DB, let's discuss. Affordable paint depth gauges. Do they exist? Anyone ever use on of these? Reed ST-156 Coating Thickness Gauge, 0 to 1250 Micrometer Range: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
Those are decent paint gauges, I own one although I haven't had it very long. I bought mine on the recommendation of a Greek detailer I know from Detailing World who uses the moniker Kotsos. That price, however, is a rip. You can buy one off e-Bay shipped from HongKong for around $120 delivered. It is labeled the CEM DT-156. Mine did not come with the plastic case but otherwise I have no complaints. It seems accurate and the results are repeatable. Long term durability is an unknown but I see no reason to believe that it is worse than the other PRC made gauges. The Highline gives you the security of dealing with a USA based distributor but the gauge itself is PRC made. I'd love to own a Defelsko but I just can't justify the price.
These gauges mentioned only measure total thickness and not just the total paint thickness. The only gauge that measures all the different substrates accurately is the delfesko 200 which is I believe a couple thousand to start.. The gauges mentioned are probably a good thing to have to at least get a ballpark of how much total thickness is actually there, and can definitely detect where bodywork with fillers was done. Usually, a good close examination with your eyes can see bodywork and perhaps not as good a matching paintjob on it.. To at least get a ballpark idea of what is on the panel is always a good thing if you are going to be doing some major correction there.. The thinner the total thickness shows, means there is also less paint there too. So, you then get the idea you may need to be more careful and use less aggressive compounding there.. The Highline is local as stated above and that perhaps may be a good thing for warranty if needed. The Highline measures both steel and aluminium, and not plastic.. Only the most expensive delfesko measures all 3 substrates.. Good luck with your research ! Dan F
My suggestion would be to get one that measures microns, as well, not just mills, since you are removing a few microns here and there anyway.
So you guys are more of fan of something like this then: PosiTector 6000 coating thickness gages, gauge, meter use magnetic and eddy current principles to measure coating thickness on both ferrous and non-ferrous metals. I want to have the tools needs to do proper wet sanding. I refuse to wetsand until I have a gauge as I am not risking being taken to court for damaging someones car. This one runs about $600. I've seen AMMO use it in videos.
if it does microns, that is the one you want. I paid $550.00 for the one I use (different make) like 8 years ago.
Yes, as Tom said, you always want to measure in Microns and not Mils. The reason is that there are 25.4 Microns in 1 Mil, so if you are using Mils, then you can cut through a lot of Microns before you see it on the gauge and that might be too late.... Dan F
wet sanding | paint thickness gage | paint meter | measure clear coat paint On Sale now for $399. So you like this device and it has worked well for you? I was pretty sold on that PosiTector but this is a hell of a deal right here.
Just remember that unless its the most expensive defelsko, these are all just giving you Total Thickness pretty accurately, but not perfectly accurately. The Total Thickness of the Clearcoat is always much much less than the total thickness. You still have to be careful, but at least you have an idea how much clearcoat might be on the surface and in the case repaints, there will probably be a lot more clearcoat than what the factory put on, and has most likely been rubbed off by other Detailers. When you see really low numbers of total thickness and they are pretty consistent across a panel, you then know that the amount of available clearcoat will most likely be much lower as well, and you have to be more careful.. Another good tool is to really look at the surface of the paint from several angles with your head down almost right on the painted surfaces to get a good look at the surface closely and see if you can detect any thing that looks not normal. Do this with the best lighting you can get.. Sometimes your eyes can tell you much more than the gauge. Good luck with your purchase ! Dan F
that ones looks very similar to the original highline meter the first gen one: Paint Meter, Paint Gauge, Paint Gage - HighLineMeter.com although the one you posted looks like it has buttons on the front face
Even the defelsko 200 is not that accurate in measuring coatings (i think only the 200 advanced does multiple coatings) I still haven't found an accurate way of measuring how much clearcoat is left. 99% of these gauges only measure the total thickness of the paint coating (clear,paint,primer).
