I'm thinking about following in Jim's footsteps and giving my car a black NASON paint job, i'm not really too concerned with how good it looks, but i don't want spiderweb'd bumper covers, so do i need a flex agent with a single stage paint?

 

you need to sand out the "spider webs" completely otherwise theyll just come back and many times they go into the plastic cover. and yes a flex additive is a good idea

 

I hate to disagree with people on a tech board, but I don't think flex agent is worth a darn. When you use that crap, the paint never really seems to cure properly. It is almost like it never drys. Forget about ever being able to buff it. Eventually the flex agent seems to dry out of the paint. Then the paint still seems to crack. The best bet is to use a good quality eurothane or poly-eurothane.

 

What's the running price on Nason single-stage, have you priced it yet? I'm looking at laying some single stage stuff down on my car as well (after painting my Dad's beater to practice), trying to get some pricing ideas. From what I'm hearing Martin-Senour from NAPA is about the cheapest yet still decent quality...

{Edit} Forgot to add that my handy dandy "How to Paint Your Car" book purchased from my local borders has a section that said Flex Agent was a necessity on older enamel and lacquer based paints, but on the newer urethane based paints it is not required. Wasn't planning on using it myself...

 

I asked a question about the flex agent to a body shop owner and he said it's worthless also. Like you said, it dries up and does nothing after a period of time. Good paint prep and quality paint can flex but with any hit big enough, paint will flake or crack off no matter what.

 

I'm not expecting any hits, i'm more worried about spiderwebs resulting from heating and cooling of the plastic. Concensus is not to use flex agent with single stage then? just primer sealer the whole car and shoot the single?

Cheapest I've price was $250 from dupont.

 

I have zero spiderwebbing in my bumpers but I used base coat, clear coat to do mine. Even then though, it was cheap paint for a quicky job. It's held up fine for over 3 years now.

 

does norcal get that much climate change though? here in illinois it's going to have temperature variations from -20 to 120+ F (assuming the black paint heats it up more than the atmospheric temp)

 

Coldest I've seen is only 17 degrees but in summer it does get to 110.