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Did you sand the Brightside after each coat, or every two coats, like Charger did with the Rustoleum? The reason I ask, is, if I will be putting down at least 4 coats of Brightside and I need to wetsand after each coat and I need to thin it, what is the advantage over using Rustoleum





You only need to wetsand after every second coat of Brightside. The exception to this rule is if the coat did not come out as smooth as you might have liked. Rather than slapping a second coat onto a bad coat ( and just thickening the problem area ) you might choose to do a fast wet sand on a bad coat just to keep as smooth a surface as you can.

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... since Brightside costs a lot more and Rustoleum is available in more choices and at stores in my area? Don't mean to be a wiseguy, I just want to find out ahead of time what method/product is going to save me the most time





The first advantage to Brightside is coverage. You 'should' be able to nail your paint job down in FOUR COATS... hence only two wet sanding sessions. But you may want to lay down six coats to further increase the depth of the color. In that case you might have made it to three wet sandings.

With Rustoleum/Tremclad heavily cut with mineral spirits it will take you four to six coats just to get uniform color and then two or four MORE coats to get the even coverage for the color you are using. ... hence you will have wet sanded approximately four or five times.

So there is a time saving component to using Brightside because you have been able to reduce the number of coats being applied and the number of times you have needed to wet sand. Time is money And this in turn also reduces the start to finish length of time for your project by 50% as well. You can get the car or Jeep out on the road that much sooner. Less downtime for the vehicle..

The other reason I don't mind paying a few bucks more to slap Brightside on my car is that :

a ) it was designed and formulated to be applied to the top side of boats. It was designed to do a boat in two coats... WITH A ROLLER... and be self levelling, hopefully leaving a shiny and glossy surface ( which we know is a must for boaters ).

b ) boat owners would never accept a paint product that didn't stand up to the elements, be resistant to chemicals ( like gas, oil etc ), have a proven track record at the marinas for durability and be able to maintain its gloss and shine so that the boater doesn't have to repeat his painting every season. That kind of pedigree makes me feel comfortable with the product and gives me a bit of confidence about the long term viabiity of this paint on a car.

c ) the Brightside paint job will leave you with a 'polyurathane paint job'. The Rustoleum/Tremclad paint job will leave you with an 'enamel' paint job. So... on a menu of choices for paint jobs at a professional paint shop, the polyurathane would be the 'premium' paint job and the 'enamel' would be the 'standard issue' paint job. In a head to head battle - a polyurathane paint job will outperform an enamel paint job - that is the reason it was created - to improve upon the characteristics of an enamel paint job.

d) and most importantly of all... since you are applying only half as many coats of paint with the Brightside, you have just reduced the number of potential coats of paint that might screw something up. I find it easier to do four perfect coats of paint then eight or ten. With each new coat there is always the potential for runs, orange peel, roller lines in the paint and more opportunities of fresh paint being available for bugs, dust bunnys, dog hairs and other assorted crap in the air to land on that fresh wet paint. With Bright side the bugs have four chances to screw things up... with the Tremclad/Rustoleum there is a potential eight or ten opportunities for things to land on the fresh wet paint.


So the bottom line in my mind is that the Brightside paint may cost a little more upfront - but there are time saving advantages during the application stages.. and there are potential long term durability advantages simply due to the chemical nature of the paint that you are applying.

When this thread got started... Charger was providing the answer to the question of how to do a budget paint job. His answer and recipe provided the lowest cost and most effective answer I have ever seen.

By moving things up a notch to the Brightside paint I was merely trying to find a way to hopefully improve on the results, keep the cost still way down from the use of automotive paint and yet still follow his basic methodology for application using the roller.

Those are basically the thoughts that formed the basis for me taking a crack at this with Brightside. So far I have not been disappointed at all with how things turned out. The cost was way cheaper than a MAACO and the results were far superior to their 'enamel' standard issue paint job that they use on their 'bargain value' paint job. In fact MAACO would charge you 'three times' more if they used their polyurathane paint ( which they call their 'premium paint job' on your car or Jeep.

So maybe that is the best way to look at the difference between Charger's Tremclad/Rustoleum 'enamel' paint job and my Brightside 'polyurathane' paint job. Charger found a better and cheaper way to get something better for less than the MAACo 'value enamel' paint job... and my way is better and cheaper for getting something better for less than the MAACO 'premium polyurathane' paint job.

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Last edited by Marq; 09/13/06 07:58 PM.