The Royal Sport Camaro is changing colors - we tested several PPG hues to find the right color. The Royal Sport 1969 Camaro project is owned by Royal Purple Synthetic Oil, so naturally our initial design called for some sort of purple paint scheme. However, after mulling it over, the thought of painting the car purple has been replaced with a silver scheme.
The only way to see how colors react in the sunlight is to actually spray them out, so we contacted our local PPG rep Dave Cooper to see if we could use his on-site test booth to spray a couple of different silvers on one of the Royal Sport’s fenders to evaluate colors.
The idea is to have a silver base with an original Camaro stripe shot in a darker silver or gray. The stripe design was available back in 1969 and has been nicknamed the “hockey stick” stripe thanks to it’s shape looking like an inverted hockey stick.
Dave Cooper brought us up to speed on PPG’s Vibrance line of custom paints – a collection of colors intended to attract attention. In addition to colors, the Vibrance line also has many special effect paints… colors that shift, change, and do other crazy things in different light conditions.
Cooper showed us various samples of PPG’s Vibrance line sprayed out onto curved metal mini-cars, which catch light and show off the brilliance of these special colors.
We thumbed through the color charts and found a couple of silvers we wanted to see on the fender, and we also found a metallic charcoal we thought would contrast nicely for the stripe.
We were treated to a tour of the paint mixing room at Cooper Color. Here, all the colors are custom mixed according to the specific recipe allowing PPG to match every factory color with remarkable accuracy. The wall is covered with base colors which are mixed with tints to create the over 400,000 possible colors in the PPG rainbow.
The colors are all mixed by weight; the mixing room is home to a digital scale on which the colors are combined. Once a color is selected, the computer prints a label and a sticker containing the recipe of the colors needed to create the color along with the specific weight of each color needed. Next, each color is poured into the mix in the proper amount. One of the silvers we chose was made up of 11 different colors! In addition to colors, the metal flake, pearl, or other elements may be added at this time.
The first step in the process was to prep the fender. We brought in a reproduction 1969 Camaro fender we obtained from Year One to spray. It arrived wearing a black protective primer (sometimes called e-coat) which we scuffed with some 220 grit 3M sandpaper to allow the paint to bite. It was wiped with a wax and grease remover and a tack rag before painting.
Chuck Taylor is the in-house paint specialist at Cooper Color, and he brewed up a mixture of PPG Deltron DAS3025 acrylic urethane sealer blended with it’s corresponding hardener, DCX3030. The sealer aptly named; it is used over bare steel or other coats to keep the new topcoats from seeping through. It provides a uniform surface for the primers and topcoats, and Chuck chose a gray color to hide under our silver color coat.
Once the sealer was mixed, Chuck sprayed the fender in Cooper’s booth. While the mixture was allowed to harden for the specified time, (around ½ hour, based on temperature conditions), Taylor mixed the colors. The three PPG Deltron colors we chose were called Galaxy Silver, Satellite Silver, and Charcoal for the stripe. Silvers are interesting in the fact that they don’t really look like the finished topcoat while they’re in liquid form.
Taylor then loaded his SATA spray gun with the first blend of Satellite Silver and its respective reducer. Taylor used a new 3M paint gun container system called the 3M PPS (Paint Preparation System) which allows for easier gun clean up through the use of a disposable cup liner. This system does not require you to solvent-clean your paint cup, so it saves money and time along with keeping harmful solvents out of your lungs.
Taylor returned to the booth and sprayed the fender in Satellite Silver and again let it harden. PPG’s Deltron urethane paint dries quickly, so he was able to mask the back ½ of the fender within a ½ hour to spray the second silver on the front part.
After the front of the fender was sprayed with Galaxy silver, and then Taylor force dried the paint with a heat gun and a laser pyrometer temperature gun. Taylor pointed out that although this is an unapproved procedure, it’s similar to baking the part in a paint-curing oven or under infra-red lights. The trick is to heat the area with the heat gun while monitoring the surface temperature with the laser gun and not allowing the surface to rise above 150 – 160 degrees to force the solvents out. This involves quickly moving the heat gun around on the panel so it doesn’t burn the paint. Taylor mentioned that automotive paint will not show signs of overheating until it’s too late; it just turns brown and burns.
Soon the silvers were dry and Taylor used some 3M Fine Line tape to mask off the stripe. He then used regular mask paper to protect the fender and taped it to the blue tape. Then he sprayed the Charcoal stripe in several light coats to ensure the metal flake would lay down properly.
Finally, Taylor unmasked the fender and shot several coats of PPG urethane clear as a final topcoat. The clear not only protects the color, but it also provides the shiny gloss we were after. It’s amazing how the clear brings the silvers to life by adding the illusion of incredible depth to the panel. So which color are we going with? Stay tuned to find out!
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