swanicyouth
New member
- Mar 3, 2011
- 9,388
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Recently I purchased a Paint Thickness Gauge (PTG) from a seller on EBay. It's called the TecPel TG 902. It's capable of providing thickness readings of coatings on ferrous (steel) and non-ferrous (aluminum, copper, zinc, bronze, brass, etc...) metals. I paid $115.99 for it, shipping was included. It looks like this:
I have wanted a PTG for a while. I am a hobbyist, and would actually need to use it rarely, so I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money for one. There are a couple of reasons it wanted one:
1. I wanted to check the paint thickness on several points around my vehicles to see if they have had prior paintwork done. A good clue that a vehicle has had a panel repainted is if the panels thickness varies significantly from other readings on the same car.
2. I wanted a PTG so I would be able to do before and after reading when polishing a panel to get an idea how much paint I was removing with different polishing combos. That way, I know how frequently I can safely polish my car
The TecPel TG 902
The gauge is powered by a 9V battery that is claimed to last 9 hours. It comes with a battery,
A soft case and the gauge:
A ferrous and a non ferrous calibration foil; along with a standard calibration shim(1006 microns):
And 2 double sided pages instruction sheet.
The meter has several features. Its able to store 255 measurements you have taken in its memory. Also, you can program minimum and maximum measurement settings and an alarm will notify you if you measure out of range. The meter also stores an average measurement. These various features are displayed below the main measurement setting in smaller numbers and you can set the machine to flip flop between these features. The meter also has a bright blue back light you can turn on and off. It's capable of displaying readings in mils or microns and change back and forth with the push of a button. All my measurements
are in microns, just because I like it better (no decimal). 1 mil equals about 25 microns. The meter takes 1 second to provide a reading once the trigger is pulled, and it weighs 157 grams (about 5.5 ounces). The meter claims + / - 10 digit accuracy in the range we would mostly use it to measure car paint (0 to 199 microns). The directions are a little hard to understand and seem to translated to English from some other language.
Calibration: It took be a little while to figure out how to calibrate this correctly. Basically, calibration involves zeroing the machine on the two foils (one ferrous and one aluminum). After that, you put the standard provided plastic shim on top of the foils and take another measurement. Since the thickness of the shim is known, you calibrate the machine to 1006 microns (if required) after measuring the known thickness plastic shim over the foil. The whole process takes a little practice, as you are required to push buttons in order on the side of the meter while holding it over the foil in the other hand.
How's it work: it seems to work pretty good. I can measure the same areas around the vehicle and get consistent results, leading me to believe the machine is fairly accurate. Also, the readings make sense based on the locations tested.
Some Examples I measured:
A reading from under my BMWs hood right along the tack weld on the inner fender, near the strut tower. This is significant, because this area has some basecoat on it from the fender, but it's dull so there is no clear on it. I figure I can use this as an approximation / guesstimation on how much clear coat is on top of the base coat:
The reading is showing 54 microns on a ferrous (iron) material. The "Alm" on the top of the meter stands for "alarm" and it's always on the screen, although you don't have to use the high / low setting alarm. The "no" stands for "number", as the display will flip flop what number measurement you are storing. It also will flip flop to "Avg" in the same area which shows the average measurement of of those taken during the measuring session. The small "h" designates the meter is ready to take a reading.
Some more measurements:
The little piece of metal on the female part of the hood latch behind the radiator support. This is painted "chassis black" and it's matte single stage, I'm guessing with that low reading, BMW uses no primer there.
The "198" you see in small numbers
(above photo) is the average reading of the measurement session.
A reading of the regular paint on the fender along the hoodline. Notice "feet" means the fender is stelel:
A reading from the hood on the same car. Notice the "non ferr" telling you the hood is not metal. The hood is aluminum on my M Roadster. Paint is a little thiner here:
A reading from the trunk lid:
A reading from the rocker kick panel on the area that the door closes on, where you lift your feet over to get into the car. Some have said this area is always thinner, as manufacturers don't spray as much clear here this lower reading of 105 microns supports that theory:
A reading of the paint on my Metro AirForce Blaster, pretty thick! ;
A reading from the center of the trunk:
A reading from the A Pillar:
A reading from my washer:
A reading from a Crafstman Tool Box
Well, that's it. I'm not sure what else I can say about it. You basically calibrate it, put it squarely on the surface and pull the trigger. A second later, it displays a reading. If you try it on plastic or another non metallic surface you get no reading.
I've used the meter on 2 vehicles. The vehicle I'm demoing it on here is my Black Sapphire Metallic 2008 BMW M Roadster. It's been polished once only that I'm aware of with the Menzerna Twins and LC orange and white CCS pads on a PC. The readings on it go from about 125 to 165 microns on the external paint surfaces, depending on where you measure. The measurements see to be symmetrical on the vehicle. Oddly, the gas cap cover was an outlier at 99 microns. Not sure why. The hood, which is aluminum, is on the lower side of this vehicles readings, in the 125 to 135 micron range
I also tried it on my 2001 Nissan Pathfinder in Bayshore Blue metallic. This vehicle measure much lower being in the 70 to 100 micron range. I've only owned that vehicle for 1 year and polished it once with Menzerna IP and a yellow LC pad. Thanks for looking and comments ate welcome!
---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?3enu4p
I have wanted a PTG for a while. I am a hobbyist, and would actually need to use it rarely, so I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money for one. There are a couple of reasons it wanted one:
1. I wanted to check the paint thickness on several points around my vehicles to see if they have had prior paintwork done. A good clue that a vehicle has had a panel repainted is if the panels thickness varies significantly from other readings on the same car.
2. I wanted a PTG so I would be able to do before and after reading when polishing a panel to get an idea how much paint I was removing with different polishing combos. That way, I know how frequently I can safely polish my car
The TecPel TG 902
The gauge is powered by a 9V battery that is claimed to last 9 hours. It comes with a battery,
A soft case and the gauge:
A ferrous and a non ferrous calibration foil; along with a standard calibration shim(1006 microns):
And 2 double sided pages instruction sheet.
The meter has several features. Its able to store 255 measurements you have taken in its memory. Also, you can program minimum and maximum measurement settings and an alarm will notify you if you measure out of range. The meter also stores an average measurement. These various features are displayed below the main measurement setting in smaller numbers and you can set the machine to flip flop between these features. The meter also has a bright blue back light you can turn on and off. It's capable of displaying readings in mils or microns and change back and forth with the push of a button. All my measurements
are in microns, just because I like it better (no decimal). 1 mil equals about 25 microns. The meter takes 1 second to provide a reading once the trigger is pulled, and it weighs 157 grams (about 5.5 ounces). The meter claims + / - 10 digit accuracy in the range we would mostly use it to measure car paint (0 to 199 microns). The directions are a little hard to understand and seem to translated to English from some other language.
Calibration: It took be a little while to figure out how to calibrate this correctly. Basically, calibration involves zeroing the machine on the two foils (one ferrous and one aluminum). After that, you put the standard provided plastic shim on top of the foils and take another measurement. Since the thickness of the shim is known, you calibrate the machine to 1006 microns (if required) after measuring the known thickness plastic shim over the foil. The whole process takes a little practice, as you are required to push buttons in order on the side of the meter while holding it over the foil in the other hand.
How's it work: it seems to work pretty good. I can measure the same areas around the vehicle and get consistent results, leading me to believe the machine is fairly accurate. Also, the readings make sense based on the locations tested.
Some Examples I measured:
A reading from under my BMWs hood right along the tack weld on the inner fender, near the strut tower. This is significant, because this area has some basecoat on it from the fender, but it's dull so there is no clear on it. I figure I can use this as an approximation / guesstimation on how much clear coat is on top of the base coat:
The reading is showing 54 microns on a ferrous (iron) material. The "Alm" on the top of the meter stands for "alarm" and it's always on the screen, although you don't have to use the high / low setting alarm. The "no" stands for "number", as the display will flip flop what number measurement you are storing. It also will flip flop to "Avg" in the same area which shows the average measurement of of those taken during the measuring session. The small "h" designates the meter is ready to take a reading.
Some more measurements:
The little piece of metal on the female part of the hood latch behind the radiator support. This is painted "chassis black" and it's matte single stage, I'm guessing with that low reading, BMW uses no primer there.
The "198" you see in small numbers
(above photo) is the average reading of the measurement session.
A reading of the regular paint on the fender along the hoodline. Notice "feet" means the fender is stelel:
A reading from the hood on the same car. Notice the "non ferr" telling you the hood is not metal. The hood is aluminum on my M Roadster. Paint is a little thiner here:
A reading from the trunk lid:
A reading from the rocker kick panel on the area that the door closes on, where you lift your feet over to get into the car. Some have said this area is always thinner, as manufacturers don't spray as much clear here this lower reading of 105 microns supports that theory:
A reading of the paint on my Metro AirForce Blaster, pretty thick! ;
A reading from the center of the trunk:
A reading from the A Pillar:
A reading from my washer:
A reading from a Crafstman Tool Box
Well, that's it. I'm not sure what else I can say about it. You basically calibrate it, put it squarely on the surface and pull the trigger. A second later, it displays a reading. If you try it on plastic or another non metallic surface you get no reading.
I've used the meter on 2 vehicles. The vehicle I'm demoing it on here is my Black Sapphire Metallic 2008 BMW M Roadster. It's been polished once only that I'm aware of with the Menzerna Twins and LC orange and white CCS pads on a PC. The readings on it go from about 125 to 165 microns on the external paint surfaces, depending on where you measure. The measurements see to be symmetrical on the vehicle. Oddly, the gas cap cover was an outlier at 99 microns. Not sure why. The hood, which is aluminum, is on the lower side of this vehicles readings, in the 125 to 135 micron range
I also tried it on my 2001 Nissan Pathfinder in Bayshore Blue metallic. This vehicle measure much lower being in the 70 to 100 micron range. I've only owned that vehicle for 1 year and polished it once with Menzerna IP and a yellow LC pad. Thanks for looking and comments ate welcome!
---
I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?3enu4p
