[Closed] Best place to buy spray paint?

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Paints4U do paint by the can... Halfords stuff is decent for cellulose, but still very soft and subject to cracking if the work bends. OK under a really good clearcoat, generally, but if you can apply a really good clearcoat you might as well use a better basecoat.

But unfortunately, their clearcoat is also cellulose, which means it's soft, and has poor chemical and UV resistance. I wouldn't do anything on a bike in celly, it'll start to fall off the first time you ride it. Put it this way, one panel on my motorbike is done in Halfords cellulose base and clearcoat- an emergency fix which I've never sorted. On day one, it looked as good as my 2-pack-from-a-gun panels, but now it has an impact crater in it FROM A ****ING BEE. My paintwork is barely more durable than an insect.

If it's a bike frame, I'd say use hammerite or plastikote, it doesn't look as flash but it's so much more suitable. Or get it powdercoated, it's surprisingly cheap. As a general rule, if it's car paint it's either deadly poisonous, or water soluble and won't flash off without an oven, or it's crap. There are exceptions, lechler singlepack is OK frinstance but it's still not great.

Thanks Northwind, great info there.

Cheers

Halfords or a local car parts store like Motorman or A1 motorsavers?

Oh and don't mix Halfords car paint and Plasticote. Used Halfords primer on a BMX frame then pink Plasticote with a coat of Halfords Volks orange over the top (to get the correct 'fruit salad orange' shade) - worked fine on a test paper 🙄 but parts of the frame ended up with a rather interesting and unplanned Hammeritesque finish where the paints reacted with one another. Managed to salvage the job with a bit of wet and dry before the clearcoat but not recommended.

I've found Hammerite to soften too when in contact with oil or grease.

Get it powdwer coated sorted

Good post from Mamadirt there, you don't want to mix paints unless you really know what's going on with them, which is hard to do, so generally using them exactly as directed on the tin is the way to go.

Plastikote can actually react badly with itself never mind other paints, if you put a second coat on too long after a first coat the solvent in the new paint can damage the hardened coat underneath.

Never mix paint brands. They test the base coats, intermediates and clear coats on each other but normally won't have done the competition. Even if it doesn't go all hammerite, it may peel off in 3 months.