Over here on the east coast essential is quite a bit cheaper than omni. Essential is fleet paint, very tough stuff, much more difficult to buff than omni. Read More...
I'd be real surprised if he was using anything other than House of K(osmoski)oulor. Since he owned that paint comopany.
If your doing that thing in the blue and white solid colors just use ppg concept single stage and forget the clear all together, that little tiny paint break line in a crease isn't gonna amount to a hill of beans. Read More...
The SPI epoxy is nicer than that, but I'm still not a huge fan.
It is a nice product to use for one thing IMO and that is if you have a complete body in bare metal that needs total refinishing. The spi is nice on the floor pans and other areas that need to be sealed but not neccesarily topcoated because it does dry to a sheen that is close in appearance to OEM e-coat and it is durable on it's own as a topcoat in areas not subject to the elements.
I don't like it under filler, I don't like it as a wet on wet sealer before base and I don't like it as a wet on wet product under 2K.
The SPI is very slow and will bite you in the ass if you use it in cooler temps. I've had lifting issues in 60 degree temps when I sprayed 1 coat of epoxy on a bare metal surface then waited 8 hrs to put 3 coats of 2K on it. Next day had huge bubbles where the solvents in the epoxy blistered up the 2K. Epoxy was still adhering to the metal but the 2K wasn't stuck to the epoxy. User error? Yes, I probably should have given the epoxy a full 24 hrs before applying 2K, but this was when I worked in a resto shop and time is money. No sense in using something that kills that much of your time when there's other products out there that get the job done without the headaches.
I'd just as soon use Kirker or Omni epoxy as a sealer or when topcoating with 2K. Better still just stick with etch over bare metal then get 2K on it within a few minutes vs. a few hours.
The Kirker epoxy is the best one I've used for the money spent IMO. Not much of a fan of there other products but the epoxy has treated me well. I've got 10 year old jobs that aren't garaged done with Kirker over bare metal that are still holding up fine. The Kirker sprays quite nice as a sealer and is fairly fast for an epoxy. It sands easy if needed and is forgiving in cooler temps. It's the least gummy fastest drying epoxy I've used.
If taking several days to do something that could be done in a few hours is how you like to do things then the spi isn't a bad choice. Even if you have all the time in the world I'd still stay away from using it in the winter time unless you have a well insulated and heated shop. Read More...
It burned me out too, that's why I left that shop almost a year ago for a more collision oriented shop. Sadly I've still been working on old junk for the past few months even at the collision shop. The resto work just seems to follow me around. Read More...
We don't go any higher than p320 on anything except blend panels in our shop. Blend panels get p800. Everything sanded to p320 gets sealer, base, clear. Nexa auqabase plus. Read More...
81 days ago
Nope, couldn't have come out of our shop. No double decker dog box in the bed. No 3" body lift with 33" tires on 12" wide wheels. 
