Cen-Tech Paint Gauge

If anyone is near a Harbor Freight and they have a Cen-Tech Paint Gauge in stock is there a chance anyone can pick me up one the next time they run over there. I will pay for the gauge and for your time in getting it. I measured my paint thickness this weekend at the meet and after seeing my truck only read a 67 I am really trying to pay more attention to paint thickness. I appreciate any help. Also, Carlos if this is not an allowed thread I understand.

 

Hey Guy,
I live close to a Harbor Freight and I asked the guy if they carried paint gauges , he said no.
Maybe it's an online item? I would like to try one myself.
I'll check again today, if I can get one I'll be glad to help you out. Bob

 

I found one on Ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cen-...Z220511068874QQptZMotorsQ5fAutomotiveQ5fTools

 

Damn, thats a $130 dollar mark-up from purchasing it in the harbor freight store. They are $10 in store. Thanks for pointing that out though.

 

I think if my memorey is correct , before harbor frieght stopped selling them they were $79.99 or so. There is a fellow on ebay that has a case of them and gets aroung $80.00 ea. When harbor frieght marked them down they didn't last long in our area. I contacted the corp headqts and was told there are only a few at various stores and they were no help in locating those left.

paul S

 

PM Sent.

 

Damn for 150??! Harbor freight had them for ten dollars.

 

Replied!

 

Chas, there is chance your truck is single stage paint. my moms white civic was and read about 67

 

You might be right, I am going to look into it. I mean I am getting rid of it in a month so I am not too worried and I wont be doing any more correcting on it. But I know in 05-06 I think they may have had a bad paint batch because I know a guy on a Tacoma forum a few years back had real big issues with the white paint they put on the standard trucks not the Pre-Runners or higher models. I have always noticed terrible fading and hazing on my hood especially though. Oh well won't have to worry about it in a about a month, hopefully I can get a car with nice paint thats why I want a meter to take with me.

 

Chas ... you should bring your next car to our next meet. Let us know which one you decide to get!!

 

BTW ... I had a chance to test mine today ... can't beat this tool for the price. Tested all the family vehicles. All the toyotas in the family had readings of 90mils. I had a chancee to test my brother-in-law's Nissan Pathfinder that had readings of 110-120mils.

I also tested the sentra I brought to the meet. The trunk area were AV6NHBP6SPD performed the 3-step had readings of 3-5mils less than the rest of the vehicle.

 

Were those readings in mils or ?? When using a friends meter in the past for some wet sanding we only took off .5 mil. With an average on the car of less then 9.9mil. Maybe I read the gauge wrong.I know his gauge had slection of two different types of measurments.

Paul S

 

All these readings were in "mu" mils.

 

somehow i doubt that. 3-5 mil? your whole car read 3mil. pretty sure you mean microns. no way wool pad can take off 3-5mils
3.9mils is 100 microns, i think your car read about 80 on average

yep, you deff confusing um with mils
mil is milimeter
um is microns
if you saying your car read 110-120 mils then your clear coat is 4.4" thick

 

I apologize for the mistake ... I read microns, not mils. The car read about 80 microns all around, but the area that you worked read about 75-78 microns on average.

 

edited wrong thread sorry......

 

did you check panel where Billy worked and hood?

 

every area was about the same ... the area you and bobby hit on the trunk lost a couple of microns. Nothing significant, but I'm rethinking any heavy compounding even though the paint looks terrible.

 

well you know, if you want that thing to have good reflection, its gona have to loose some weight lol. you cant have cake and eat it too