Clear coat edges and one stage edges

[Sunninglizard]

Hi,
I have had two autobody shops in town tell me that clear coat must be extended under the edge of all moldings and trim or else it would peel. Does one stage not have that weakness, and moldings only need to be masked? This car is not worth putting $7,000 into for paint, but I hope to keep it for 5+ years. I may have it wrapped, but I want to know what paint options I have. Thanks very much

[Mantilgh]

Hi,
I have had two autobody shops in town tell me that clear coat must be extended under the edge of all moldings and trim or else it would peel.

This is not always true.

I had my car repainted a new color about 7 years ago and the clear shows no signs of lifting where the painter taped off instead of removing the molding.

I'm sure it's harder to thoroughly prep those taped edges though.

[2black1s]

As an old painter I can tell you this is not true. Granted, it is always better to remove moldings and trim but to say it can't be done without doing so is false.

Problems arise from not sanding the existing finish properly. Sanding thoroughly right up to the edge of a piece of trim is time consuming and tedious. It must be done by hand... Machine sanding doesn't cut it. Many production type shops simply do not put in the time and effort and therein lies the problem.

[Audios S6]

Simply not true. Panels and edges are back-taped and blended all the time and those don't lift if they are properly prepped.

[Mike Phillips]

Hi,

I have had two autobody shops in town tell me that clear coat must be extended under the edge of all moldings and trim or else it would peel.

I've seen a lot of re-paints where they only painted "up to" the trim, they didn't remove the trim and paint the entire body panel and the paint was no more prone to lifting than painting to a hard edge.

In my "opinion" the most contributing factor as to whether the paint will lift or not if only painted up to the border of trim would be the prep work performed by the body shop.

I have to call my buddy Paul Grasso at Grasso Garage and I could ask him, he's a "real" painter.

Does one stage not have that weakness, and moldings only need to be masked?

Most/all single stage being sprayed at any legit body shop is urethane single stage and that's what basecoat/clearcoat paints systems are --> urethane. So the chemistry is similar just with a urethane single stage paint job there is simply no urethane clearcoat sprayed over the top.

This car is not worth putting $7,000 into for paint, but I hope to keep it for 5+ years. I may have it wrapped, but I want to know what paint options I have.

Thanks very much

Like all things you get what you pay for... but I completely understand how MOST PEOPLE don't want to spend big bucks on a new paint job on a daily driver they're only going to keep for a few years. Your intentions are "good" and normal the problem is a good paint job is expensive whether it's for a cool car or a mundane daily driver.

My buddy Paul says an entry level paint job for a normal size passenger car that needs NO body work or rust removal, just prepped and painted would be a low of $3000.00 - that's to take the original paint off the car otherwise they won't warranty the paint job and quite frankly won't even take the job. No reputable body shop is going to spray new paint over old paint and warranty it. The reason why is because if the other guy's paint job fails, (even factory paint), the body shop that sprays the new paint is responsible for all of the paint. Thus all the good body shops I know won't warranty a paint job unless they take the body panels down to the base surface.


That all said, there's a local shop around here and in most towns that do what I call

Slam jobs

They paint anything and actually do a pretty good job but you get what you pay for...

Go to some car shows where the "cool cars" are and ask the guys who does good low cost work, "maybe" you can find someone.