Paint 101

[Gryzynx]

It's time to paint my car! Seems too good to be true, I've dreamt about doing this for years and now that I can finally make it happen, I find a new question to resolve.

Looks like current paint technology is going towards water based paints. Now, I can barely understand and use rattlecans, but I know about laquers and enamels giving way to urethane base/clear and my body shop friends complain bitterly about the increased costs each change brings.

So, I need to educate myself and I google auto paint types and come up with something like this;

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-auto-paint.htm

What has me confused is the notion that the water based paints still must use a urethane clear. I thought the whole idea was to get away from spraying dangerous urethane paint, so what gives?

 

[1968FormulaS340]

It's all about lowering total Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)……

This is important in a shop environment where hazardous materials are being monitored.

Any time you can use less solvent, it makes the EPA happy.

I have used waterborne at school and I think it is great stuff.

So what you have is part of the VOCs have been removed from the equation.

The clear is a different story. They haven't came up with a practical solvent free clear yet.

 

[flyboy1400]

It seems to depend a lot on where you live, at least here in CA it does. Where i live all clear coat must conform to a certain VOC rating (2.1) last time i checked.

The over all goal seems to be to get VOCs down as much as possible, so by switching to a water borne base coat (where most of the solvents have been replaced with water) and using a low VOC clear, certain environmental regulations can be met.

Personally I'm in the crowd that doesn't like waterborne, but thats just me, i learned to paint with the good ol' solvent based high voc stuff that laid out like glass without too much effort, this newer stuff just doesn't like to "wet out" as easily and defiantly doesn't stay wet long enough to really level out.