Matching 30 year old oem paint

bmenard

Member
So one of the few times a winter that I dare to drive my mint original 88 740 Volvo wagon was last night, and needless to say I regret it because a nice big deer decided to end the 30 years of no paint work....I do a lot of painting but mostly complete stuff, I'm not a collision expert. I have no doubt i can fix the damage, just light dents etc. but ill be painting 2 doors and a rear quarter. I use DBC base pretty exclusively, and am wondering the best way to go about matching the color. PPG is usually fine on new colors, like doing rockers on a 2004 truck or something, but older stuff is not generally perfect. Anyone have advice on how to proceed? Would a color scan of the car yield good results, I've never had that done. Gold metallic.
 
30 year old Gold Metallic is going to be difficult. Mainly because 30 years of sun will have bleached the color out somewhat. If it's been garage kept you'll stand a better chance than if it's been outside it's whole life. DBC should match nicely to the car, check for alternates, your jobber will have a deck of them if there is one for you car. But because of the age of the paint it's not going to matter much. I would probably just go with the "Prime" formula. I would not use the PPG Prophet because it can be notoriously inaccurate and you have a paint code, plus 1988 is in the modern era so color match to New OEM paint should be very close. Irregardless here is how I would proceed, first repair your damage, do any necessary bodywork etc. etc. If you've done work on both doors then use you fender as your main blend panel. Considering the body style of the Volvo and the fact that it's 30 year old paint, I would plan on coloring the entire side and blending into the top of the fender where it meets the hood.
So once you have everything prepped, seal your primed areas, you can choose to not seal and base over your primer but with DBC and gold metallic you need to finish with 800 wet if you plan to do that. I would spot seal being careful to sweep in,sweep off, so that the sealer blends out and doesn't leave a noticeable start stop area around it. Base the side (minus the fender), medium coats, not too wet. Focus on sweeping out with your gun at the end of each pass onto the fender. Carry each coat out a little further onto the fender. DBC will take minimum 3 coats spraying medium, more like 4. After your have coverage on the side(minus the fender), use some DBC500 or SPI Intercoat and mix it 1:1 with your already reduced basecoat. If you don't have either in a pinch you can use reducer (be sure you are using either SPI or PPG DT and use a slow reducer, slowest you can get away with) I would use either SPI885 or DT885. SPI reducers are actually better than the DT I've noticed a difference in how DBC lays down with the SPI reducer.

With your Intercoat reduced base, proceed to start somewhere in the middle to back of the front door and carry into the fender, sweeping in, sweeping off. Each back and forth pass should end in a slightly different spot. Actually with that fender carry the color all the way to the end of the fender. Your main concern is the very top of the fender before it bends to meet the hood. (hope that makes sense):) Simply carry it almost to the top of the vertical but not quite. Keep your line nice and straight when spraying there. If you do it right it will blend itself. Apply 2-3coats like this and see how it looks. Look for difference in color in the blend area.With gold you need to look for the metallic laying down with little to no mottling as well.. Relax your eyes and try to see if the color transitions nicely, texture and gloss differences may be noticeable but that doesn't matter clear will hide that.

Then clear the entire side. Good Luck.

PS: When I say sweep in, sweep out, it should be a subtle, not exaggerated motion. Basiclly you are trying to pull off and feather off the trigger subtly at the same time.
 
When matching a color from a system you don't have toners for, it's often helpful to buy small amounts of what's in the formula in individual cans. My guess is time will have faded the color enough to start by adding about 10% additional metallic and probably some flop additive, too.
 
Thanks, I always use SPI reducers exclusively so no problem there. And 885 is the only one I ever keep around. There is one variant but ill start with the prime, My car is in exceptional shape and was always inside, paint looks new. I was going to do a sprayout on a piece of something and clear it and lay in on the car in different places and lights for a few days in different spots. I usually get full coverage in DBC on this type of color. If it looks really good I'm going to paint the whole side and fender without blending. I like the idea of leaving the fender top though in original color maybe ill get motivated to try it.
 
Jobber offered to scan the car and compare to the paint formula also, ill see what they say.

Jobber doesn't know what he's talking about. You've got the paint code! 1988 was in the "Modern" era, there should be no issue. PPG Prophet (the scan tool) is notoriously inaccurate. I have no idea why the jobber would say that. Look up the code, look at the alternate chip deck, and proceed. Use Crash's advise as well. If you paint it like I recomended it doesn't really matter if it's a perfect match or not.
 
No he had the code I provided, just wanted to compare what the scan tool reads to the PPG formula for my code. Ill just get some and blend the fender, wish me luck!!
 
Thanks, I always use SPI reducers exclusively so no problem there. And 885 is the only one I ever keep around. There is one variant but ill start with the prime, My car is in exceptional shape and was always inside, paint looks new. I was going to do a sprayout on a piece of something and clear it and lay in on the car in different places and lights for a few days in different spots. I usually get full coverage in DBC on this type of color. If it looks really good I'm going to paint the whole side and fender without blending. I like the idea of leaving the fender top though in original color maybe ill get motivated to try it.


Can 100% guarantee you there will be a noticeable difference if you don't blend.
 
Jobber offered to scan the car and compare to the paint formula also, ill see what they say.
What jobber told me about the scanner was that it took a reading of the color, and when plugged into computer that had paint formulas, it looked for the formula that matched the closest to the reading. His comment was that it was not all that accurate.
 
Jobber doesn't know what he's talking about. You've got the paint code! 1988 was in the "Modern" era, there should be no issue. PPG Prophet (the scan tool) is notoriously inaccurate. I have no idea why the jobber would say that. Look up the code, look at the alternate chip deck, and proceed. Use Crash's advise as well. If you paint it like I recomended it doesn't really matter if it's a perfect match or not.
What grit to scuff that fender with for the blend?
 
That's how we prep blend panels, too, though my helper likes working dry because he seems to lose track of what has been sanded. So we wash the vehicle thoroughly before working on it instead.
 
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