Have you as a collision shop repairer recently been asked to change the paint time on a panel by an insurance company representative - a time that is different from that listed by the information providers? The answer, I think most of you will agree, is yes. 

The arbitrary changing of the paint times has been widely discussed this year at a number of Collision Industry Conference (CIC) meetings. One segment of the industry is trying to contain their costs by altering the paint times without really understanding the paint process. Another segment changes the paint times for its own reasons. The intent of this article is to understand the painting process by showing the correct steps taught by the major paint companies for painting a new panel, painting a used panel, painting a repaired panel, "spot painting" or blending within a panel, and blending an adjacent panel.

What is the basis for paint times that are published by the information providers.

The three major information providers - Motor, Mitchell, and ADP - state in their procedure pages that the times for refinishing are based on a new and undamaged part. Any operation performed to achieve that level of new and undamaged part is not included. In other words, the process of applying an "E-coat" replacement primer followed by a polyurethane primer are two additional steps needed to get that part to the same level of new and undamaged part.

What's a blend

ADP defines a blend as the application of color to a portion of an undamaged adjacent panel for the sole purpose of facilitating the appearance of color match into the area. Mitchell states in their P-pages that "blending times are for undamaged exterior surfaces." They further state that "application of clear coat is applied to the entire panel on which the color is blended." Motors offers a similar definition. The key word in all of the definitions is undamaged panels. There is nothing mentioned that allows for using the blend formula on a repaired panel. With a little better understanding of the blending and how the paint times were derived, let's look at the paint procedures that the paint companies employ.

Definitive word

I contacted DuPont, Sherwin-Williams, Spies, Standox, PPG, and Akzo Nobel for technical information on paint procedures for the five previously mentioned scenarios and discovered that all the paint companies specify nearly identical procedures. The major difference between them is each company's own unique products. In other words, the procedures for painting a new part, used part, repaired part and a panel blend are the same with only slight variations.

Akzo Nobel arranged for me to spend a day at their training center with their two trainers to refinish all of the fenders. Using five identical new fenders, I first left one fender unpainted. Secondly, I painted three of the fenders with a red metallic base coat/clear coat system. Lastly, the fifth fender was painted white to simulate a used fender. To keep everything uniform, the same trainer did all of the paint work. The new fender was used as the control and all the timed units were measured against the control fender.

Painting fenders

The new fender was sanded with a DA with 400 grit sand paper. It was degreased, tacked, sealed and painted with two coats of base color and finished with two full coats of clear.