Water-based paint - DIY spraying
Discussion
In an earlier thread suggest (slightly different topic) 'Wildoliver' says
"And it is water based paint that will replace all others, and it is uneconomical to consider setting up to spray water based."
Excuse my ignorance but can someone explain why this would be uneconomic; what is different from spraying e.g. cellulose that would make it uneconomic?
With no cellulose or 2 pack etc, what will the options be for carrying out minor paint repairs etc at home - not some sort of spray can surely?
"And it is water based paint that will replace all others, and it is uneconomical to consider setting up to spray water based."
Excuse my ignorance but can someone explain why this would be uneconomic; what is different from spraying e.g. cellulose that would make it uneconomic?
With no cellulose or 2 pack etc, what will the options be for carrying out minor paint repairs etc at home - not some sort of spray can surely?
mccrackenj said:
In an earlier thread suggest (slightly different topic) 'Wildoliver' says
"And it is water based paint that will replace all others, and it is uneconomical to consider setting up to spray water based."
Excuse my ignorance but can someone explain why this would be uneconomic; what is different from spraying e.g. cellulose that would make it uneconomic?
With no cellulose or 2 pack etc, what will the options be for carrying out minor paint repairs etc at home - not some sort of spray can surely?
"And it is water based paint that will replace all others, and it is uneconomical to consider setting up to spray water based."
Excuse my ignorance but can someone explain why this would be uneconomic; what is different from spraying e.g. cellulose that would make it uneconomic?
With no cellulose or 2 pack etc, what will the options be for carrying out minor paint repairs etc at home - not some sort of spray can surely?
The point is that our wonderful leaders view us spraying cars at home as distasteful, in fact im quite sure they would be over the moon if when your car got scratched you just threw it away and home repairers or bodyshops didn't exist, after all it would be so much better for the environment if all those old polluting cars weren't on the road, after it takes virtually no energy to produce the new ones does it!?!
Sorry just a bit jaundiced at the moment.
You might be a bit jaundiced Wildoliver, but that doesn't mean you've got a point. We live in an infuriatingly nannyish society these days, and anyone who doesn't toe the line with the prevailing PC view on everything from wind farms to fox hunting gets bullied into shape. Why are so called liberals the most illiberal people of all?
Anyway - back to the point of my post - why is it uneconomic to use water-based paint at home? If you had everything you needed for eg cellulose, why can you not spray water-based?
Anyway - back to the point of my post - why is it uneconomic to use water-based paint at home? If you had everything you needed for eg cellulose, why can you not spray water-based?
wildoliver said:
well for a start you need a booth with infra red curing, it has to be spotlessly clean, and the technique is very different too. nightmare!
Almost but not quite....
You have to go back to basics and consider why solvent or water is actually required in vehicle paint. Ie. It's predominently used as a carrier for the actual basecoat. Solvent and water can be atomised quite easily which gives that nice light spray pattern that we need at the end of the gun.
Problem is we now have a load of solvent or water now sitting on the car which we don't need. With solvent the solution was easy - as long as it was vaguely warm the solvent would evaporate and a decent fan extraction system would send it off into the atmosphere. Water however needs a bit more help. In fact we bake at 82deg and get the panels at circa 50deg to evaporate the water. Infra red helps increase panel temperature more quickly but it is not necessary.
The need to remove solvent based paint is seemingly obvious. At the moment large amounts of solvent are literally being pumped into the air. With water based the only byproduct is the water. However things are never quite that simple and the full pro/cons would give the breadth of "War And Peace" a run for its money.
The production of solvent based vehicle paint is banned EU-wide from Jan 2007 and the sale of existing supplies is only allowed until Dec 2007. After that only water basecoat will be permitted. This extends to the cans of paint that you can buy in Halfords all the way through to Fred Bloggs working under the arches since 1964...
wildoliver said:
Very eloquently put!
Do you have any news yet on the plans for classic car paint supply? I heard a rumour they would license a small amount of production for that purpose?
Do you have any news yet on the plans for classic car paint supply? I heard a rumour they would license a small amount of production for that purpose?
Thank you for the kind words
The EU Directive that has caused all of the above did have a caveat that would appear to allow the use of solvent-based paint on historical vehicle restorations. However they have not detailed who will supply the paint and how the licensing will work.
My own view is that the exemption will parallel with what happened to the removal of leaded petrol. Ie Small quantities available in a shrinking market with the eventual removal of product when no one notices. There is of course the other small matter of why anyone would actually care if their historic vehicle is painted in solvent or water-borne. My own car (the ubiquitous BMW 3-series) was painted in water-borne at the factory and I decided to paint some of it because of stone-chipping, now I'm not a professional painter (I employ people who are
) so I did it in direct gloss solvent (it's easier). Can anyone tell the difference? Nope - not unless I take some 2000 grit paper to find out which is laquered and which isn't. And to bring this back to PistonHeads relevance - the couple of things they haven't resolved yet is what do we do with fibreglass cars (as the water content can accelerate osmosis) and *no-one* has produced the Cascade/Reflex paints in water-borne. Which will be very interesting when those £3k optional paint finishes need front-end resprays post 2007.
Edited by apguy on Monday 9th October 17:23
apguy said:
and *no-one* has produced the Cascade/Reflex paints in water-borne. Which will be very interesting when those £3k optional paint finishes need front-end resprays post 2007.
Edited by apguy on Monday 9th October 17:23
Although intended for customisation, rather than repairs, Auto-air colours are waterbased, and include a 'chameleon' range with similar properties to reflex/cascade/chromalusion finishes.
So demand will probably ensure a waterbased repair option before too much longer. It's not a matter of the chemistry of getting it to work being impossible.
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