April 2013 The Paint Spot Newsletter

I always have a tough time starting these newsletters but this time I've got the perfect intro... New Years ! I think New Year s Day (Jan. 1) is/was incorrect. I think the real New Year s Day should be the first day of spring. I recently planted the new garden and couldn't help but notice all the young birds, fawns, and new leaves on the Spanish Oaks. By definition alone, the first day of spring (March 20) is truly new. I have a weird story to share with you, that when read, will probably bring my sanity into question. Several years ago, I started noticing a strange bird voice, that until recently, I couldn't identify. Starting in spring, I would be woken in the mornings by the sound cheezer, cheezer, cheezer cheezer, cheezer, cheezer... I swear to you, that's what this damn bird was saying! I haven't used an alarm clock in many years, and this is just one of the ways I would wake up (different things happen in the other parts of the year, but I ll wait till then to explain). For a long time, this elusive cheezer bird was a running joke in the Ciotti family until, little by little, the rest of my family heard it and proved I wasn't crazy. Anyway, maybe because of my age, or that this damn bird was often heard but never seen, or because this thing was taunting and teasing me, I made it my quest to find out who, or what the cheezer bird was. I listened intently to this bird every morning and started noticing that it had lots of words in its vocabulary, so I started interpreting them into English and writing them down. As I was doing this (over a period of weeks) I realized the cheezer was on to me! This S.O.B. really was taunting me! I woke one morning to this: Rickity, Rickity, Rickity, Rick repeating over and over! I shared this with my girlfriend and my mom, and I think they both thought I had gone off the deep end. I even showed them the words that I had been writing down that the cheezer was using, they laughed! Well, this past Sunday morning (3/31/13) at 6:50 am I was awoken to this: Bring it, bring it, bring it , over and over till 7:15 am. At that exact time, very loudly, and close as hell, that damn cheezer let me have it... Rick, Rick, Rick Rick, Rick, Rick! I raised my head and turned to look out of my bedroom window, I sleep upstairs, and saw a bright red adult male Cardinal on the very top of an oak tree right out side my window and looking right at me! The mystery of the elusive Cheezer Bird was solved at long last, and I am convinced that he had been looking for me every bit as much as I had been seeking him! So when you hear the cheezer bird know two things for sure it's a beautiful red male Cardinal, and he s telling you it's a brand new year!

So, now that the real New Years Day has been established (according to Rick) we can get to the newsletter. First of all . I need to clarify the big rumor that's been circulating around Canyon Lake primarily, but has also reached out to other areas THE PAINT SPOT IS NOT FOR SALE! Here s what s up I have received an offer on this property from a company whose presence here in Canyon Lake is badly needed, and not only that, the price they offered me was too good to pass up! The company is CVS, the pharmacy, and before you start calling me a hypocrite due to the fact that I'm not a fan of most prescription medicine, the vast majority of the public has a different opinion. Hell, now days you're not even considered cool unless you're on at least three scripts! The Paint Spot doesn't have to be on the main intersection of Canyon Lake, but a CVS does, and therefore, I've agreed to the sale. Short term, I will probably relocate The Paint Spot to Sattler, seven miles from here, and longer term I will build a new building with at least as much property as this place. Unfortunately this will screw up the Annual Customer Appreciation Day that we usually hold first week of May. This deal is about 95% certain and if it comes to pass, I will offer all The Paint customers a 10% discount (across the board) for the entire month of May. All of us here at The Paint Spot definitely appreciate all you do for us and if we can't have a Texas style shin dig , we can at least give back in the form of saving you $$$$$$$$$! By this time next year we should be in a brand new building which will put the Customer Appreciation event back on track. Iwata Spray Guns We sell lots of these guns, and more often than not, the LPH-400 is the leader in sales. Recently I got a call from one of our customers who used to be one of Hofmann s customers. They wanted me to check out their guns (two Super Nova s) that were not more than a year old and had never worked correctly. The problems were cup leakage and mottling in metalics. I have used the Super Nova s many times and know them to be a fine gun, so I figured the seal in the air cap was probably bad from leaving lacquer thinner in the cup while being stored. I brought the guns back to the store and found that whoever sold these guns gave them the wrong cups! So here s the kicker: I told the customer to call the guy he bought them from and tell him to get the proper cups out ASAP and they shouldn t cost him a penny. This customer told me that he d rather pay The Paint Spot rather than deal with Hofmann s!

Don, since you're on this mailing list, I hope you will make the necessary changes to insure your customers are getting what they expect. You may not sell as good of paint as we do, but IWATA is a great gun and if it weren t for me those two guns might have been unfairly blamed for poor performance! Don, FYI... the customer also feels ripped off since he was told that he needed two of the same guns one for base and one for clear! That s TOTAL BULLSHIT and The Paint Spot would never have taken advantage of a customer like that shame, shame! Nitrocellulose Lacquer Now this is a blast from the past for sure, but believe it or not, we have received several requests for this product. We have researched this product extensively and primarily from a legal perspective VERIFY! When people in our industry even hear the word lacquer it generates controversy. We will attempt to put the myths to rest. Lacquer IS legal to use, and to sell, and it seems that lacquer, and waterborne both, have some similarities in that they both have been misrepresented. Waterborne is said to be the only technology acceptable under new restrictions, and lacquer was said to be banned because of compliance issues. Compliance is the key word! Waterborne is NOT the only system that is compliant. If you're using it you're stupid, don't know the rules, have more dollars than sense, and have probably been listening to a DUMB ASS SALESMAN! Lacquer has always been available on our industrial system, but only in limited colors, and is all acrylic lacquer . Nitrocellulose lacquer has been reformulated specifically, leaving out and/or substituting the chemicals that were non compliant.

Their are things to know regarding longevity and the technique of spraying lacquer, so if you're interested, just ask me. Colors are available, but will have to be ordered as needed. Black is in stock at The Paint Spot and ready for sale upon request. A little story about how lacquer became a topic of conversation A few weeks ago I had a customer that was doing some spot repair on a 1965 Rolls Royce. He asked if I had lacquer (black) because the Rolls was pristine, with exception to the areas in question, and it was original lacquer. I ordered some lacquer binder and mixed jet black in our C.P.S. line. The lacquer sprayed just like in the old days, and blended beautifully, but was brownish compared to the nitrocellulose black. I then told him that the only thing I could do was mix up some single stage, and he would have to blend that. His painter gave up and quit! With all due respect, you youngsters are spoiled on the base coat/clear coat technology! I went out of my way to spell out step by step instructions for blending single stage and he still got scared off.

I agreed to go out and do the paint work, loaded with my Super Nova and a pint of Matrix MCU factory code Rolls Royce black (yeah, that's right Matrix had the formula in the Accushade data base). I went right to work blending the single stage using my gun for paint and his Sata NR 3000 loaded with MX-840 EZ Blend. When I was finished I told the shop owner (Bob from New Braunfels Classic Cars) to wait until the next day before attempting to buff. I also explained, that because of what we used to do the blending (single stage and an aggressive blending agent), and what we were blending into, nitrocellulose lacquer, the standard cutting and buffing needed to be scrapped. I said that unless their was a piece of trash in the paint DO NOT use sand paper. I also stressed the less is best theory, in that you should start with the mildest component first (he was using a compound, glaze, and a polish system, so start with only the polish). When I left I was worried that the blend would get ruined during his efforts, so I immediately researched getting him some nitrocellulose lacquer. This is when I found that all the controversy, for all these years, surrounding lacquer was pure bullshit!

The next day Bob called me to inform me that the Rolls Royce turned out TITS! Moral of the story: Thank God for MATRIX and if you think you want lacquer The Paint Spot has it!

Other news Slix is heading to The Lone Star Round Up in the same car as last year, only this time, it's had a complete face lift. Last year we decided to take a 1955 Chevy Bel Air that hadn t run in nearly 40 years to the event. We built a wild 478 cu. In. big block Chevy, bolted up an M-21 Muncie 4 speed trans, and a 3:73 12 bolt posi complete with Slix Made four link suspension. We wired the car, updated the brakes to disc, and rebuilt the stock front suspension, and since we only had three weeks, had zero time for body work. The entire exterior of the body was rusty as hell complete with holes throughout. The front end was sand blasted as we thought we could get to some of the body work, but when we saw that wasn't goanna happen, we tinted some MP-1000 black and left it at that (thank God, I mean Brian Lynch for MP-1000). Five weeks ago Shawn decided he d go for it. He made every patch panel for that car himself, ground and sand blasted it down to metal, lined all interior surfaces with Lizard Skin Sound Control and Heat Shield (awesome stuff), had all new glass cut, completely coated the entire car, in and out, with MP-1000, and did about 40% of the body work in good old fashioned LEAD! Primed and blocked three times with MP3-HS and put three coats of MPB-9000 black on the whole car. He then came back with a mix of MPB-500 and F-20 ruby red flake and two toned it, following the original color break. The only clear of choice was MS-42 and in true Slix/The Paint Spot form will NOT be cut and buffed I don't believe in it, why would you buff perfection? We then had the dash pin striped by Mild Bill Pelton himself, as well as the deck lid. We also decided that the theme would be WW2 B-17, so we added some nose art to the deck lid a time period correct pin up girl, scantly dressed with ruby stilettos and riding a bomb! We then added the word obsession over the pin up girl. Obsession came to Shawn via his lady, who, because of Shawn s excessive work ethic said, you're obsessed with that car. . The hood ornament is off a 1949 Studebaker Bullet Nose (plane) painted, and airbrushed by Pete Bush complete with the flying tiger teeth. The stainless trim was all sent out for straightening and instead of the Bel Air Crest on the quarters, we opted for the fuel injection Cross Flags . The interior was done in 2 pleated tuck and roll by none other than Rodriguez Upholstery in Seguin, Texas (thank you Frank and Able). Health: Gluten is something that is directly connected to a myriad of health issues and disease. I guarantee that unless you're already aware of gluten and the extreme health risks associated to its consumption, you're consuming massive quantities of it! If you don't know what it is, simply put, it's WHEAT! Yes I know, we were always told that wheat was a good thing. Well guess what we were lied to!

I could go on for hours about the changes in people that I personally know who have stopped eating anything with gluten. Many of these individuals were convinced that they had no allergic reaction to it, and therefore no reason for watching what they ate. Well, they wouldn't say that now! If you're fat eliminate gluten! If you're depressed eliminate gluten! If you have allergies eliminate gluten! If you're STUPID DON T ELIMINATE GLUTEN the world needs dumb asses, it makes the rest of us look smart! Here s a trick that I recently learned to determine whether or not your putting something into your body that does not agree with your blood type. First of all, you need to know how to check your pulse. Here s how: put two fingers (index and middle) directly below your thumb where your wrist meets your hand. If you're doing it right, you ll feel your pulse with your index finger. Next, count the number of beats in fifteen seconds. Multiply that number by four to determine beats per minute. You want to do this ten minutes prior to consuming the food or drink in question. Repeat this procedure ten minutes after consumption and compare the two readings. If the second reading increases by ten or more, that food or drink is toxic to your system, and should definitely be eliminated from your diet! If the reading does not change upward by ten or more, then go for it! Health, Happiness, and Happy New Year! Whatever it Takes Rick Ciotti