Touch Up Paint

[steve375]

I have a 1952 Henry J Vagabond and have a few places to touch up. Under the hood is the paint code. Can I use this code to match up the paint or does anyone have a better suggestion. Thanks.
Steve

[Corsairdeluxe]

Good luck finding a touch up paint. I have done this...Remove the glove box door and take it to the biggest hobby shop around. They usually have a big selection of model paint I have also done this.. take the door to Home depot. They will put it on their spectrometer and make you an 8 ounce sample of gloss water based paint. It is not as durable as lacquer and if used over rust it will bleed through.

[dusty]

Paint!!!!!   go to a PPG Auto paint store with the code and as Gordie suggested and have them mix a spray can's of single stage paint for you, I just had some made for "Green tint" paint in acrilic enamel and off white vinyl to match the color for mu DRAGON  it cost $26.00 per can but WOW a perfect match.

[Fid]

A '52 Vagabond won't have a glove box so removing the door is not an option. I took my '52 Vagabond to a restoration shop, the guy read the paint code (325, Cape Verde Green) and ordered me the paint. That was in 2009. The problem was, the car had already been repainted a 1990 "Close match"  which has a bit more metallic in it so the touch up paint does me no good.  For the dash and under the hood, it is correct. There may be a place local to you that can match it based on that code. The place that did it for me was
Lynn's Auto Body & Restoration
10714 175th St W Lakeville, MN 55044
(952) 435-7596

It might be worth giving Lynn a call and asking him how he did it. I'm pretty sure he'd remember me.

[Barnum]

Most autobody paint supply shops have the equipment to match your paint.Having the code is a start...but most classic cars have had at least one repaint. If you take the car to them(or a piece of it)It can be scanned and matched.Of course you will still want to test it to be sure it is a match.The best way to do that it to spray a test piece(piece of sheet metal) and hold it against the car. I have used Tower Paint in the past with good results . http://www.apstowerpaint.com/index.php   http://www.apstowerpaint.com/category/custom-mixed-paint/3

[Fid]

Good point Branum. I think you provided the most useable answer. When I installed the continental kit on my '52 Vagabond, I drove it to the body shop and they scanned the door and got a perfect match for the early '90s paint that the car was last painted with. They painted my Continental kit parts and as I said - perfect match. Steve375, if your car is drivable, you should be able to take it to a body shop and have it scanned and get an exact match.

[BigDave LM6174]

My 52 HJ was missing the glove box door.  It had been painted 20 years ago but was never put back together.  The car was not running,but my friend who does custom painting took the front splash pan off the car behind the front bumper.  He carried it into the paint shop and they polished it and scanned it.  On the 4th try, they got a perfect match.  The first had toomuch silver, the second was not enough green, and back and forth until they found a perfect match.  I have a 1 gallon can of the paint in case I ever need to paint a fender or anything.  You can't tell that the glove box door was not painted at the same time as the car.

[joefrazer]

It's amazing how far paint tech has come. Thirty years ago I worked for a subsidiary of Sherwin Williams and to match paint batches we would do what was called a "draw down" and visually, with a trained eye, match the shade. There were several of us in the shop who shaded and each of us had our own color range. I remember when we got our first spectrometer, it was a large and expensive chunk of machinery.