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 …

When selecting the correct color for your car you have a choice of factory colors or a custum color.
Factory color chip charts can be found at your local automotive supply center. You may also find color charts online but they will be difficult to understand the final color.

Whether you are selecting a specialty color or matching your exact factory paint it is always best to stay within the manufacturers paint line.
You can select paint colors from your year or from surrounding years or historic colors. Although you may find a color from a different manufacturer that seems pleasing a lot …

If you are considering the move to waterborne paints then you know that many of the tools that you now use will need to be duplicated for this new paint type.

Probably the worst thing about changing over to waterborne is when it comes to outfitting your painter you will be required to buy tools that work with water and continue to maintain your solvent based systems for primer and clear coat application.

Some parts washer manufacturers have acknowledged this problem and have begun to design dual tank cleaners that can clean both solvent and waterborne guns …

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 …