VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Body - Sheet Metal, Paint & Wood Water-based automotive paint

I've heard a little about the manufacturers developing water based paints for automotive use. I checked around and saw this link on the Eastwood website.
http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=376&itemType=CONTENT

Also found the following: http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/113_0507_auto_air_colors_water_based_automotive_paint/index.html

Does anyone have any experience with this process? It sounds very interesting for the hobbyist as it may not be as toxic as urethanes and lacquers. If I read this right it appears the water based paint is a base coat only, and it requires a clear urethane top coat...sort of defeats the purpose in my opinion. OEM color availability may also be limited...or non-existent.

Other thoughts?

Some GM cars in the early '80's had a water based paint. After a year or two it began to peel off. The cars were bead blasted and recoated with the conventional paints of that time. The water base paints were nnot clear coated. I am sure that there are better things avalable today.

Gene:
You're right...I think we've all seen the 'tiger-striped' cars from that era. The primer usually held up ok but the color coat peeled like a banana. We have a certain mutual friend in CT that still has an '88 GMC pickup that has that awful looking stuff on it.

The paints of that era were incompatible with the primer,the name was delamination.If you touch the primer,usually grey,it feels oily and no paint would adhere to it.Manufacturers had a warranty program for this.Water based paints at present have two advantages.At least one coat is low pollutant and if you spray metallic ,the solvents in urethane will not interact with the metallic flakes.That is called metallic run and appears like a black smudge under the paint surface.All chemical companies are working toward safer practices as new laws on pollution are being enacted.

I had an 81 Chev Citation, dark blue in color. About 6 months after I purchased it went into the garage one night, the car was wet from rain, turned on the light and it looked like the paint was alligator skin. Cracks all over the entire roof and hood. GM repainted it for me, it was still in good shape when I traded it 50,000 miles later.