Curious paint job

[LT1Vettepilot]

I've had too much time on my hands lately, and as a result have come up with several ideas for a paint job. First a little background...My '96 Lt1 Coupe is basically stock, black over torch red, with the transparent top. The hood has a nasty nick in it, and some @$#hole backed into the rear and left one night in a parking lot leaving the paint damaged in a small 3x4 inch (roughly) area...no physical damage to body parts fortunately. The car is a daily driver, and so the paint is starting to show its age...i.e. swirl marks, light scratches, etc. Estimate from local Chevy body shop is $800 to fix and refinish the hood, and about $500 to prep and respray the back. $1300 to have a nice shiny hood and rear bumper with the rest of the car still showing its age. OR, they will disassmble the car, and repaint like factory new for $3000-$3500, depending on labor charges to smooth out the stone chips. I need new tires up front, and the 255s are getting harder and harder to come by, one of my front wheels has a slow leak due to a small crack in the wheel near the bead. So I need new wheels. So I figure, I've been wanting to sell and move onto a C5, but that hasn't been progressing very well. The interior is in great shape and needs no work, so I just need some wheels and paint. Thats what got me thinking! I want to trade up to the Collector's Edition "A" mold wheels. So I figured, as long as I'm going that route, why not repaint with a modified version of the Grand Sport paint scheme. Base coat black with a barely noticable, slightly different color skunk stripe. So I bought a '96 Grand Sport model so I could play with paint schemes. I'm thinking a pure original black car with a anthracite gray skunk stripe. Think spiral grey from the new paint line only a bit darker, and metalic. While shopping for the paints for the model, I came up with another idea...keeping the black base coat, and use a version of the chameleon color change for the skunk stripe. Not sure how that would look though, but the idea evolved...rather expensively at that. I found a deep blue prismatic that changes to a UV from a different angle. I am still working on the model, and only have the base black coat down right now, so I don't know what the UV color actually is (since UV is invisible to the human eye...I wonder just where they came up with it?) Depending on how dark the Deep blue turns out, I may continue with the anthracite gray stripe, but if it is closer to the admiral blue in a GS, then I'll go with the white skunk strip. As for the hash marks, if I go with them at all, they will be red. Any thoughts or ideas here?

 

[Mad-Mic]

i think the grey skunk stripe and grey hash marks would look tasteful or maybe a silver. i think this will also accent your new rims very nicely.

sounds like you have a good ideal keep with it and after it's done definetly some pics!

 

[AmosF16]

I think the black with grey skunk stripe would look awesome, and red hashes would just look that much better. UV paint you can't see, hmmm.... Just how expensive is that bridge, I mean paint

 

[JAKEJR]

I'm a die-hard DuPont paint guy, from having used it to paint my Vette a couple of years ago and my motorcycle last Oct. Great Stuff.

I painted my bike with DuPont's ChromaLusion, which is the paint that changes colors depending on how the light hits it. I looked at House of Kolors version of the same stuff, but opted for DuPont since I had such excellent results with it before.

The only question I have about your plan is deviating from the prescribed formula. DuPont's ChromaLusion calls for a specific black base to be used under the ChromaLusion paint. When deviating from that you could be causing yourself problems down the road.

Pros do all sorts of mixing (adding pearl, metal flake, clear in the base, all sorts of stuff) but being a novice, I stick to what the company specifies.

For me, the best way is to use exactly what the paint manufacturer calls for.

Yea, man, that stuff is super high too. Best price I could get was $458.00 a PINT! No, not a quart, a pint.

I've got some photos of my bike, but because they were all taken in the garage, under the same lighting conditions, you can't see the color change. In the sunlight, it's a different story.

Hope this helps, Jake

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

prismatic is on...

Well, I just finished spraying the prismatic and clear coats over the entire car. (due to type of paints, I had to go this route first) Right now, the Deep Blue is a beautiful color! Think Admiral blue but a little darker, and with a metalic flake! However, its really hard to tell what it will look like after the paint is cured. Right now there is alot of area that looks like it is "dusty", almost a matte. The bottle says this may happen and not to worry about it. We'll see. If this color turns out as nice as I think it will, then the original GS scheme would look great! Although I didn't really want to do a complete color change on the real thing.

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

Yea, man, that stuff is super high too. Best price I could get was $458.00 a PINT! No, not a quart, a pint.

Yeah, I know how expensive it is. My room mate and I prepped his '69 Nova last winter. He wanted it painted the original light blue and then wanted pearl chrom-a-lusion flames on the hood and fenders. When he discovered $500 a pint, and it would take a couple of them, plus labor etc... just to do the flames, that slammed on the brakes pretty quick in regards to the plans for the car. Needless to say it is just light blue now!
I'ld love to see your pictures though. Especially the Vette!

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

hmmm.... Just how expensive is that bridge, I mean paint

Lets just say...VERY
The 1oz bottle of prismatic I bought for the model-half of which was needed to paint the car-was $10 plus tax...plus the special base coat black was another $3. By the way, the model itself only cost me $9. Could this be a prelude to the real thing! OUCH!

 

[JAKEJR]

Yeah, I know how expensive it is. My room mate and I prepped his '69 Nova last winter. He wanted it painted the original light blue and then wanted pearl chrom-a-lusion flames on the hood and fenders. When he discovered $500 a pint, and it would take a couple of them, plus labor etc... just to do the flames, that slammed on the brakes pretty quick in regards to the plans for the car. Needless to say it is just light blue now!
I'ld love to see your pictures though. Especially the Vette!

I didn't paint the Vette in ChromaLusion because of the cost factor too. I did the bike though. It goes from a burgundy to a copper to a deeper then lighter shades of gold then to an almost yellow.

I'm not home now - photos are saved on my home PC - but I can send them to you later. Send me a msg with your email address and I'm send them later.

Jake

 

[JAKEJR]

Yeah, I know how expensive it is. My room mate and I prepped his '69 Nova last winter. He wanted it painted the original light blue and then wanted pearl chrom-a-lusion flames on the hood and fenders. When he discovered $500 a pint, and it would take a couple of them, plus labor etc... just to do the flames, that slammed on the brakes pretty quick in regards to the plans for the car. Needless to say it is just light blue now!
I'ld love to see your pictures though. Especially the Vette!

I just sent the bike photos all zipped up and ready to go.

I don't have any of the Vette, but I'll take some this weekend when I get my camera back and shoot them too you too.

Hey, how 'bout a photo of a pot rack I just built that hangs over the island in the kitchen? Or maybe the gameroom I built all decorated in Coca-Cola stuff. LOL Got lots of pics, just none of the Vette, yet.

Jake

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

Well even after the paint cured, the prismatic just isn't all that wonderful. The Deep blue is outstanding! However, the color change to "UV" is a purplish color, not really bad but not what I was looking for...and the "dusty" look never faded from any of the areas that had the problem. It may be due to problems with the base coat, as this is the first time I've tried this type of paint. The car is now black again and I'll let it all cure over night, then work on the skunk strip tomorrow if I get a chance. Thanks for all the inputs, I think the black with anthracite grey for the stripe will probably be the way to go.

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

I just sent the bike photos all zipped up and ready to go.
Jake

Got them. That is great color combination, very well done!

 

[JAKEJR]

Got them. That is great color combination, very well done!

Thanks.

The prettiest color to me is when it hits the rootbeer color. Remember the old Reed's candies, the Root Beer color, sorta translucent.

I should be getting my camera back this evening and if the sun's shining tomorrow I'll try to get some shots of how you can see lots of different colors just by looking at it from only ONE angle.

I can see why DuPont charges so much; a gallon of that stuff would run you over $3,600.00 and that's not including the primer, base or clear. Ouch!

Jake

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

Repaint

I ended up stripping most of the paint off the car as it just wasn't smooth enough to apply a good finish coat. The model now has a complete base coat of flat black and the Anthracite Gray metalic skunk stripe is now on a drying. What a great color combination this is turning out to be! I also have the fender stripes started. I did them in the same Anthracite Gray as the skunk stripe, however once it is cured, I will apply the prismatic blue over the top of it. Should give me an interesting color which should compliment the rest of the paint scheme nicely.

 

[JAKEJR]

I finally got my camera back and took some photos of the Vette paint job I did in my garage three years ago. If anyone's interested in seeing how it turned out, shoot me an email at Chippy266@aol.com and I'll email them to you.

I can Zip them up and send them in 3 packets, 7 at a time. You've got to ignore all the dings; mine's a daily driver and gets bombarded with gravel, careless parking lot door openers, etc.

Jake

 

[JAKEJR]

Well, I just found out that Yahoo and Hotmail won't let me send all the photos at once. I even tried zipping them and sending 7 at a time, still no good. I guess those email accounts have small mail box sizes.

I can send them one at a time, but boy what a PIA that is, so what I'll do is send a few unless someone REALLY wants them all, like if he/she is planning to paint their own car. Then I'll take the time to send them all.

I took some shots of the bike's gas tank which I painted in ChromaLusion so you can see the color difference depending on the light.

Jake

 

[LT1Vettepilot]

Jake,
I got them all. Beatiful car! I also really like the paint job on the bike. It has got to be a real head turner in the sunlight. Thanks for the pictures.

 

[JAKEJR]

Hey, thanks, Mike. Glad they got to you okay.

I tried sending them to Adam, too, but they all got returned to me as "Service Unavailable".

I then sent him a single shot of the Vette and it didn't come back, so I guess he got that one. He's got Hotmail which is the problem; small mailbox size. I know Yahoo does the same thing; returns them.

Take care, Jake

 

[Vettelt193]

My soon to be Father in law owns a body shop... He had some leftover paint from a couple cars he painted in ChromaLusion, so he decided to paint his chevy truck with the leftover... the kicker is there wasn't enough, since it is sold by the pint. He decided to mix it in with regular paint (i have to find out what color he mixed in) and the truck looks way better than a standard car painted with ChromaLusion because it isn't so harsh on the color changes. The color changes, but it is much more mild. I wouldn't paint it the standard way after the results of the much cheaper version done on his truck just some food for thought, and an idea if you wanted to try it out on the model!

 

[JAKEJR]

Hi, all.

I just posted 18 photos of my Vette's paint job in the Member Gallery area. I also posted two of the bike.

Remember, the Vette is a daily driver and gets exposed to all the usual road hazards: flying rocks, dirt, rain, etc. and it's going on 3 years old too.

I only had enough space left to post two of the bike. The one of the complete bike shows how dark it is in low light conditions. The one of the bike's gas tank, shows how the color changes and brightens in higher light conditions. The day I took the tank was overcast so the change isn't as dramatic as it is during full sun days.

Just look at the areas of the tank where you see gold and orange and compare that to the burgundy of the other photo and you can get an idea.

Hope this helps.

Jake

 

[bclark]

I have had a bit of experience with the DuPont Chromallusion paint. Everyone in my shop has painted their cell phones with different colors. We found that we got a nice subtle effect by putting a light coat over a silver base, rather than the black as DuPont recommends. Very low key but interesting.