These to the right show the morning sun on the new door hightening the 'golden' colouring while the same sun on the old car nowhere brings out a 'golden' shade. Because there is none.
Paint suppliers - agents for the manfacturer, vendors - argue with me about it. Perhaps not 'argue' but they don't simply agree 'this is the wrong colour'.
They don't simply agree it is their mistake, not mine. They try to talk about my paint being old. About the effect of time on paint. About the different shades of paint on my old Ford. About the difficulty of matching paints exactly.
Why? I don't know. It is all beside the point.
The point is very, very simple: There is a colour specified by Ford and they are supposed to match it.
They've done it before. Three times in my experience. Back in about 92 I got small amounts of paint in pressure packs and did a little bit of touching up on the car. I did some and a friend, a spray painter, did some for me. This was in Mudgee, N.S.W. I've got no idea the brand of the paint or anything else about it.
Then last year, as is well documented in these pages, I got paint from Palmerston Paint Supplies in Palmerston, NT, near Darwin which suited perfectly and I did some spraying to fix some of the damage caused by the garage and the incomplete job done by the panel beater.
There is a colour and they should match it.
I'm not asking them to match my car. With all its different shades and its weather-worn ago or anything else. I'm just asking them to supply what they're supposed to supply - XYFord, 1970, Falcon Wagon, Colour code '2'.
What are they saying? That they can't do this? That there's too many variables? Different paints, diffferent manufacturers (I've gone back to a previous manufacturer who did it before), different whatever.... ? If that's what they're saying then let them come right out and say it, clearly and boldly - 'We cannot guarantee to match a manufacturers colour specification'.
Short of that I reckon they should get on with it and supply it. $200 and more for a tin of paint that isn't what it is supposed to be. Wasted time. Wasted work. This hassle for me has been going on for a good month now I'd reckon. The paint hassle alone, quite apart from the wasted time involved with the Insurance company.
But when I present it to them as a colour mismatch suddenly it's not there - not something worth bothering about.
The latest idea presented to me is that the colour cannot be matched. Upon delivery of the paint one has to tweak it into the right match by adding the tints. That's why spray painters have to do x years studying paint matching (or whatever it was) before they can practise their trade.
So it is all my fault, you see. I should have let the professionals do it. That's the message.
The fact that I went to a paint professional in the first place isn't worth a mention.
The fact that I've had this problem now for something like two months and this is the first time this has been put to me isn't worth a mention.
The fact that I doubt very much any one of the professional paint suppliers would be prepared to put that statement ("we cannot match the colour" ) into official print is worth a mention.
The fact that on three previous occasions the paint has been matched to my satisfaction needs to be totally overlooked.
We are going to find out. I think many people will be fascinated to know if their paint cannot be matched out of the can (at $200 a can, with no forewarning).
Just as my hassle with Wattle paints when (on the advice of a knowledgeable friend) I painted my trailer with Wattyl fishoil. Before painting with Wattyle 1.2.3 system of 'killrust'. The fishoil can said it could be painted over with such and such Wattyl stuff. But I couldn't find 'such and such' Wattyl stuff so I got in touch with them. "Oh, my god, no, no, no..... you can't paint over fishoil.... oh, no, that's the end, oh, no, we never said you could paint over the fishoil...." Blah, blah, blah... tons of techie and salesman blurb type stuff. All boiling down to one thing: "IT IS YOUR FAULT".
It was my fault. I bought out of date Wattyl fishoil, a discontinued product - or the 'paint over it ' product was discontinued, I forget which, and I was therefore stuck with a trailer which couldn't be painted. And it was my fault. Not theirs. Oh, certainly not.
Well of course I did paint over it, I had to, and it seems pretty right but I guess the paint has lifted off in the bed rather too easily but I don't much mind. But I'm much educated.
I've learned this: Paint companies don't sell paint. They sell 'Systems'. You are expected to purchase products within their 'system' and to use them within their system specification. Else all bets are off.
One manufacturer will never guarantee his paint to stick to another vendor's.
They sometimes won't even guarantee their paint to stick to their own paint, as witness my Wattyl hassle.
So I learned that. And I nowadays try to stick with that. I get undone, of course, by 'experts', who sell me what they want to sell me and tell me that it'll be alright - 'she'll be right, mate'. So I often end up with a mixture even though I don't want it. Like now. I've got a mixture of primers, basecoats, thinners and clearcoats. Just the fact that I've got a mixture and haven't stuck to their specifications is enough to let any of the manufacturers off the hook if the paint doesn't perform.
How important is that? Totally. Totally important. If I were a buyer for a big company - as I nearly used to be once inasmuch as I was the contract accounts clerk and responsible to oversee the purchases were okay - failure in this respect could cost the company any amount of money, thousands, millions. It is a totally important first principle, as it turns out, to my great surprise: "Buy one vendor's system and adhere to it for the whole of the job."
But who ever walked into a paint shop and got told that?
You're much more likely to walk in and seek honest advice and accept what you're given and when offered something that'll save a few dollars and be 'just as good' you'll accept it and void any chance of warrantee for the job.
The paint thing. You could write volumes. What my old XY is teaching me..... It has taught me so far about garage thieving and lying, stealing bits off your car, lying about doing work, doing bad work, giving back unsafe cars, etc...., about welding, about electrical stuff, about spray painting and, of course, all the mechanical knowledge I've had to pick up while working on it..... what an education.... I recommend it to anyone... if you want to know something about the world we live in get an old car and try to fix it up..... you'll be bound to learn something...