LET THE FISTFIGHTS BEGIN: SINGLE STAGE OR BASE-CLEAR PAINT?
The base-clear philosophy for new paint is almost a given in today's world-or is it? We talked to a car guy that begs to differ when it comes to his restoration project. Todd Puzey is a firefighter by trade, but he has assembled enough skills to tackle car restoration as a hobbyist.
He has a neighbor who owns a body shop and that neighbor is Todd's Obi-Wan Kenobi for his restoration projects.
Todd's neighbor has advised him to use a single stage paint on his black 1968 Charger, and the man presents a convincing case.
The body guy pointed out that a black car with a protective clear layer presents a problem under normal wear and tear: a scratch will appear as a white mark on the black paint.
The stark difference between the two colors will make the car look worse than a color-matching scratch. We asked a couple of professionals to comment on this problem.
Walter at Diablo Detail confirmed that a scratch under these conditions is a bigger problem for him as a professional detailer. It will require more time and effort to deal with a clear-coat scratch and fix the problem to Walter's high standards.
Trevor Comfort at Comfort Collision stated that he uses a base-clear paint system on all of his projects. Base-clear is his field of expertise and he produces some stunning results with the procedure.
We asked Todd about his single stage battle plan and he liked the idea because the color and protective coat are "in the same can of paint". Thus a scratch will be the same color and a repair will be an easier process.
Todd plans to apply two coats of 100% water- proof epoxy primer over bare metal. Then he will apply four coats of high build black primer and a liberal amount of block sanding to the job.
Finally he will apply four coats of single stage black paint and likely remove two layers with his wet-sand.
The happy ending will be three stages of polish on the paint for his project.
So we look forward to the completion of Todd's '68 Charger project and we will do a follow-up on it in a future story.
We should caution that Todd is a very careful and patient guy, so it will be awhile before the follow-up.
Jim Sutherland
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