Is Glasurit the only way to get a perfect color match?

[Rwm514]

My 71 911 is about to get painted and the shop I've been using for body/rust uses dupont products. At first they said it would be no problem to match the paint code exactly but now that they are ready to paint they are telling me their system only goes back to 1984 cars. They are hoping to find a paint card that matches the original paint that is under the dash. I'm thinking it wont be a good match if they do that. So my question, do I need the original glasurit paint to get a correct match? Its already been primered and ready for paint. Thx

[Fritter]

That's not true. PPG has paint chips going way, way back....I just picked a 1960 VW color to paint my '64 Bug.

[classic]

If you are really concerned with a match go to Glasurit get them to mix a small pot of your color, and then take it to PPG and get it scanned.

I just went through this as my painter had not sprayed Glasurit before, not very common in Australia in the restoration industry, but after talking to the rep and them giving him a small pot to spray he was a convert, and said after he painted the car it was the nicest paint he had put down.

[letsrollbabe]

The old color codes from Glasurit don't guarantee a color match. Paint color compounds have changed greatly over 40 years, and the mixing percentages of various colors indicated from the code may not be an exact match for the original color. The best practice is to find an original panel with good color, or another car with the color you want and use it to replicate the color you want. There are several good paint suppliers these days, and the key to a good paint job is proper preparation and final application. Whether it is a single or two stage, the paint is only one part of a good paint job.

[304065]

I agree with Gib

Modern paints are different, and if you are using base/clear, or even waterbased base/clear vs. the original single stage, it's a crapshoot in terms of color match.

For 065 Damon cut out a piece of metal that was originally satin black over Irish Green, sanded off the black, clearcoated and then put the sample in the camera to match. That was the starting point- then he sprayed out a half dozen test samples which we examined under a variety of lighting conditions. It is an iterative process and you should not be afraid to keep changing the formula until you have it perfect. You will know when it is perfect.

PPG has great paint and not even the most fastidious judge can tell the difference between PPG and Glasurit (or Herberts, or Lesonal or Sikkens etc. so long as the color and the paint type are the same. Using base/clear on a pre 1968 car does tend to stick out like a sore thumb, however.

[Longballa]

Where are you located? Your color is Signal Orange which is a two stage paint. You need the Glasurit 22 line paint. I would use Glasurit. You can't buy it in California because of the low VOC levels in California. I live in Oregon and just bought Signal Yellow from Industrial Finishes in Eugene, OR and it's dead on. Some shops don't want to use Glasurit because it's expensive. The cost for your car would be around $1,300.00 dollars for the paint, hardener and reducer. It's a 2 to 1 mix. With all the money that goes into the body and paint work I'll spend the money on Glasurit. The guys that just sprayed my 72S silver rave about how good the Glasruit new water based paint is. They say it's way easier to spray then the 55 line and the clear coat is the same it's always been which is great.

[JohnT]

Because of some 'clumsyness' on my part on the track I've ended up with both Glasurit and DuPont and I cannot tell them apart. Because of the age and the fact that my color really never existed in Glasurit's inventory there were no matches in DuPont's literature. I believe it's all down to the painter's skills scanning and matching the DuPont to the existing Glasurit to get the color correct.

johnt