Is Shopline a crappy product or do I suck as a painter?

[Kern Dog]

I often buy cars to fix up and sell. Because of this, I'll usually have to paint a car to make it presentable.
My local paint guy used to offer PPG and Omni products but about a year ago they dropped Omni and picked up Shopline. Their clear seems to lay down okay but their basecoat Black and single stage black has given me trouble. I always follow the instructions of the tech sheet until I know I can deviate a bit as needed, but even when following the guidelines, I still get what looks like crud in the finish that does not look like it was airborn particles. It seems as if unmixed solids in the paint somehow makes it through the gun and contaminates the finish. As said, their clear has never given me this problem. I'm of the understanding that all paints, primers and clear have solids that blend together when in liquid form, so I think I'm onto something. Many years ago I was painting a truck and misread the tech sheet, mixing double the catalyst on accident. There were several uniformly spaced specs on my first several passes, so I dumped that pot and corrected the mistake. Afterwards the correctly mixed paint sprayed well.
Anyone have bad luck with Shopline products?

 

[eric383]

I try to stay away from the lower end paints because usually there are less solids and the colors can be not as good a match as some of the higher end paints. It always seems most of the cars/trucks I am fixing are a little older but I still use a better quality paint. I have used DuPont Chroma for at least 10 years now and that is what I feel comfortable with for my color coat. Otherwise for epoxy primer and clear I use SPI and save some money there. I have found their products to be easy to use great quality and priced right.
http://www.southernpolyurethanes.com/

 

[Kern Dog]

I have not had the occasion to color match any car yet. I've only done full paint jobs, mostly color changes. Ma Mopar made some nice colors, but also some really ugly ones too. The greens and tan colors of the 70s were certainly not worth replicating since I was looking to sell the cars to make money.

 

[eric383]

Here is a great forum for paint and body work. Everyone from a novice to a seasoned pro. Good luck.
http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/body-exterior/

 

[5wndwcpe]

SPI has a black base as well.

 

[Kern Dog]

In a rare moment of total humility, I offer this:

It appears that some of the problems that I have had recently are 100% due to personal errors. I had some fisheyes in a 64 Valiant that occurred in 2 attempts to paint it. Two different batches of paint, same result. Odd thing is, the primer went on fine.
I installed a better water trap and filter setup and Sundays efforts came out better than ever. I still get airborne dust due to the rural environment here, but no fisheyes, no water drips, nothing but a little dust that will sand out.

 

[eric383]

Painting sure can be a humbling experience and as long as you learn from it you will become better and better. Good luck.

 

[Kern Dog]

I cherish the hair that I have, but these problems really tempted me to pull my hair out.
That makes no sense. Disregard that.