I am in the process of trying to touch up the paint work on my Ruby body, the wings are black so that is not a problem, although I realise there are may shades of black, my problem is how can I get some paint for touching up the rest of the car
I have tried looking for a company that will supply paint based on me taking a example so they can use a spectrophotometer to match the colour, although it will never be spot on it may be very close, but I cannot find any company's that will supply this service, the closes I can get is dove grey for the body, has anybody got any leads or ideas, if I cannot get any paint it will have to be a full respray
Most car bodyshop paint suppliiers have such a device to properly match a sample you take to them, and they should also be able to make you up a spray can (500ml) or a touch-up brush for small areas, as well as making large quantities for spraying. Talk to someone in the trade and ask them where they get their stuff from.
This may not be helpful, but it is my experience: When I bought my car (Blue Ruby) The existing paint had reacted badly with the primer in several areas, mainly doors. The previous owner had given me the paint code; So I had some made up, rubbed down and primed the bad areas and sprayed it; the paint did not match.
I took the spare wheel cover to a paint factors and had a litre of paint made up to match (they used a spectroscopy device); rubbed down the paint (again) and sprayed it...The match was much better and blended well...Until I took it outside, it was a mile out; I had another lot mixed by a different company rubbed down the paint (again) and again it was a shade out which would have annoyed me intensely everytime I looked at it.
I reckon it cost me close to £200 in useless and wasted paint and materials and weeks of wasted time.
In the end, I rubbed down the whole car and did a complete respray, which took much less time than the previous attempts at trying to match the existing paint and which of course is what I should have done in the first place; and I have a spare litre of perfectly matching paint in case of misshaps.
I guess it all depends upon how much you are spraying, where it is what colour it is and how perfect you want it...Grey may be less forgiving than Blue...Or maybe not.
I believe Craftmaster Paints are the "go to" supplier for paints these days. My local automotive paint factor can only supply limited colours in cellulose and can only match (roughly) via colour chips.
Yes, I'm pretty sure Craftmaster can. It will help to know what kind of paint the existing is, as you'll need something compatible. Also appreciate that colour matching is usually "pretty close" - you'll be lucky if it is really invisible.
For what it's worth I hate perfect paint jobs!
I have come to the conclusion that I will paint the wings ( Deep cracks in them) and leave the rest of the car until I can get it painted through a paint shop, this will then reduce the cost and allow me to chose my colour shade of Dove grey and have a paint code and spare paint for the future
I have used out local paint shop here in the past who have a clever gadget that scans the paint on the car or component, then works out how to mix up that match! I have used this several times to obtain paint for projects, they can supply it in a normal tin to thin down or in an aerosol can for spraying.
12-10-2021, 06:01 PM (This post was last modified: 12-10-2021, 06:02 PM by Ivor Hawkins.)
Your paintwork will have aged and the colour will have changed and you can bet that if you try and match it to a current car colour it will be metameric (the colour will look different under different light sources such as street lamps) but that’s the bad news!
Any decent professional paint factor should be able to match your colour with or without a spectro, but I would always recommend blending the colour across a wide area rather than attempting an edge to edge repair, unless they are very minor repairs such as stone chips or small cracks.
