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Water Based Paint

frank rabbets

frank rabbets

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Anyone had experience or advice on using water based paint? I had a go yesterday as the sun was out and I don't have a booth. I was using light silver metallic. I was expecting the paint to run easier than cellulose or twin pack but it didn't. It certainly took a long time to dry though and turned darker in the process. When dry I smeared a little water on to see how much darker the lacquer would make it and the paint turned lighter in colour. To my relief it dried darker again with my infra red lamp.

Am I right in thinking there is less dust from overspray floating around afterwards? The dry paint took my twin pack lacquer OK.

Any thoughts would be appreciated as I might turn over to a water based approach. Any drawbacks ?
 
frank rabbets said:
Anyone had experience or advice on using water based paint? I had a go yesterday as the sun was out and I don't have a booth. I was using light silver metallic. I was expecting the paint to run easier than cellulose or twin pack but it didn't. It certainly took a long time to dry though and turned darker in the process. When dry I smeared a little water on to see how much darker the lacquer would make it and the paint turned lighter in colour. To my relief it dried darker again with my infra red lamp.

Am I right in thinking there is less dust from overspray floating around afterwards? The dry paint took my twin pack lacquer OK.

Any thoughts would be appreciated as I might turn over to a water based approach. Any drawbacks ?
Click to expand...

Water based coatings always take longer to dry than solvent based equivalents which can be an advantage when spraying in very warm conditions. Water is heavier than most solvents so any airborne spray particles should ​settle out quicker but I'm surmising here. Other than that and the reduced toxicity issue I can't think of any other advantages over solvent based products. JMO

Edit: Forgot to add that another advantage is that you can usually apply water based coatings on top of just about any existing finish without reaction problems that you can get with solvents, especially cellulose based products.
 
Last edited:
Top Tip Frank, wipe off any bird poo immediately otherwise it will soon eat into the paint, i had a lexus a while back that had to have paintwork done on the front end, got the car back freshly painted in water base, unbeknown to me what must have been an albatross left it's load over my bonnet, had to be resprayed.
 
Yes I've had the bird poo problem but could never work out what was going on. In the end I decided that it stuck like glue then shrank pulling the relatively soft paintwork. Or is there a chemical reaction as well ?
 
In 1974 my Dad had a Ford Consul in a metallic silver colour and, while on hols in St Ives, a seagull left a small pizza sized deposit on the bonnet. He didn't bother washing it off until we got back home over a week later and it left a large stain that wouldn't polish out, as though the paint itself had been darkened by whatever chemicals were in the sh*te. I'll always remember that and now I'm paranoid about washing off any bird crap as soon as I see it.
 
Agh yes Phill, i had a Consul, no wait i had two, a 59 & a 62, both great cars, wish i had one now
 
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Body shop at work use water based, talk to the painters they prefer 2k. Not as durable imo, so easy to mark paintwork when removing parts too.
For instance I fitted a windscreen to a new x5 last week and as soon as I even showed the cut out knife the paint it scratched it!!
Older stuff you can run the blade against paintwork without a worry.
 
The water based paint I now use still has the twin pack lacquer on top. As I say without it, it isn't protected at all in it's own rite. One won't receive a water based paint job back without lacquer so perhaps the lacquer is getting weaker which is what I've heard
 
Pretty sure normal laquer over the top, still not as good as used to be though. Gone are the days of removing bumpers etc without much care! Masking tape everywhere just incase catch an edge and a load of touch up paints in my tool box lol.
Weaker laquer? Less adhesion to water based? Cheaper products?
 
All my black paintwork polishes up great but for the bonnet which has kind of cracks in and dull. Is it just worth having the bonnet done again on its own? Same paint, not water based?
 
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