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...if the Brightside paint isn't going to look decent w/o waves, I might as well slather on some Rustoleum. But the ebay paint is a little more expensive.





If applied smoothly... the Brightside paint will look perfectly shiny WITHOUT going to the polishing and wax stage. I ran my car for almost a month after rolling it with Brightside and it looked like other cars... ( ie. it blended in with other cars and didn't stand out like some kind of side show clown car ).

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I want to avoid Rustoleum right now because of the stories I hear about it not being compatible with automotive finishes (Tremclad may be an exception to this, but it's definitely a different formula); then again, Brightside might be just as bad!






Completely WRONG. Brightsidee is a single stage polyurathane... Take a look at the top of the line product offering from MAACO - it is a polyurathane. Same stuff. 100% compatible. And you can paint enamel over a prepared polyurathane or you can paint another polyurathane over the Brightside.

The Tremclad and the Rustoleum are both enamels. IF THE PAINT HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO PROPERLY CURE there should be absolutely no problem putting 'real' automotive paint over it. The only problems might occur if a) the substrate was not properly prepared in the first place... or b) you rush to get a 'real' paint job slapped on it before it has fully cured.

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I don't want to make myself a huge amount of work when I go to shoot real, expensive auto paint over whatever cheap stuff I paint the '71 just to get it one color this year.






Maybe you should just settle for a nice coating of Interlux Pre-Cote primer - mixed 50/50 with the color you want to eventually use. You will get a solid color base with uniform coverage in just one or two coats. When it comes time for a real paint job.. you would just do a final sanding on the Pre-Cote and shoot the 'real' paint.

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PS - One more question Marq - how would you rate the Brightside shine in comparison to the Tremclad, and to a new car's?






Ok... this is an area where Brightside and the other paints differ. Brightside NATURALLY ends up with a high gloss shine with each coating. Whereas with the Tremclad/Rustoleum only reaches that level of shine ONCE the entire paint job is completed and you have gone through the compounding, polishing and waxing of all those coats.

I drove my car around for four weeks with just the final coating of Brightside on it. I wanted to let the paint fully cure before moving on to the compounding, polishing and wax stage. It looked very acceptable and did not stand out like a sore thumb or look like a crappy paint job. No embarassment factor.

The only thing that might have given me better results would have been if I had sprayed the Brightside rather than roll it. I believe I would have had less work with the wet sanding and I would probably have had an even smoother/shinier/glossier finish.

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