Best Paint for Bodywork...

[salty_monk]

Two immediate choices are Duplicolor auto or Rustoleum high gloss Professional enamel.

Just touching in a few spots on tank. Black gloss finish.

Dan

[gerwintown]

if your going to stick with a spray can I would recommend anything laqcuer based. cures and dries the fastest (like ready to sand in 10 minutes, recoats in about 16 seconds), and sands like butter. You can get a very good shine from it because it is so easy to sand which allows you to get rid of orange peel as you build up your layers. with enamels and other sprays its so much more difficult to sand and of course wait for the coat to dry that you end up either taking forever or half-assing it and getting an inconsistant finish. you will have orange peel with each coat no matter what when using a spray can, and there is nothing that kills a finish more than orange peel.

for your application, and i know they sell this at any autozone, find the "dupli-color" gloss black acrylic lacquer. its not the best lacquer but its gonig to be way better than the two items that you mentioned. and even better is that because it is so easy to sand you will be able to feather the edges on your spot fixes so that no one will notice.

sand with 600 wet in between coats, for the finish lightly sand with 600 till orange peel is gone, then bring it to 1500 then 2000, all wet sanding, then use your favorite car polish to give it its shine. lacquer can be polished as much or as little as you like. i like to use a paper towel or even a tshirt after sanding with 2000 to really make it smooth.

[gerwintown]

also in between coats your going to sand through in spots, thats actually a good thing because you are leveling the surface, just recoat and 10 minutes later repeat. that speed and ability is why you want lacquer. its qualities are the closest out of a can that you can get to a 2 part urethane based car paint.

[Ozmiander]

MY entire paint inventory consists of matte black and olive drab rustoleum cans.

[PAULYBOY]

Will brings up all the good points in using laquer for touchups. If your areas are very large, you may want to think about blending too. In my line of work, Benz has had about 6 shades of black in the last 25 years. Some companies change their blacks on a timely basis just to sell more paint probably. I've seen some people who have insisted on buying 1 shade of black to touch up items that ended up standing out like 2 different colors though. Be careful! I just picked up a quart of Ford gloss black acrylic enamel with catalyst and reducer from our local auto paint supplier and it is outstanding! Then again, I intend on using every bit of it with the proper safety precautions.

[dardoonk]

+1 on the lacquer if your using a rattle can.
When I start, I put down a few light & one medium coat down before I started sanding which gave me a little more base to reduce sanding thru.
If the orange peel situation isn't too bad, I just keep laying coats down until I feel like I need to sand.

also in between coats your going to sand through in spots, thats actually a good thing because you are leveling the surface, just recoat and 10 minutes later repeat. that speed and ability is why you want lacquer. its qualities are the closest out of a can that you can get to a 2 part urethane based car paint.

[salty_monk]

Yes, been finding that enamel very difficult to work with! Should have done some homework first I guess!

I've actually got really good finishes with rattle cans (had some training for a modelmaking part of my Product Design degree a long time ago with both rattle can & spray gun) but my usual source of paint isn't available here so I just picked up what the guy in the shop recommended.

This is the one I was going to try next... http://www.duplicolor.com/products/autospray.html

but this is the one I think you mean maybe.... http://www.duplicolor.com/products/pro_aerosols.html

Thanks,

Dan