Database of paint hardness

[StoneRaizer]

I've read countless posts about how Car Make & Model ______ has very hard/hard/soft/very soft paint. I think it would be a good idea if the members and moderators of MOL could compile a database of paint hardness as a quick reference guide. My over-simplifying thought would be to create a thread and then members/admins respond by saying "my (year) (make) (model) has hard/soft paint" based on personal experience. Additionally, perhaps one of Meg's experts could post a tutorial about what defines hard and soft paint, and how to determine what your car has.

Just my .02 cents.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Database of paint hardness

The tutorial is a great idea and we're actually working towards gathering the necessary vehicles and processes to do just that.

But compiling a database is almost impossible. Manufacturers change paint systems all the time, sometimes even mid year. We've obviously seen the same comments about "Brand X" having really hard paint, but we've worked on plenty of those cars and the paint wasn't really all that hard. Then again, we've worked on others of the same make/model where the paint was quite hard.

Skill and experience play a huge role in this too - we've seen people really struggle with paint that a highly experienced person could correct fairly easily. So how do you rank hardness of paint? We can't really measure hardness like you do with various rubber components (durometer measurements) in any way that would be meaningful to most people.

We'll see what we can do about stepping up that tutorial, but the next 3 -4 weeks are going to be downright crazy around here with other projects!!