Painting Suggestions In The San Francisco Bay Area

[artpeck]

I know many of you are east of here but I thought I would toss this out just in case.
I am nearing the painting stage. Given that the body paint is in excellent shape and has a nice patina I am only going to paint the roof which is mostly down to bare metal and some other select bits. I am willing to tackle about anything but painting is the only thing I don't have the skills, equipment or space for and I figure if I screw it up at all it will perpetually annoy the crap out of me.

Curious if anyone knows a good shop who works with aluminum in this general area. I also am doing the wheels and haven't decided between paint and PC so any thoughts on that also appreciated. I do understand I can't get an exact color match on PC but was at least going to figure out how close. Thanks for any help!

[masonater]

With powder coat, many larger places that sell powder can make any color you want. I was able to get a place to make a 2 pound sample for another project and that was more than I needed. You have to show them what color you want and usually its not a big deal to mix samples up, just hope they dont make you buy 50 pounds.

[artpeck]

Good to know. Thanks. The shop I am talking to has 500 options they claim so first I need to look and see if anything is really close and go from there.

[Billy5]

I have asked this question myself. I am a painter in the marine business. I have to prep and paint aluminum all the time. If i were to repaint my rover ( when I get it) I would most likely go with the following. Once the metal is bare, wash with alodine solution this is a must in my opinion. Then I would use the paint system from Alexseal. These are marine topcoats. First two to three coats of anti corrosive primer. This is similar to zinc oxide but much better. Then once all fairing is done, follow up with two coats epoxy finish primer. Then Two to three coats of the the topcoat. I would also isolate the different metals as much as possible. For example use tef gel on the threads of the bolts, delrin washers for the heads etc.. While this may seem a lot of work i can say, after ten years of abusive salt water environments, masts that I have painted ten years ago still look brand new.