Paint Meter/Thickness Gauges!

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01bluecls

New member
I have found these two as options. Both can read metal AND aluminum. There arent any other guages out there that I could find that could read painted carbon fiber or fiberglass within reasonable pricing. Im trying to spend under 600 bucks. With the amount of high end cars im working with lately, I figured this paint meter is gonna be a good investment!



Here is the two (Tdekany has this one): http://www.1car-detailing-training.com/catalog/electronic-paint-thickness-gage-p-87.html



Here is the other which is less expensive but I know nothing about the accuracy or quality:

http://www.wholesalepaintmeters.com/



The other is from autoint, but im not considering since I have read the ETG-1 Model only reads from metal.

http://autoint.com/autostore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=32&idproduct=131



This is a pretty big investment as far as money! I just dont want to buy a piece of inaccurate trash and throw my money down the drain!



Anyone with expierences with either of these? Do you all think its a worthy investment?



Thanks
 
I have two of the ETG-1 gauges and they've been very helpful to me for the kind of work that I do, but I need to get a gauge that measures coating thickness on both Ferrous and Non-Ferrous objects. The FS488 from www.wholesalepaintmeters.com looks very nice, but it doesn't have the accuracy that I need. It's accuracy is 5% and it reads to 1/2 mill, but I need a gauge that's more accurate than 5% and reads to 1/10th of a mill.



I spoke to the guy at Wholesalepaintmeters.com and they have a deal where you can buy 3 of their FS488 paint meters for $299 each if they're shipped to the same address, but he'll take 3 different card numbers. If enough of you live within the same areas, this would be a terrific deal 'IF' this gauge is what you're looking for.



He said they will be coming out with a new thickness gauge in about ~30 days or so that will be more accurate. It will be called the FS502 and it will cost about $100 more than the FS488. It's accuracy will vary between 1% and 3% depending on the thickness being measured. It will measure up to 50 mill and it will read in 1/10 of a mill or in microns. It can also be calibrated to a given thickness so its accuracy will be greater within that range. It will allow both single and continuous readings. It will also be backlit with a cool blue light. It will be about the same physical size except for being 1/4 inch taller.



He's putting me on a list to keep me updated on their new FS502. If there are any introductory offers or quantity discounts or group buy possibilities, he'll let me know and I'll post the details here if anyone is interested in the FS502.
 
qadsan- thanks for the info...im not in a hurry so it helps. Keep us posted!



The guage will be important for anyone looking to do pretty much any paint corrections, especially deep polishing and the dread wetsanding. Extemely useful for cars with older single stage paint or just older cars in general. Allows you to see how much paint you have left to play with!
 
The EGT is a great tool. I used one daily when I used to work for a custom boat trailer manufacturer. One of my jobs was to make sure that the trailers had enough paint before shipping them out.
 
There are gauges that read multiple layers on multiple surfaces using ultra sonic...BUT you are looking at spending about 2500-3000 at that point.
 
Hey Guys,

I have an ETG-2 I got from someone on Ebay who used to be a paint rep for 300.00 bucks, I really like it because it measures both Steel and Aluminum. I don't have the calibration plates with it as he lost them, but I use it as reference point, taking reading before I do any work, then measure again to see how much clear I have removed. it measures in .01 mils so it's pretty precise and I'm glad I got it. To me it's just another tool to help insure I don't make any costly mistakes.



Tom Weed
 
I saw the ETG-2 which comes with two probes one for each type of metal. But I couldnt find anywhere that carries it. Autoint looks like it only has ETG-1
 
If you want a PTG which works on composite panels then this link should help



http://www.defelsko.com/



I have the PosiTector 6000 for metal/alloy panels and the PosiTector 200 for composite, I know they cost but its insurance and at least for me worth the cost.



Looks good to customers when you can give them printouts of the paint thickness, especially before and after machine work
 
http://www.defelsko.com/p200/positector200.html This one reads fiberglass BUT another member on this forum contacted the sales rep at defelsko and quoted $2695. Im scared to ask what the cheaper ones cost! I mean what cars are generally made mainly of fiberglass panels. I think the Lotus Elise is one. The corvettes are light weight aluminum or fiberglass? I know the new Z06 has I believe carbon fiber fender and hood.
 
One of the tools I ordered when I opened up my detail shop was a coating thickness gauge that read ferrious and none ferrious substrates. I ordered the model 6000 from Defasko in New York. I have read about their gauges from several trade tech magzines and got all the bells and wislsels including down load to print options to your computer or IR printer. I went over kill 2500.00 which is not nessary.



What you have to remember is that at this time the protable gauges out there fisher, Elcometer ETG and Defasko all offer the ability to check coating thinkness but cna not separate from E-coat ,primer ,paint and clear coat.



In general one has to realize that the rule is 2 to 2 1/2 mills of clear coat per vehical. that is what you are polishing regardless one has to be carefull machine compounding and polishing today's OE finishes. The ability to measure paint and graph out a historgram of the coating on the intire automobile is rally not going to be nessary unless you are buying and selling car andlooking for damage.



I would recommend one of the less costly gauges like ETG . Rembering that even thermo plastic bumpers have the same mill thinkness as the metal surfaces of the automobile. If you ureally want to get fancy order a gloss meter with 20,60 85 degress gloss reading automobiles use 60 high gloss

check out BYK garder for all these impressive measuring devices www.bykgardner.com. The information is very educational and informative.



Bob Geco
 
Im liking this thread :)



What is the typical thickness overall on painted finishes?



I mean the gauges are reading the thickness between the metal surface to the top of the clear coat right? So for example say I put the gauge on a panel of a brand new car's fender, what is a typical reading? If the typical reading of a panel of a brand new car is 4.5 mil (just throwing a number out there), then you can assume you have 2-2.5 mil of clear and then the 2 mil underneath that is E-Coat,primer, and acutal paint right?



SOOOOO...if you get a car that is 5 years old (for example) and the gauge reads 3.5 on the hood, you can "assume" that there is about 1-1.5 mil clear left on it? What does a mil of thickness translate to about how many microns? ...I noticed that these gauges can read in both.
 
01bluecls said:
Im liking this thread :)



What is the typical thickness overall on painted finishes?



I mean the gauges are reading the thickness between the metal surface to the top of the clear coat right? So for example say I put the gauge on a panel of a brand new car's fender, what is a typical reading? If the typical reading of a panel of a brand new car is 4.5 mil (just throwing a number out there), then you can assume you have 2-2.5 mil of clear and then the 2 mil underneath that is E-Coat,primer, and acutal paint right?



SOOOOO...if you get a car that is 5 years old (for example) and the gauge reads 3.5 on the hood, you can "assume" that there is about 1-1.5 mil clear left on it? What does a mil of thickness translate to about how many microns? ...I noticed that these gauges can read in both.
Click to expand...

4 to 4.5 mills would be a typical real world number on many cars today. I work on plenty of older muscle cars and it's not uncommon to see 20+ mills on some painted surfaces due to repaints, etc. The gauge also quickly lets me know where the bondo is, etc. You've got to make some assumptions when using the thickness guage, but it does give you a starting point to work from which can be important. For instance, on a 66 Mustang that I was working on a short while ago, the hood had 22 mills of paint on it, but you can't assume the whole car is done this way. The doors averaged 6 to 8 mill, but the paint was getting mighty thin at just about a mill left right near the crease. If I would have taken a rotary to that spot, I could have easily went down to the bare metal and the owner would have freaked. The gauge allowed me to inform the owner of the condition and I ended up carefully hand polishing this area with ScratchX instead of working it by machine. He also now knows exactly where his paint thickness stands because I mapped the car out for him. His car looked great after I was done with it, but he was concerend about the thin paint on his doors and the thicker paint on the hood where it was cracking, etc. He decided to schedule me to strip, prep and repaint his car early next year and of course I'm more than happy to help him out ;)



In reference to your question about mills and microns, a mill is equal to 1/1000 of an inch which can also be represented as 0.001 inches or 0.0254mm (mm = millimeter). A micron is equal to 1/1,000 of a mm or 1/25,000 inch or 0.00004 inches. There's about 25 microns to one mill (0.001 inch) ;)
 
tdekany said:
Chris, you will not be dissapointed with the one I have. Good luck with what ever you decide to purchase.



Thomas
Click to expand...



i think i'm going to buy that one... when it says non-ferrous though, does that include plastic like on bumpers or no??
 
They mean non-ferrous metals. For automotive bodywork that’s almost always aluminum. It won't work on plastics or composites.





PC.
 
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