paint, when sprayed on, is pretty thin, right?

theoretically, how much area can a gallon of color and a pint of hardener cover?

 

Depends on the percentage of reducer.

 

i imagine there's a generally used ratio, no?

 

Every manufacturer has different ratios - check with the store you bought it at.
You can make BIG mistakes without getting it right!

 

Ask them to recommend a clear, too, as the wrong one can cause problems, also!

 

Hey Battman, you ready for paint on that 59 already?

 

not yet, John.

i have a buddy that has a '59 Ford Galaxie, and he traded a motorcycle to have it painted. bike was only worth $300, so not a lot on his end, but the painter took about 4 months to do it, working between other projects, and kept complaining about how much out of pocket he was. said he used 5 gallons of paint. just sounds like a lot of paint to me.

 

thanks for all the info Rick.

 

Choices, and more choices. How much paint is going to depend somewhat on the paint system you choose to use. Personally, I've always believed it best to avoid compatibility issues and prefer to use the same basic paint system from the same vendor from the bare steel to finish. Have a heart to heart with the staff at a for real auto paint dealer like a PPG store about what coverage to expect with the painting conditions where you are.

Lots of folks use base coat / clear coat systems on cars made before that type of system appeared and like single stage urethane they end up with a paint job that doesn't look right for the car due to the gloss being over the top. If you want the car to look just like it might have looked in '59 believe it or not you need to go to lacquer as that is what GM was still using at the time as opposed to enamel paints being used by other car makers. However, the end product in Enamel will look correct and be a lot more durable than lacquer. If you have a paint guy that really knows what they are doing there are system compatible deglossers that can be added to single stage urethane and clear coat that will make them duplicate the appearance of 1950s paints. Enamels will be the less costly of all now available paint systems though being greatly different than those of the 1950s and 1960s.

 

PPG Basecoat paint is 1:1 1 part paint 1 Part reducer so gallon would be 2 gallons, Clear depends on what PPG clear you use, some are 4:1:1 some are 4:1
If your useing enamel most are 4:1mix
Say you want to paint a 70-72 cutlass, you have door jams, fender edges, hood edges, underside of trunk lid
Enamel you would need at least 2 gallons of paint and 2 hardners
Base coat clear coat 1 gallon of paint, and 2 gallons of clear, plus 2 pints of harner
Most of this depends on what color and color of primer and how good paint covers the pimer, transparent colors will take more to cover

Primer, depends on how much area to cover and blocksanding and what not

Just my 2 cents ! Body man for 25 years

 

He painted the whole outside of the car. Didn't do under the hood or trunk, didn't do door jams, didn't even takes off the trim, except for the names, just taped them off.said he put 2 coats of clear on. Does this really sound like 5 gallon$ ofpaint?

 

Sounds like an Earl Sheib type paint job. No way anyone used five gallons of paint on a '59 Ford with a cheap A$$ doors closed, glass and trim taped off paint job.

 

Paint = 1 gallon, reduced is 2 gallons
1 coat of clear = 1 to 2 gallons
2nd coat of clear = same ^
Yeah it's possible !
59 ford Galaxie (if that is what your talking about) is pretty big car, even not removing the chrome a lot of area to cover, plus depends on how heavy he laid the clear on

 

I think someones not using a fresh air mask while painting - NO WAY can I see 5 gallons on a '59 FURD!

Having managed 5 Maaco's, even with enamel, they only used 1 1/2 gallons.

 

Maaco = Earl Sheib in my book, No offence ! Just my .02 cents
I went to work at a Maaco didn't like the way they did things, I quit before lunch
Is that reduced ? if so That's like one coat ! 59 a lot of area to cover
Enamel is totaly different any way to basecoat clear coat.
Plus in the end guy could have been talking 5 gallons of sprayable product
again just my .02 cents

 

He said 5 gallons of paint. I don't know if that includes primer and clear.
I'm not a painter, but i've painted my motorcycle and when i talk about it to people i separate the primer, color, and clear. "I uesd x amount of primer, x amount of paint, x amount of clear".

So when he said 5 gallons, i took it to mean the color, but he could have meant the whole process i suppose.

BTW, definitely looks like an Earl Scheib paint job. ripples, runs, over spray, the whole 9 yards.

 

Sounds like the guy was inexperienced at painting. He probably used the wrong color primer for the paint and didn't seal it. That's the only way I can see him using 5 gallons of paint. The primer underneath was showing through the paint. Metallic greens and light blues are bad for showing the primer.