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Originally Posted by vintovka
Might add in that thanks to EPA the window of VOC is fading and mandatory water based paint is either here or on the horizon. I might say i just had work done (you can see below) and at a minimum non mechanical costs were closer to 15k at the rate of 50/hr . It did need lots of custom hands on repair and prep work and i did request a military "look".
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In Canada we made the switch to low VOC coatings including waterbase a few years back. (about 2009 as I recall) As a large automotive paint wholesale distributor carrying several lines of paints (BASF, RM, Glasurit, Akzo Nobel, Sikkens, Matrix, Lusid and others) we were very concerned about how low VOC products would impact our business and profits. We were coached and told by numerous sources that
it would drastically change the whole refinishing process and costs to repair facilities to upgrade were going to be very high.
In fact what happened is we sold less paint (gallons). Why? Because all the scary news we heard was like CNN... fake news! The low VOC paints were far better at coverage. The shops ended up using far less than before compared to when they were using solvent based coatings. The low VOC coatings were slightly higher cost per gallon, but this was offset by the reduced consumption.
The low voc technology is sound. Nothing to be afraid of. It is a little fussier about having to be dry before adding more coats of color and/or clear but compared to having to apply 2 coats of low voc instead of 4 or 5 of solvent in some cases, it was faster in the end.
The clear coat and primer is easily "compliant" at 3.2 so only the color coat was the real change made.
Make no mistake! It is not safe to drink, breath, put on your skin or in your eyes!!! It is STILL CHEMICAL so please use all PPE as you should with any other chemical.
Some coatings declared as low VOC are in fact still solvent based. Not all low VOC coatings are water based....just an FYI.
VOC - Volatile Organic Compounds cause smog.
What does all this mean to us who are keeping these old trucks alive you ask? Nothing super important to most of us except that the old formulas that the paint companies have that would match the original coatings used back in the 50's are no longer any good with the new paint systems. This means that your neighbourhood paint store is not going to be able to mix up any color from the code. They will have to custom tint their paint to match. Keep their formula whenever they make paint for you to ensure you can make more if needed. It will be considered a custom color!