Heads up on flat black you cant touch that up to match right!
A lot of folks dont know that. Any time I had a project touch up I wound up having to sand down the whole area to get 1 scratch fixed.
Im talking High end displays and Museum pieces that cost more than any of our cars. Unless someone here owns a Baret Jackson 50k car that sold for 3.5 million.

Rmodel65 sounds like he knows his stuff with the usual paints.
Im talking about a Easy do it yourself job. Can you what a mess a 1st timer would make with a urethane.
The guy would spend the next 3 weeks trying to sand the trash and runs out.
You might as well just hand him Imron or Polane and just tell him spray it smooth and watch the runs and expect it to come out right.

SuperDave,
Done right and on a budget your results with the Lacquer will look amazing.
It is easier to work with on your first paint job.
Hell thats what I learned to paint with.
All my guys over the years learned lacquer 1st then when they got the feel for painting they got to go with the acrylic enamels and urethane.
Your in Texas for Peate's sake go down to the tractor parts place and I bet over half they guys there can show you how to paint with lacquer.
Thats all the CO-OP had when I was in Tennessee.

I can tell you your results with the lacquer will look better in the end. As far as guns I picked up a $30 gravity feed gun @ Northern red with a white cup.
Look @ the cap it has a #30 nozzle on it. Thats huge if your using the enamels but fine for Lacquer. Puts out a lot of paint witch you will need.
Later go for the big budget job.

BTW 5 cars @ the last show I went to that looked wet and deep way beyond the rest were all lacquer jobs I asked.
Chit Dave road trip out come spring time to Atl and well paint both of them lol
Stay away from my Daughter tho! lol

 

Hey I live in the ATL

 

LOL I thought you were in texas.
I am on the east side.

 

You're thinking of Superdavid

 

I personally would really like to see some side by side pics of a laquer and an urethane job.

Have you considered just doing the body work and then getting place like Maaco to spray it.

 

I think witht he black with flat black stripes what you would do is paint the whole car black, then lay on the flat black stripes, then put on a bunch of layers of clear coat. (of course color sand in between if you want best results). Then wet sand thand buff the clear coat and you should have minimum or no orange peel, and if done right you can feel no edge where the different layers of paint are for the flat black stripes.

 

4reboy is correct, but black is not an easy color to do. It shows EVERYTHING. Not sure why everyone wants black. In autobody the phrase is white is right. The lighter a color is the less you have to worry about imperfections showing through. That being the case, you may want to try a lighter color first - like the silver you mentioned. Lighter colors also tend to be cheaper if you are on a budget.

 

then your body lines/gaps have to be dead on cuz theyll be dark and your car light.They both have pros and cons.Pick what you like and want and go for it.good luck

 

not sure if this has already been mentioned im too lazy to read all the posts but you could try and compromise with the paint job. i mean you have acess to all the tools for bodywork it sounds like so maybe give that one shop that quoted you $1500 a call and ask them what it would cost if all the bodywork was already done. you could even do the primer for them since that is much harder to mess up than the paint. just an idea

 

Thanks for the replies guys!

Connor, I've thought about that, but I really wanna try this deal myself. So far the only parts of my car that have been built by anyone else are the tranny, TexasMotorSports, and my 351stroker.

Camnf, thanks for the offer! Yeah if you wanna put it off till summer when school is out, I'll head out to Atlanta... no guarantees about the daughter though.... lol!

Everyone else: I know black is hard color and the body would have to be perfect, but I'm ok with that. I can definitely take my time and be a perfectionist when it comes to my car.