Auto Paint

Auto Paint in Bangor, Maine

Have you been involved in an auto accident that has left you in need of an auto painting service? Whether it’s a minor scratch or a whole section of your vehicle, our auto painting services can have you looking as good as new in no time. Bernatche Auto Body is a certified PPG Collision Repair facility, which means we can not only repair damage to your vehicle, but help protect it from factors such as corrosion, environmental application concerns and vehicle finish performance improvements with our PPG Automotive Coatings.

The Bernache-PPG Partnership:

In most processes, automotive painting applies three coats of paint: primer, base, and clearcoat. The primer, the first coat, acts as a leveler and protector that makes the base coat easy to apply. Car bodies often have surface defects that should be made level for a polished final product. The primer protects the body from corrosion, temperature variations, ultraviolet light, and physical impacts and makes the base auto paint stick to the surface more easily.

Automobile Painting Has A Process:

Application of the base coat follows the primer. This coat contains the visual properties of color and tone. Base coats come in solid, metallic, and pearlescent color categories. Solids, easiest to apply, have no sparkle effects except their colors. Metallic paints, harder than solid paints to apply because of their extra visual dimensions to consider, contain aluminum flakes for sparkling and grainy effects. Carefully even application is important for a uniform finish without light and dark mottling. Pearlescent auto paints contain iridescent pigments to impart sparkle and depth of color to the finish. Pearlescent paints can be two-stage (pearl base + clearcoat) or three-stage (basecoat + pearl midcoat + clearcoat).

On top of the colored basecoat as a transparent, protective auto paint shield against the environment, the glossy clearcoat must be durable to resist abrasion and chemically stable to withstand ultraviolet light. Clearcoat can be oil- or water-based.

Methods Used In the Past:

In its early days, the automotive industry used only oil- or solvent-based paint and no water-based paint until more recent times. The rise of environmental concerns over the past decade has encouraged more use of water-based auto paint since 2005. Solvent-based paints, however, are still prevalent and remain more common, for no as yet water-based clearcoat performs comparably to the solvents, and the use of water-based materials is limited to basecoats and primers.

Factory and Custom Vehicle Painting:

Whether oil- or water-based, automotive paint colors fall into two general categories, factory and custom paints. Factory paints are those from the original equipment manufacturers — Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, and the like. Custom car paints are those other than factory paints. Generally, custom paints are unique in comparison to factory paints of the era. There is a strong market of car and motorcycle owners looking for distinctive colors that stand out from the crowd, and custom paints serve that market. Custom paints may be bright and flamboyant or subtle and understated to suit every taste. Custom paints are readily available and worth the effort for anyone looking for a unique finish.

Bernatche Auto Body in Bangor Maine Is The Right Choice:

When auto accidents leave cars in need of painting of minor scratches or whole panels, professional auto painting services leave them looking like new. Bernatche Auto Body, a collision repair facility certified by PPG Industries (formerly Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company 1883–1968), repairs damaged vehicles, protects them from corrosion, observes and honors all environmental concerns, and enhances vehicle finish with PPG Automotive Coatings that have been innovative solutions worldwide since 1924 and that Bernatche uses with pride in auto painting services.