1969 Camaro Trunk paint

[NoYenko]

Lynn,
I have a 69 Camaro that should be painted soon and have been working for 6 months on getting the correct original trunk paint. I reluctantly have asked several of the best restorers for any tips and they are pretty tight lipped, as it should be, I am not paying for their experience or expense and that is their income. I respect that.
So like many of us I have to figure it out by trial & error. I have good pictures of two cars to compare to. A 5000 mile 69 Camaro SS and a 35000 mile 69 Z, both very nice original trunk cars built at Norwood. I also compared the trunk of my 1970 Chevelle 36000 mile.
The first problem in comparing is using photos with different lighting & different cameras. I tried to use the same angles & flash in my comparisons. I had to paint inside so I built a simple paint box with a filter. Worked out great for indoors, no dust or fumes.
I had heard John Berlage’s paint was the best match, but after painting it I wasn’t quite sure so I bought Zolatone to compare. Johns instructions say to use a conventional siphon gun with a large primer nozzle. My gun has a 2.5 nozzle but it kept plugging up.
I switched to a body Shutz gun with better results but I was looking for a finer pattern so I adapted a nozzle to the gun. The factory probably used a pressure gun like a pressure pot but I didn’t want to buy one to try it, maybe the best results.
I was going to paint sheet metal samples but realized I would need too many so I used cardboard. I primed & sealed them with Red Oxide like the factory used in the trunk.
You can get very different results with the air pressure and angle of the gun.
The photo “J-B box flash” shows how it looks painted in a box to simulate the different spray angles in a trunk. Right now I would say John’s paint has the best droplet size of the aqua but the way I am spraying it comes out a little too dark & lumpy. The Zolatone is too light & flat, doesn’t have the texture like the factory paint did. Tomorrow I will try using the Zolatone as a base coat with Johns paint over it. I think that might be what I am trying to achieve. I will take all the samples and match them to the 69Z on Saturday that will be the true test. Sorry for the long post. George.