[FRANKTHECRANK]

Back when I sprayed nothing but single stage,....acrylic enamels, synthetic enamels, and polyurethane enamels,... there was no really reliable way to blend them because you couldn't buff the blend area because those paints remained too soft and would basically burn or melt if you tried. Same thing went for trying to wet sand and buff any dirt or a run out of the paint. In a nut shell, how you sprayed it is how it stayed,.....so you had to be good at what you did or you'd be out of a job. Learning on such user "unfriendly" products made using todays stuff a piece of cake.

Now that single stage is made from the same type of paint today's clears are made from,... urethane,....the blending is a bit easier.

I wet sand the intended blend area with 1500 grit paper, go further out with each coat of color, so where the paint ends in that blend area is just one coat so you only have limited overspray there. Once it tacks up, I come back with the same color mix but reduced almost 100% with a fast drying reducer and I, with low pressure, ( it will atomize just fine because of the low viscosity of the product now that you reduced it so much),...and mist the mix onto the blend area to melt in the overspray and paint edge. Don't extend onto non-sanded paint. Keep this operation in the sanded area. Lightly buff the area the next day.

 

[FRANKTHECRANK]

Awesome answer! Thank you! Just what I was searching for.. I paint tow trucks and semi trucks, while fixing personal vehicles on the side.. I'll check out U-Pol for sure.. thanks again!

That's how I started out. Right out of trade school I became a painter in a heavy duty truck repair body shop which also had a fleet of tow trucks to handle big rigs. After 9 years painting, I ran the shop for 9.

I then switched gears and went back to painting at a smaller, high end body shop, which I did for 13 years, and now I run that shop and have for 8.

Always did custom work on the side, either muscle car restos, hotrod work, and lots of custom bike stuff in the early 2000s when choppers were all the rage.

Welcome to the site,...if you're not a one post wonder and never come back,..lol.

 

[FRANKTHECRANK]

Bull if you put hardner I your paint wait a day you can wet sand and buff or just buff without any problems been doing it for years now it's a different story if you don't use hardner

First off, I'll try to ignore the lack of punctuation, and misspelled words in your run on sentence, and just give you how and why I have come up with my claims.

I have 43 years experience, started with lacquer, synthetic enamel, acrylic enamel, and polyurethane enamel. Used all the above in production collision shops, and used them in custom work as well. Over the past 20 or more years, it's been urethane single stage and base/clear systems, and now using water base as well.

This thread is about single stage blends, ...acrylic enamel was what I used exclusively during the 80s, worked very closely with the manufacturers paint reps, and it was my experience that told me I needed to lay down the best paint job I could, every time I painted something, because buffing that soft paint in any reasonable amount of time, was not going to result in an acceptable appearance. At that time there were high speed buffers (made for buffing hard lacquer paint) which would literally melt the acrylic enamel if used on it.

Perhaps acrylic enamels of today, that you may be using have changed but, to be honest I do not know one single painter or shop that still used acrylic enamel today, but I guess some hack, back yard garage shop might, or a used car salesman trying to polish turd might as well.

Single stage urethane paints on the other hand, like I mentioned in my first reply, can be blended and buffed using the method I pointed out. Yes, of course it has hardener in it,....it's a catalyzed urethane paint, so whether it has hardener in it or not was never an issue. You need the hardener (activator) to have the paint chemically cure.

 

[FRANKTHECRANK]

Even the best single stage blends tend to come back and become visible years later, sometimes less time than that. I am a firm believer that all blends should be cleared over for a really undetectable blend that won't come back to haunt you later. Either use a base/clear to do the repair, or clear over the single stage,..(that can be done) or just do enough test panels and panel paint the entire area. I can get solid colors right on the money,.....but todays metallic and pearls, those are tough to panel paint and be happy with the color match to the adjacent panels.