I'm getting ready to finally have my '84 Camaro sport coupe painted, black, and I was going to go with a single-stage acrylic top coat. I've heard that the newer acrylics (single-stage) have a better gloss than they used to. Though I know it'll never compare to base coat/clear coat finishes, will the single-stage stuff shine up at least as well as it might have from the factory in 1984?

yes but it wont last as long

Are you guys talking about enamel? Saying that it won't last long? Sorry to sound harsh..but that's a bunch of BS. My dad painted my car, it's been painted for 2 years now. He's painted to other Camaro's 5 years ago and the paint looks just as good as the day it was sprayed. As long as you take care of it...don't let it oxidize, and keep it polished...there is nothing wrong with enamel. After we sprayed mine....we wetsanded it and buffed it....EVERYONE comes up to me and thinks it's a base/clear job...and it's not. Alot of people think that enamel "won't last long" but that goes for every paint if it's not taken care of.

here is another showing a reflection. If ANY paint job isn't finished right, meaning wetsanding and buffing, they will most likely have "orange peel", won't shine very well, and won't have much of a reflection at all. Not trying to be an a** but saying that enamel won't last....that's kinda weird..

84 hit it on the head...as long as it is taken care of it will be great. There is no clear to protect the paint so extra care must be taken. On high metalic colors I would reccomend a clear because otherwise when you buff them, you will actually dull them by cutting the metalic.

That's all I needed to hear to be at peace with my decision...great looking car, 84!

what is the cost diffrence on base clear vs single stage?

i know its more labor for base clear in the paint process, but single stage may catch up on labor in the polishing phase. just curious. and i guess it depends on if your sending it out or doing yourself also.

jeff

I'm not an expert or anything, but just about anyone can spray base clear. It's a pretty easy paint to spray. Also, base/clear dries much much faster then enamel and it much much easier to wetsand and buff.

Enamel paint is a pretty hard paint. It's hard to sand, and you have to actually "burn" a shine into it with the buffer. It's also hard to spray without getting orange peel...you have to keep it pretty wet. It also takes along time to dry compared to base/clear.

I agree that single stage can look great. I have dupont "pitch black" single stage on my car.

Always hear that clearcoat on black just makes the scratches look deeper. Had a couple new cars in black, use a special wash mitt and technique to wash them, still get scratchy looking in a couple years, and hard to wax without getting a smeared look. Still, hard to beat black for a good looking car.

I went with single stage too but my car dosnt look as good as these guys cars. My uncle and I sprayed it in his garage, ran us around $300 for the materials. The reason I wanted to go with single stage enamel is because its easier to fix damage if you trade paint with the guardrail racing or something. Since I use the car to drift there is a good chance I might crash, so the single stage setup made sense. If I do crash I can just re-spray and color sand to match. If I went with the base/clear then it would have been harder to fix the paint after crashing. Here's a pic of the car, again, not as nice as these guys cars. It actually only has 1 layer of primer and 2 layers of paint. Like these guys are saying, the trick is to keep it wet when spraying. Unfortunately for us the neighbors called the cops on us and we had to watch the second coat dry while talking to the cops. We had planned to spray 4 coats of paint, then buff it for a nice shine. Because there were only 2 coats we weren't able to get the shine we wanted, but didnt really matter since we use the car to race and we painted it for fun anyway.



The only negative thing I can say about it is that its a PITA to take care of. I have hard water in my area, leaves a lot of marks on the single stage paint if you dont dry it right away. Whereas my cars with base/clear you can take a little longer to dry and no worries. I guess the single stage is do-able for a street car but I would actually prefer base clear for a street car since I'm a lazy individual (hey at least im honest hahaha).

84 and skate,
those are super sharp cars....

my car is primered right now and we're using enamel paint to paint it later this week.

What grit of sanding paper did u use when u wetsanded it? How long did u take to do the sanding? Buffing?

I'm sure you've answered those before, but hey thanks in advance

If you single stage is metallic DO NOT wetsand... it will disturb the metallic layer of flakes and will turn out blotchy

I have acrylic enamel stuff... limco 123... don't like it at all. It can look ok, but it's just too much work to keep it up. Last time I buffed it out and put wax on it every couple weeks or so. If I went a month without waxing it... you could tell it would start to fade a little. Meguire's gold class wash and wax... painted my dad's 74 El Camino with PPG clear base stuffs.... it sat outside for the longest time and the paint is better than my Camaro was after a few weeks of not waxing. Can't wait to paint the Camaro with some PPG clear base stuff.. and keep up with the matinence.

I've dealt with different types... I did my car in a 1 stage Urethayne and am happy, Its easy to spray and looks very good, Base/Clear is very nice if you have a good place to spray it, But Urethayne is easy to spray. We did it in the driveway and it came out perfect...My next job will be base/clear cause I'll be up @ Wyotech and have acess to paint booths and am doing flames and I want to clear over it all a couple times, including pearl in the clear!