In all the years that I've been in the car painting business, I've never encountered a problem like this. About 10 years ago we painted a '72 Comet for a friend of ours. The color was the original Harvest Gold metallic, code 6F. The car was painted with PPG Omni basecoat/clearcoat. Over the years, the drivers door started to rust from the inside. It was only surface rust which was easy to fix, but the car's owner insisted on replacing the entire door instead. We had a small amount of the original paint leftover, but not enough to repaint the entire door. We took the paint can with the original paint mixing formula down to auto parts store where we get our paint and had them mix up a pint of paint. When we got the paint back, it did'nt look right to me. Dale painted the door and sure enough, the color was dead wrong. It was so far off it could'nt even be blended into the fender and quarter. We had them mix up another pint, and again the color was way off. WTF? We then had them scan the paint that was on the car and compare the formulas. They told us that PPG no longer makes one of the tints that was in the original paint, which means there was absolutely no way they could match the color anymore. That was a new one to me. Even mixing up a quart of paint or going with the more expensive Concept paint would not get a match in color. The car's owner has gone so far as to go to Dupont and try to have them match the paint, but even they came up with a totally different color. Now the car's owner is pissed because nobody can match the color of his car. He refuses to repaint the entire car (of which I really don't blame him ), and he can't re-hang the original door because he dropped it and bent the corner up, so now it needs to be painted too. We have taken into account the fact that we are now using a different compressor and a different spray gun, but has not made any difference. Have any of the other painters here ever encountered a problem like this before, and if so how did you solve it?
10 years ago? I doubt many painters could match that exactly, especially GOLD, there would be some discoloration and fading. I have heard that many of the PPG tinters are no longer being made, along with some reducers and hardeners, with the push towards water born paints.
The paint always comes out looking too light and not gold enough. The 10 year old paint on the car looks like a greenish gold, and the newly mixed paint looks like a light mustard color. Oh, I got the name of the color wrong. It's actually called Gold Glamour poly. That's what I get for trying to think straight with a raging head cold. As for the car fading, it sits inside almost 90% of the time, so it's unlikely that it could have faded all that much. We have tried tinting the paint with the available tints at hand, but the color never comes out right. If it's true that the correct tints are no longer are available, then it sounds like the Comet's owner may have no choice but to live with a mis-matched door. It would certainly look better to repaint the car, but the owner likes the color it is now and can't afford to repaint it.
Jean, I had the same problem on a Suburban that was dark metallic brown. I ended up getting 2 colors mixed, each on one of a scale of values, low and high, or dark and light if you will. I then mixed them together till I had it close on a dab on an isolated piece of the car. Then I blended it, customer never knew, but I did spray most of 1 side of the truck to get it blended. I was using Dupont Chromabase. Dan
I would paint the entire side , back tape the top edge of fender and blend into roof piller and tell him thats the best you can do. It should look fine. Is there enough old paint to do a spray out card and then scan that. PPG should be able to make it really close. I have had them match alot of colors(including 1969 hurst gold which I was told was impossible to match)with no problems.
Do you have enough of the old paint to do one wet coat on the whole door???If so you could try coloring the door with the new stuff and then top coat it with the old stuff.you should get your depth of color and the tone you want when done.Only problem would be compatibility of the two paints.Or put the new paint over a green toned primer.The tranlucency of the gold paint may allow the green to tone it down to what you want.Just a thought,I have had limited success with the concept(Been where you are)Takes some experimentation and time is money.Good luck,hope you accomplish your goal.
I think that is what we are going to do. There might be enough of the old paint to pull it off. As for blending the paint into the fender and quarter, that would be rather tough. The car has the Comet GT stripes on it, so I would have to mask them off. The car's owner does not want tape lines on the edges of the stripes, so that leaves out panel blending. He does have a replacement stripe for the door. This whole thing has been a such a major PITA. It's been hard to get through to the guy that his color can not be perfectly matched. He just wont accept that and would rather keep blaming the stores for mixing him the wrong colors. He's also getting tired of buying one pint after another of paint that does not perfectly match. I guess now he realizes just how much the cost of paint and supplies have gone up in the past 10 years. One way or another we'll get as good a match on the car as we can and hope for the best. I do appreciate all the suggestions and tips everyone. If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to jump in.
Thanks Pete. I'm sure it will shine when all said and done. We have a saying in our shop. The cars look great when they are done, but they always look better when they leave. This Comet isn't even in the shop yet and I can't wait for it to be done. We are about a day or two away from painting the 73' Grabber we've been working on since Dec. The Comet has to wait until the Grabber is done before we start messing around with that one again.
This may be a good warning to stay away from Omni paint line. According to my husband, that is always PPG's leftovers, considered a pour off paint, they are known for using their about to be discontinued tints in that line. It is meant to be a total refinishing paint all at once. He said the only fix is a "texas" blend, front to rear bumper, maybe even across the hood and roof, a correct match probably will not be found. Sorry.
