Re: Looking for right paint

Posted by PackardV12fan On 2008/10/13 18:20:45

Kev is right - Testor's RED is right on !

But for touching up a metallic paint job. Bad news. It is almost impossible to do it. Even if you have the very same paint left over from the original job.

A REALLY good paint shop using REALLY good technique SOMETIMES can do an entire panel re-shoot that is good enough to get by. But that's beyond my pay grade..and I was taught how to do paint by a genuine master who once worked at Murphy/Pasadena !

This is why I personally dont want metallic paints on any of my vehicles. Sooner or later you are going to scratch something, and want to touch it up. With solid colors, especially if you use the authentic old-style nitrocellulose lacquer, you can do this.

I strongly recommend whenever you paint a car, save some from the job in a can with a VERY good seal.

This is another reason, when you are doing a older car, to use the authentic nitro-celluslose lacquer. Sure the modern two-part or "three-part" paints are VASTLY superior in terms of both durability, shine, and color retention. But once you mix em with the hardener, that's it - use them up or lose your spray gun !

But most of us dont leave our Packards out for extended periods in severe weather and baking sun. So we dont need the durability - with our kind of use, a "authentic" paint job with "authentic" materials is going to last longer than we are...! And those super high gloss finishes you see on show-cars. That is NOT the way they looked when new. I like to see older cars painted to look like they REALLY did.