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As the saying goes "I can't wait to get home to try it out"


Sir Chocolate Teapot

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I give you the man who could not wait.

This is in italy, as per normal in italy he is not parked in a bay, he is right outside a Lidl entrance.

I drove past and could not believe my eyes,  i assumed some shiny polish stuff or something, but no, he is actually  SPRAY PAINTING HIS CAR GREEN OUTSIDE LIDL ENTRANCE !

I did a walk past to check and he has done the whole car in 4 meters from lidl entrance.

I am officially just wowed !.

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20210331_114306.thumb.jpg.185c8d74879da67bedd2f3220bb40629.jpg

I have a horrible feeling for the fancy i3 owner who is going to wonder about the fine green mist all over his car.

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When I worked at Halfords, an old bloke parked a newish Kia in the disabled bay outside and came in for some "silver spray paint". I tried to get him the right stuff but we had nothing on the shelf and would have to mix it up. That was no good he says, he was in a rush back to return it to the dealers as his motability car was in for a service. Anyway, he left with a couple of cans of Ford moondust sliver and then painted the whole passenger side of the car to cover up the big dent where he'd scraped it down a bollard. He held the can about an inch away from the panel so it was just a mass of runs, dripping over all the side trims and onto the floor. Two cans down he jumped in and drove it off down the road. 

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Back in my own Halfords days, I recall a chap coming in one evening, late on. He had a bit of an attitude on him from the get-go.

Get me some white spray paint for a Peugeot.

OK sir, do you know the paint code...?

No, it's white paint for a Peugeot. Just get me a can.

Yes, but there's like four different shades of Peugeot white on the shelf, plus others shades we can mix for you - do you have the car outside, so I can check the paint code for you?

What? No, it doesn't matter, just get me a can of f*@$ing white paint.

Um, alright - look, what year is it, that might help narrow it down?

Are you f*@%ing dense, I don't f*&$ing care, just get me some Peugeot white.

 

I headed over to the paint aisle, detouring toward the front doors to see a fairly ropey looking white 309 just visible out in the near-empty car park, with the light fading.

Flicking through the paint code book that used to be attached to the aerosol racks, there were two possible shades of white listed for the 309 - so I brought both cans back over to the parts desk for Chuckles' consideration.

He grunted, grabbed one out of my hand, and shambled off to the till. I called after him that I'd really rather check to make sure it was the right colour, but he just muttered something indistinct that seemed to include some choice barrack-room language.

Strange cat.

 

A couple of days later I was dashing around trying to fit a stereo for another customer when I heard a roar coming from the parts desk.

That's him, that's the c$*t that sold it to me.

Looking over, I could see my charming customer from the other evening engaged in a heated debate with the store manager. On going over, it transpired that the paint I had sold him was not to his satisfaction, and his car was now, apparently, "ruined".

At Chuckles' insistence, we all trooped outside to view the tragic consequences of my severe professional negligence.

It was indeed the same shitty-looking 309, filthy dirty and with various rust bubbles and dings adorning it. I could see in daylight that it was also more of a pale cream colour than glacier white; however, glacier white was the colour of the aerosol can which he'd selected and had used to spray half the passenger door - but without using any form of masking, so there was paint overspray all over the glass, window rubbers and doorhandle. It was also a mass of runs and blobs, as he plainly hadn't shaken the can, and had sprayed at close quarters with no effort to keep the nozzle moving.

Given the general two-and-eight of it, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn he'd started spraying it out in the carpark, in the dark.

After Matey-boy had finished his diatribe, I provided the manager with a brief précis of the conversation that had taken place earlier that week: the customer had declined to provide any information at all about the car, had refused to let me check the paint code on the VIN plate, and had been verbally abusive when I warned him it might not be a good match. Quite fed up, I explained I had another customer waiting, and headed back into the store.

He roared after me that I'd be hearing from his solicitor.

I'm still waiting.

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Round the back of Albany airport in NY Enterprise car rental have a place where they spray their cars in the open air. I imagine you find that at most airports in the US.

The Peugeot White Peugeot story reminds me of a friend who many years ago decided to spray his Lancia Beta cabriolet white. He went to the shop and asked for white. The man said which white. My mate said white white. The whitest white you have. Apparently all whites are not quite white, they are white but a bit of this or that to take the edge off.
Against the advise of the man in the brown coat my mate took white with no added colour at all. It was incredibly white. Far too white. Not easy to look at in daylight. And did it show the dirt? (Or rust- it was a Lancia after all)

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On 3/31/2021 at 11:57 AM, Sir Chocolate Teapot said:

I give you the man who could not wait.

This is in italy, as per normal in italy he is not parked in a bay, he is right outside a Lidl entrance.

I drove past and could not believe my eyes,  i assumed some shiny polish stuff or something, but no, he is actually  SPRAY PAINTING HIS CAR GREEN OUTSIDE LIDL ENTRANCE !

I did a walk past to check and he has done the whole car in 4 meters from lidl entrance.

I am officially just wowed !.

20210331_114417.thumb.jpg.ecca4fdc65f858be7a5cd9d2125e6f24.jpg

20210331_114306.thumb.jpg.185c8d74879da67bedd2f3220bb40629.jpg

I have a horrible feeling for the fancy i3 owner who is going to wonder about the fine green mist all over his car.

Mamma Mia! 

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7 hours ago, Three Speed said:

The White Peugeot story reminds me of a friend who many years ago decided to spray his Lancia Beta cabriolet white. He went to the shop and asked for white. The man said which white. My mate said white white. The whitest white you have. Apparently all whites are not quite white, they are white but a bit of this or that to take the edge off.
Against the advise of the man in the brown coat my mate took white with no added colour at all. It was incredibly white. Far too white. Not easy to look at in daylight. And did it show the dirt? (Or rust- it was a Lancia after all)

Hah, that's brilliant!

Yeah, white really is one of the most complex paint shades, I find.

Whenever I was using the Minimix machine in Halfords to blend paint and then pressurise it into an aerosol, the 'recipes' for white shades could use about eight to ten different base colours, against three to four shades in most other colour mixes. They were often an absolute pain due to the tiny quantities, such as trying to add 0.5g of black and 0.2g of yellow.

It also made a true colour match almost impossible, due to the small but significant disparities in quantity that inevitably crept in, such as heavier component paints sinking further down the mixing cup, and not-quite all coming out in the final pour (pearlescent bases were worst for this).

I can well imagine that a Lancia completely resprayed in something like 0001 Base White would have been painfully, violently, dangerously white.

I almost wish I could have seen it!

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