Hello All -
I recently had the air cleaners and valve covers for my
1957 Chrysler 300C
repainted in what I believe to be the correct shade and
gloss level as
originally supplied. On the back side of the oval ends of
the air cleaner
housings, I found what I am certain was the original
Chrysler color,
untouched by previous owners who had painted the exterior
only. I had a
local paint and body shop match the old paint color by
trial and error until
I was completely satisfied with the color - when the
custom mix was sprayed
right on top of a masked portion of the original paint, I
could hardly see
the transition. The parts were painted with a urethane
primer, sanded,
then two coats of the urethane color base coat, followed
by a clear coat
with approximately 50% flattening agent to give a satin
gloss level. The
final outcome was a tint slightly more silvery and less
reddish-gold than
the Plasti-kote #452 that had previously been applied, and
with a more
subtle satin gloss, rather than a too-bright high-gloss.
However, since the color matching was a multi-step
trial-and-error process
(add a little green and silver here, take out some red
there, add more
black, etc.) there was not an easy way for the painter to
replicate the
color for future applications, either by myself or someone
else. So, I took
the finished pieces to my local paint specialty shop and
had them analyze
the color using a special hand-held electronic color
matching device. In
less than five minutes, they were able to come up with the
formula for
tinting, and I thought I would share that with other
interested members.
The starting point for the color base coat was one pint
DuPont Chromabase
clear. I don't know what all the numbers and letters mean,
but your own
paint specialty person will! Also note that a
urethane-compatible primer
must be applied before the color coat.
259663 K CC: M CHROMABASE BC Alt: (EUR)
Daewoo - 67U
Mix size: 16.0 oz. (pint)
Tinting Guide: Formula #259663
882J LS yelo oxide 27.1 (I was told this
means YELLOW)
811J Med aluminum 45.4
891J Transox Red 62.1
819J Fine bright aluminum 69.8
806J HS Black 75.5
833J Green Gold 79.0
1005S Gold Pearl 89.6
1009S Super Green PL 95.2 (I was told the "PL"
means PEARL)
150K B/C Balancer 317.1
175K Binder 444.5
The top coat was DuPont Chromabase clear, with ~50%
flattening agent to
yield a satin gloss level. Not being an automotive painter
myself, I was
shocked at the price for this base coat/clear coat paint:
the base coat
alone was $112 for one pint, plus a few bucks more for the
activator! On
the other hand, the guy who painted my parts mixed up only
8 ounces of color
base coat, and there was still some left over after
applying two coats of
color, so that would be only ~$56.00 for a half-pint of
the color coat. I
didn't ask about the cost for the clear top coat, but it
will be
considerably less. I had the parts stripped and
bead-blasted by another
place ($55.00 - and careful NOT to strip the inner
surfaces of the oval air
cleaner end pieces to preserve for subsequent
color-matching!) before taking
them to the automotive body/paint shop -- the final charge
for priming,
sanding and painting the two air cleaner housings and both
valve covers was
$280.00.
Note: I've had no need to try out this formula myself,
since my parts are
already painted, but if you decide to go with the formula
above, you might
want to do a bit of custom color-matching yourself: do a
test shot on a few
square inches of a smooth metal surface (tin can lid?) and
see how you like
it, then add/subtract tint components to fine-tune to your
personal
preference.
Hope this helps some of you out there, so you won't have
to go through the
somewhat tedious trial-and-error approach that I did.
Ray Melton
Las Cruces, NM
1957 Chrysler 300C convertible white/Gauguin
3N572517
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network
Archive Sitemap