
but I don't pretend faith never works."
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