Although Clearcoat may discolor over many years there is another problem when the paint you apply is an off color or yellow in comparison to the rest of the vehicle.

You will be left with a mismatch job that looks tinted when compared to the adjacent panel and yellow in hue.

The reason that this happens is due to either contaminated or improperly mixed clearcoat or technician error.

If the problem is the mixture of the paint it could be due to contaminated products or the wrong hardener or activator.

If the problem is due to technician error it …

When vehicle manufacturers changed over from glass headlights which were often just large bulbs held in a bezel back in the 80’s it gave them the opportunity to introduce a variety of different tear drop shapes that better matched the low drag coefficient shapes on front bumpers.

Unfortunately the new acrylics that are used in the manufacture of these headlight housings do not hold up to heavy abuse and elements.

The first solution was to coat the housing or protect it with a film. This caused headaches for owners and restoration shops because the film on the …

Recently a friend told me of a problem he had when painting a motorcycle gasoline tank.

It seems that he wanted to protect his tape pinstripes with clear so that they would not peal if some gasoline happened to get on them when he was refilling his tank.

This might sound like a great idea at first because the pinstripes can be used to hide problems between edges of color coat. Its an easy way for someone who is not skilled in painting pinstripes to add detail but unfortunately you can run into a lot of problems …

Most new vehicles in the past 15 years use a two stage paint system that starts off with a flat base coat and adds a top clear coat for gloss and durability however not every car needs to use a Clear Coat for good results.

Some of the earliest vehicles were painted with lacquer paint which was a single stage paint that required buffing for good gloss. Lacquer today normally adds a top clear coat for protection of the color coat that often contains metallics.

After lacquers came enamel paints. There are three basic types of enamel …