Friday, January 10, 2014

Paint

My dad called today, and, in the course of describing the progress on the Triumph, I talked myself into not leaving the bulkhead in primer.  When am I ever going to have both master cylinders off again?!  This is a great opportunity to do this right, and the delay is negligible since it's not likely to be Triumph weather until March at the absolute earliest.

So...  where does one find #82 Carmine Red paint?  Well, there are plenty of places on the internet willing to sell you a spray can of it for $25-30 each.  But everybody wanted another $15 for shipping for a single can of spray paint, and several of them auto-added a bunch of other things to your shopping cart, like dust masks and scratch pens and masking tape. The whole thing comes across as kind of a racket.  

None of the big Triumph parts suppliers in the US seemed to want to sell body paint.  They'll all happily sell brake caliper paint, or engine paint, or wire wheel paint, but not the OEM body colors.  Rimmer Bros. (UK) was selling it for GBP 12.50 or so, which is less than $25, but shipping from the UK seems unlikely to make it worthwhile.

On a lark, I called our local British car shop, The Motorway. They recommended a particular paint shop who could mix up matching paint.  So I called them, and found out that #82 Carmine Red corresponds to PPG code # 72065, and they could have a spray can of it mixed up before quittin' time tonight for $15.  Sold.

I'll post some pics of the paint process as it unfolds.  Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of a carburetor rebuild, and I've got brake parts waiting for their turn to get installed.  Need to get cracking....

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