The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Jim Carter Paint

I want to paint my 1948 two ton in Swift Red. On the old paint chip charts for 1948 it has Dulux 93-1863-R and DUCO 246-9089-R. I am going to prime with PPG epoxy paint. I will be painting the truck myself and the only experience I have is painting my Oliver tractor. I mainly want to get a coat of colour on it, and may play around with making it look weathered. Shiny things are that important to me.

Anyhow, I see Jim Carter sells paint and was wondering if anyone has ever used it. I was going to go to my local auto parts store with those chip numbers, but I have a feeling they are going to tell me they can't be cross matched. Has anyone used the Jim Carter paint? It's an acrylic enamel.

I don't know, but Oliver green looks pretty nice.
Why not use tractor paint? It looks good on tractors when its done right, and it is as tough as nails, I'll bet you can find a nice red tractor paint.

I used paint from Jim Carter on my truck. Pretty easy to spray and fairly forgiving. I needed to touch up a couple spots on my cab and it came out pretty well I think. I had not done any painting since the late 60s. My color is Omaha Orange.

You can go to Paintref.com for other manufacturers corresponding paint codes for your color in case your paint guy can’t use the Duco or Dulux numbers you have.

I used JIm carter's paint on my interior and it worked very well.

Same here. It was even more forgiving than the exterior stuff, as it was semi-gloss with a little metallic. Only Issue I had was it was darker than the original paint, so had it lightened a bit.

Paint I got from Carter in 2022 was labeled “Commercial Preformance Coatings” ALK200, Acrylic Modified Alkyd, single stage, a good quality product & JC is very reasonable on price.
You can look it up, IIRC it is PPG line.
Do find, read, and follow the TDS on everything you spray, I keep them in a shop binder for quick referencing so I don’t get confused switching between products᠁..

Chuck

Sounds like Jim Carter paint will work for me. Thanks for the input.

Super55, If you are using PPG products for the base, I would stay with them, the jobber can mix PPG acrylic enamel, or single stage self gloss urethane from the old paint code. I had them mix some for my '78 Vette and the '57 truck, perfect match and the urethane is a pleasure to shoot.

Jim Carter’s paint is definitely a PPG product line. My local PPG paint guy doesn’t carry the ALK-200 Acrylic Enamel, but they do carry the PPG Urethane single stage paint.

That is good info, knowing the manufacturer/brand of the product.

FYI, here's the tech data sheet for ALK-200.

My local PPG suppliers didn’t carry the ALK 200 either, but in Santa Rosa (34 mi north of here and outside of the SFBay Area Air Quality district) they carry the PPG Delfleet line, a single stage system which has also worked very well᠁it uses an activator and hardener, not straight out of the can like ALK 200. Price for it out here was way higher than JCarter, at least double᠁.

Chuck

I was looking at the data sheet for the ALK - 200 and it looks like you can shoot it straight, or mix with ALK 201 which must be a hardener. Did anyone who used the Jim Carter paint use the ALK 201?

I used the hardener on some of the paint, mainly the Omaha Orange exterior. I managed to find a couple half pint cans of ALK-201 online. Otherwise I’d have had to buy a quart. The 1/2 pint is all you need for a gallon of paint and the instructions say it has to be used within 14 days of opening the can. I wasn’t going to bother with the hardener till I found the smaller containers. I think it would be fine without hardener.

I was wondering how much paint to order to paint the cab, doors, fenders and hood? Two gallons? Jim Carter is having a 10% sale on now.

At 5-600 sq ft per gallon seems that 1 would get you there, but you can calc that out. What matters as much is how many times you paint, if all parts get shot in 1 go round paint goes a lot further than if you set up (adjust gun, then shoot, then clean up) for each piece at different times, that waste factor can increase your need, significantly᠁

Chuck

What's the mix ratio? If you have a gallon with activator or hardener, mixed 2:1, that gets you a gallon and a half sprayable.

I bought a gallon and a quart and painted the cab, fenders, hood, bed, and all the miscellaneous Omaha Orange bits. That was a WAG on my part, but I still have a bit left, so I think a gallon would fix you up.
The hardener to paint ratio is 1:15 as shown on the Tech Data Sheet, so that doesn't add much volume. You can thin if needed up to 10% with xylene.

Is the JC 10% for in-stock only? From my experience, the paint is not in-stock. As far as quantity, the gallon+ seems about right, unless you screw up like I did. I had read somewhere that the paint is ready to shoot right out of the can...wrong. 2:1 mix with reducer and 2% harder seems about right... and there is still orange peel for your cut n buff enjoyment.

The tech sheet says only 10% reduction with xylene, not 2:1, which would be 30%. I shot most of mine with no reducer. My paint was stored since 2019 when I went there to get it, and just used it this year. There are a few spots that I still need to buff out the orange peel, but if you lay down enough paint, it levels out nicely.

I don't understand why a Canadian would order paint from a US supplier. Our dollar is only worth 72 cents US and there are outrageous import fees, handling and shipping charges. Use a local supplier!

If you are trying to match paint, take a sample to the supplier - they should have a colour matching tool if they are any good.

The only place I know to order paint is Lordco, and I have not had much success for customer service. The guy in my area is a real crank and doesn't seem to want to look up codes. He was sick when I went in to find the paint I want for the truck and another person at least tried to match a colour for me, but no success.

Once I went to another location on the other side of the river when I was planning out the paint for my tractor restoration. They said they could match a colour, but after I primed all my pieces and went to order a yellow paint the paint person there told me she couldn't sell it to me unless I was an industrial business. So, I find it much easier sometimes to just order from the States. Never had any trouble and at times they spent a lot time and effort trying to find parts for me. I have items shipped to Sumas, so I don't pay all that much for shipping and it costs me less than $5 to pick it up there.

Maybe if I had a sample instead of a code and picture of the chip chart they might make more of an effort.

All that being said, I do plan on going to yet another Lordco in Mission and give them one last try and compare prices. It's a PPG base so it really shouldn't be such a problem.

I would go to an auto body supplier specialist store - not Lordco. We use Rondex as a supplier, but they don't seem to have a store on the lower mainland. There should be other suppliers on the lower mainland you can use. Call PPG and ask them who sells their products in your area.

Hey Gord, I did find a supplier in Delta, Pacific Western Paint, that has a PPG single stage and it works out to about $50 more than Carter, it may not be the same base, but they can mix the Swift Red. And I can use my PPG epoxy primer. They also have the reducer and hardener.

That's great. Another advantage of a local supplier is that you can easily get some more if needed. We needed more paint after we found some places that needed touch up. We just called the supplier and they mixed up a quart.