BONNILA@aol.com wrote:
>
> Several years ago I had my 1968 MGCGT painted the pale primrose yellow
> that was on the original car. Apparently a similar compound to the old
> paint was used--no clearcoat, etc, and a tendency to fade.
>
> A few weeks ago, I had to re-do the driver's door because of a major
> scratch. The door panel now sticks out like a sore thumb! The body
> shop said that it would be impossible to match the fade and
> consistency of the color and that the whole car would have to be
> redone.
>
> Does anyone have experience trying to match original style faded
> paint? I'd hate to spend big bucks.
>
Good luck. I don't think this will as easy a job as some might think it
will be.
Some will recall that I did the infamous
wrap-the-bonnet-over-the-windscreen trick so I needed to replace the
aluminium bonnet/hood and repaint the gunnel (paint chips and the like
from the trauma. Well, the place that did the repairs specialises in
restorations but had a heck of a time matching the pale primrose paint.
They offered to do it all again if I really thought it was horrible -
which I almost took them up on when I went to pick up my car. But now I
am happy with the effort.
In half-light (after sunset) and on certain angles, the bonnet takes on
an almost mustard (very pale mustard) edge but in full light you can
hardly notice the difference. I know that they experimented long andf
hard, adding and subtracting white/black to match the original/existing
colour. They even cut and polished my car to find something near the
original colour.
As it turns out, I believe a lot of the difference is in the actual
QUALITY of the paint job and the DEPTH of the paint - hence the
different look in different light. It will necessarily be many microns
than the existing paint... and shinier and newer and....
To look the same they would have to somehow AGE the paintjob - scuff it,
wash it, wear it down.
Hey, the bonnet is one of the largest sections on my car. At least *it*
has a wonderful paint job :-)
Eric
'68MGB MkII
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