Question for CNKS

There is a happy medium in the cost vs. quality consideration. I happen to believe it is met with PPG's OMNI line of cost-effective automotive paints. DuPont has a similar line called NASON but I have never used any of it. Other major paint suppliers have similar lines of products. The high end acrylic enamels (auto pros would say that is an oxymoron) like PPG's Delstar and DuPont's Centari are really great if you can get 'em, but are on the pricey side and are rapidly being replaced by the urethanes in the upper category and the enamels in the lower "economy" lines noted.

Check out the technical data sheets for PPG and DuPont paint products in the links I posted here recently. It will give you an idea of the many different paint products available today and how to go about using them properly.

What CNKS said. I have no personal experience with JD paint but I firmly believe that paint chemistry is far more important than any particular brand. You will likely find that similar paint chemistries will have similar costs across various brand names. The lower end chemistry will have the lower cost. And also the lower performance. You can't get blood from a rock even if you put a popular brand name on it. I have no idea who manufactures JD paint. Somehow I doubt JD is in the paint business but rather simply markets somebody else's product under their own name; who knows - it could be DuPont Dulux in disguise. I could be wrong. The can label should indicate the basic type of paint chemistry and what additives to properly use with it, along with safety information. If that is not provided, then the manufacturer either does not recommend it or does not market such additives and therefore defers to others regarding use and mixing, together with responsibility for the end result. I am talking specialty reducers and hardeners here and not generic stuff like mineral spirits. I would not have a high level of confidence in such a product...right down there with the enamel you get at your local Wal-Mart for $22/gal or whatever. Should get a rise out of the JD folks with that :o). Seriously though, if you have brand loyalty and insist on "official" paint or possibly can only get the "exact official shade" from the dealer at a high cost markup, then go with the JD paint. I am sure there are others that will tell you about certain reducers and generic hardeners made by others that they have used successfully, along with how to mix it all up. If it is indeed a synthetic, or alkyd enamel it really is an old chemistry that was used on cars 50 years ago. It will still work fine for what it is but it cannot compare, performance-wise with the more modern acrylics and urethanes. My obviously biased opinion.

Rod

I don't know what an "acrylic modified enamel" is. There seems to be a lot of blurring of the lines between different basic paint chemistries. DuPont and PPG are as guilty as the rest in this too. PPG's Delstar is an acrylic enamel. However, when the Delthane hardener is added to it, PPG refers to it as a "polyurethane acrylic enamel". Similarly when DuPont's Centari (normally an acrylic enamel, even with hardener) is mixed with the right "activator", it is referred to as an "acrylic urethane". Marketing hype? I don't know. I guess only the chemist knows for sure.

My thought for you is NOT to change horses midstream w/o starting over. For one thing, I don't know if you would be making any significant gain in doing so. And you could very well wind up with a poor color match between the two different products, as CNKS indicates. Whether the PPG OMNI MAE w/hardener would be a step up from the IH 2150 w/hardener (sufficiently enough to justify starting over), I don't know. Perhaps not. I believe the full acrylic urethane (PPG OMNI MTK) would be better if you were to make a switch, especially since you only have some small parts completed so far. If you were to go that way, my tendency would be to chemically strip those smaller parts completely rather than sanding, sealing and putting stuff on top. It would be nice to hear from someone who has had the IH 2150 in the sunlight a lot for a few years to see how it resists fading. Red is notorious for that. Less fading and more chemical resistance would be the reasons for making any change.

The epoxy primer is good under just about everything, even from different manufacturers.

Rod

I used some of the Case-IH primer and gloss black to paint the inner fenders and radiator support on my 72 Ford and it went on real good and looks good. I didn't use a hardener though.

Bob