Just a tip. Buy good paint, but buy expensive clear coat. The clear coat is what makes the paint.
I hate disagreeing with people, but this is just not true.
Paint is just as important as clear, maybe more so. Some paints can lay down off of the gun really well and have good gloss straight away, an excellent example of this is COBRA BASECOAT or PROTEC BASECOAT, both are really simple to use and are reasonably forgiving to the novice painter, neither brand cost the earth either. House of Kolour paint is good, but only if you are an expert painter, use only HOK products i.e thinner's, primer and clear and and have the money to pay for it and the time to wait for it to come from the USA.
Clear's on the other hand don't need to be all that expensive, PROTEC have a clear pak
(4 ltrs clear and 2 ltrs hardner, thinner's you buy separate, it is r198 from memory
), it is reasonably priced
(cheapest on a ltr for ltr basis
) and is an excellent clear, most of the panel shops between Penrith and Windsor in NSW use this clear.
Mostly it depends on the painter, type of gun you use and what size nozzle, what paint you are using, air pressure from compressor, weather conditions, preparation etc etc.
What sort of paint do you want, I noticed that no one bothered asking.
I would stay away from acrylic paint as it can rub of if an abrassive chemical or petrol is spilt on it, although it is easy to cut back and make shiny again, this is why a lot of the trailer show cars
(the ones that are built at a cost of $150 000+ and never driven except out of the trailer
) are painted in acrylic, this is so that the owner's can rub them back quickly the night before a show so they look like they have just been painted. Acrylic is cheap and very very simple to use and mix though.
2pac is much harder to use if you are a novice, although it can be done with a tiny bit of pratice and patience first. 2pac is a lot more durable and wears/weather's better than acrlyic, it will not rub of with petrol or any other chemical except for brake fluid, but this is right across the spectrum of paints, it also cost's a bit more but is worth the extra outlay if you have the money. To paint a car, 4 ltrs paint and 6.5ltr
(4 ltr clear-part a and 2.5ltr hardner-part b
) PROTEC clear pak and assosciated thinners and hardner's, you would be looking at about $2000, give or take.
I would recommend using COBRA or PROTEC brand paint and thinner's and clear's simply because they are probably the most user friendly 'systems'.
Do NOT use MOTORCHEM brand paint, if you need a touch up pot of paint the colour will not be the same as the MOTORCHEM tinter's
( concentrated colours that make other colour's, tinter's do not have good coverage but can be used if you put down enough coats
) are regularly different to the last batch i.e royal blue in batch 2 may have a red tinge as opposed to royal blue in batch 1 for instance.
End of rant type thingy.