Single Stage or Base Clear???
 

The car is black.
The car is not a daily driver.
I prefer an original look over a polished glass look.
The guy painting doesn't care which method I choose.
Okay I think those are the basics. :)

I'd prefer that this decision not just be a coin toss a few days before the big event. The painter and I have talked about the pros and cons of each, and I'm still undecided.

If it was a metallic I would absolutely go base clear. I'm told, and have read that black looks more authentic in single stage.

Those of you that have gone single stage...any regrets?
Those of you that have gone base/clear...any regrets?

Your thoughts are appreciated.

I always do base clear, holds up better with high UV exposure. I've found that scratch repair is easier, a quick wet sand and reclear the panel if it's deep enough.

I would also vote base/clear. I just think it stands up to scratches better. More chemical resistance. Its just tougher.

Thanks guys. since this car isn't a daily driver and with a driving season of only about 6- 7 months of the year, I don't feel UV protection would be a major concern. Am I right or should this still be a concern?

Scratch resistance would be a consideration. The painter didn't seem to think there would be much difference as long as single stage or clear was a quality product. I'll ask him again about that.

Forgive me for not fully understanding but if I had to re-clear a panel in the future can you not just respray a panel with single stage the same as you would with clear?

I was told from a couple painters, solid color single stage, Metallic and pearls base coat clear coat.
I painted single stage black and white, once wet sanded and buffed you cant tell the difference between ss and bc. Single stage is a little cheaper price wise. Also saves a little time and chances of dust getting in it.

My car was Painted in single stage acrylic enamel, "Red" , 37 years ago and it still looks great. My car won first place at the GTOAA nationals in 2014. Class: 64-65 modified.

Get on board with SPI products.
The single stage black is on many award winning cars.
Some even mixed some of their clear in the last coat.

https://www.southernpolyurethanes.com/products

Solid colors, especially on cars that are kept inside, no clear. Metallics, candies, pearls etc. get clear. Black will also look blacker without clear. Don’t pick a color from the chips, go straight mixing black if you want a black car. Most factory blacks have other colors in the formulas.

Back in 2016 or 17 a friend painted a '66 Bonneville (421, HO Tripower, 4-speed) in single stage black and it looked stunning. The paint really stood out, even at MCACN...won many awards, e.g., best of show at Indian Uprising, Goodguys Muscle Car of the Year Finalist, and so forth. He's doing a RAIV Judge right now in black single stage...I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard it's amazing. Anyways, when it came time to paint my son's 79 Y84 TA, we chose single stage black. There are a bunch of really nice black TAs in town in base/clear, and to me, the single stage paint on my son's car just looks deeper and less plastic. He gets a lot of compliments on the paint even in a sea of other really nice cars. Black SS tends to be soft though, so more prone to scratches, and chemical damage if one is not careful. But very easy to sand/polish out problems.

Lacquer
 

Lacquer is still the best look to get that deep rich 3 dimensional look.
Never get it from Single or Base/clear.

Painted my last project GM Black Lacquer. Forgot how deep and rich that type of paint is.
But in Canada you cannot use that stuff.

I would vote for Single stage with clear in the final coat.
If the body work in done to the standard of black paint it will be better than base/clear. IMO.

Yes you can respray the single stage as a whole panel. Cannot blend single stage very well. If you have to do the rear QP again you would need to respray both QP's, and the roof to do it correctly. Any other panel will be single spray as it matches well.

For black and other solid colors, I almost always use single stage unless I'm doing graphics. Appearance difference is negligible between SS and BC and is dependent on final polishing techniques. If you use a top tier paint it will have a higher level of solids which give good color holdout even with black. Single stage is considerably cheaper than base/clear and you cut the spray time in half. The film build will be less with single stage which could help with chip resistance and overall longevity. Touch-up with black SS will be the same as base clear as well as spot repairs and blending. PPG and Southern Polyurethanes are my go-to suppliers. SPI makes a very good single stage black as well as one of the best clears on the market for show finishes.

I guess I should have caveated my advice to go with a 2k clear as Im mostly messing around myself at home and using cheaper paints. So like when I sprayed eastwood single stage black, It looked good, but I felt it scratched too easily. I higher quality paint might have a different experience.

The last one I did, I actually sprayed single stage, then put a coat of normal clear on top of that.

Thanks guys, more great advice and food for thought! Honestly I was and I'm still leaning towards single stage. This is a restoration and I just prefer a more original looking paint than a glass smooth custom look and going single stage is probably the best way to achieve this.

Someone brought up polishing and that makes me wonder if polishing really has to be part of the paint process. I get that if the paint is sprayed on too dry or heavy and has runs or dirt that you would have to sand it out and polish but if it goes on proper and clean, is there any reason to polish?

Like I said, Im a dude who just likes to goof off in a cheap and lazy fashion. So I often dont polish.

However, I dont care how flat the paint lays out. If you do a before and after with it sanded down to a 3000 then buffed/polished. Its going to be a notable difference.

Ive seen some people do the flow coat thing, where you said it flat, then put one more coat of clear down. Ive seen it said you dont have to polish after that.....but all you did was change the steps around. You are still wet sanding it.

Regardless how smooth the paint is after spraying, there will be specs of dirt or urethane waves that can be corrected. I sprayed 4 of these fenders last week with 4 coats of SPI single stage black. They almost look good enough to put on the car, but I'm still going to sand and polish them, because there is some waviness at the rear that I can fix with some wet sanding. Urethane paint can get wavey as it flows and starts to cure, unlike the old 1k paints that when built up heavy, flowed smooth until they air dried. I'm sure in 1929, these had plenty of orange peel. I appreciate originality, but people are more critical these days. When I'm finished, these need to look like glass. Anything less and it'll appear like I missed the mark.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1783710646

Since 2000 I've had 6 vehicles painted. Five of them along with my 2009 Ram 2500 with factory paint, had the clear coats fail around the 5 year mark. None of them lived in a garage. Here in Portland Oregon there's less UV exposure and more rain days. 🌧

The 6th vehicle I painted is my Suburban I had painted it with a single stage PPG metallic. After 10 years it still looks great. Never again will I have a base coat/clear coat paint job!

What are the fenders from?

K

For black....I always do single stage. My 67 GTO was done in PPG DCC 9300 15 years ago and it has held up really well. Since then I've switched to SPI and really like it! Much more budget friendly, get tech support and everything I've painted with it has held up well.

This was painted 6 years ago midnight green single stage metallic.



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I love SPI products and support, their forums are loaded with info too.
That said....... "Lacquer is still the best look to get that deep rich 3 dimensional look.
Never get it from Single or Base/clear. "
Lacquer can get you closer to the original thickness, But
If you base and clear THEN Wet sand the car and "Flow Coat" it you'll get that deep 3d look.
Not many painters want to do flow coating ..