Sherwin

Not so in the DFW area. I have different prices at the commercial stores than my home store. The home store won't match the prices of the commercial stores.

Ken: You are correct i keep forgetting about the large commercial store like the ones in Kansas City or Wichita were there is a lot of demand for the paint due to more contractors, do not normally work with them. My home store can not ever match the price that the commercial stores in Kansas City and Wichita have for prices, $7.00 something per gal in 55 gal Drums. My point was that for the local type stores they are suppose to maintain you pricing from you base store. Bob

You are right on. The "home" stores will match my agreed price. BUT, I have to watch every purchase or they will often bill retail without checking our price history. They are always willing to reverse charges but it is such a hassle (assuming I catch it).

My SW prices have stayed the same in this area.

SW guys at the expo hinted to only minimal increases next year, so hopefully good news. What sucks is 40% + increases in one season.

Amen to that. Four Increases since last October. Domingo

Driving me crazy!!! Two stores serving Denton...different prices. One commercial store in FtW... too high. Finally found reasonably priced paint at the Mesquite store (thanks Deuce!). This site is worth gold. If it weren't for the discussion group, I'd be oblivious to S&W's sneaky pricing practices and paying 2-10 bucks a gallon more. Now to contend with the quality issue....new stuff seems to be OK as per RandyV (who by the way has been kicking butt). What a guy! What a striper! He should be around thru Tuesday. I still plan on having a waterhole gathering for anybody wanting to come visit probably Tuesday. We'll have an extra room or two if anybody wants to stay over. In case we don't get an interned hook-up in Mexico, God's peace and a happy Thanksgiving to all!

Speaking of SW quality, one of the guys at the show was in RD (research and dev) and he settled a long standing rumorfor me, he said SW makes all of their own traffic paint, I had always assumed they did not. He also told me of new tweaks to the formulas, and that so far so good for a good quality paint, but I don't think I'll hold my breath yet, we will just have to see...

Ken, although I don't use S/W paint on a regular basis, there is one guy, locally that I've talked to that has always seemed fair. He even sent me a work once. His name is Benjamin Hammond. Anytime, I've had pricing issues at a "neighborhood" store, I just drop his name and they'll call him. I met him at the commercial store in Fort Worth, but I think he floats around. You may already know him, but if you don't, try him @ [phone removed]. I haven't talked to him in a while. But you might tell him I gave you the number. It might help, it might not. Adios, Dwayne

Thanks Dwayne. I'm pretty much not ever going back to the FtW store since they insinuated I was lying about their paint not drying....Why else would I pay the labor and transportation to haul it back to them? I'm still in Mexico but RandV has seen the tracking problems. He did say the latest batch is working better. I'm 'bout ready to switch totally to Technical Coatings If I can swing some sort of break on shipping. Almost the same price as SW and everybody raves about the quality. BTW-If the "Gorilla" paint is as trashy as the other Aexcell I've used, certainly couldn't rationalize paying double the price of "premium" paint from other manufacturers. Taking time to strain paint is too expensive.

Ken, I just finished my first job using Technical Coatings paint, "Supreme" alkyd. 1. Quality: The only other alkyd paint i have used is S/W Promar. "Supreme" is superior in quality by a great margin in my opinion. It is creamy thick, covers better than I ever expected and dries very well. We painted with temps in the lower 40's with no problems. 2. Price: For me, the price was very competitive. Even with shipping from Atlanta to Savannah, I paid approximately .65 cents per gallon less than my local S/W store is charging for ProMar. Plus, the S/W store is not keeping alkyd in stock anymore. I also ordered some oil based handicap blue for a job this weekend. This is the first oil based H/C paint I have found. 3. Service: I talked to Wayne at TC on Friday last about noon. My order was shipped same day, and I picked it up at the truck lines on Monday. Just got a call from the customer and they are impressed with the "look" of what we painted for them. The "Supreme" is "Bright' white, no tracking, no fogging. If you can work out the shipping costs, i don't think you'll be disappointed with the paint.

I'll be taking copies of this discussion to the Charlotte EXPO (with Robert's permission, of course). I don't WANT to change from S&W but it appears I have little choice.

I am used to apraying the SW A300 and A303 (white / Yellow) Alkyd. They both cover well, dry quickly and spray ok but with a lot of "atomizing fog" (I think that is sdstripers term for it). For the past week helping Ken, He uses all CR and I've gotta tell you that if I used CR paint all the time, I would not use Sherwin Williams Chlorinated Rubber. Even if the tracking is acceptable (it is still tracking a little but not bad) it sprays like crap. Fingering is excessive and I even tried a new 321 tip with no improvement in the spray pattern. Even with the pressure cranked way up (airless machines), there is still not a smooth fan pattern without ghost fingering across the fan spray pattern. I really like SW and use them a lot but this CR of theirs is terriblle to spray. Thinning the paint (that is like cursing in my book) seems to help a little - very little - but traffic paint should be able to be used right out of the bucket without adding solvent to make it spray better.

Randy, Hope you have all of that last order used up before we get back tomorrow. That will be the last I order from S&W for a while.

Ken, just an update on the pricing for Technical Coatings. Wayne quoted me an "estimated" shipping cost. Actually it much lower for my order. It came to about $1.00 a gallon, in 5's of course. With the price I got on the paint, I'm still paying almost $3.00 less(updated savings) than S/W per gallon. Just thought you would like that info.

Ken, There is a big paint store in Arlington (can't remember the name) on 303 (Pioneer Parkway) just west of Fielder Rd. on the north side. I have been racking my brain trying to remember the name of the striping paint I got from them. It was a well-known "name" brand for regular paint (like house paint) but I've never seen anybody mention their striping paint. I had to pick up a few 5's when doing some work over there & I was pushed for time (back when Standard was in Dallas) and they were the closest place that had any kind of striping paint. Of course that was a few years ago. It was by far the best I had ever used as far as the quality of the paint so I went back by, but I couldn't get them to negotiate close to the price I wanted & that's a long drive for me. They didn't stock much either. But I never found any that was better (was regular alkyd but shot like CR-- creamy, thick, & coated very well, and "looked" great) But as much as you use if you are ever out that way you might stop in and see if they still sell it and get a commercial rep and ask what they would order a couple of pallets for. They are bound to do better on pricing than they quoted me because they sell LOTS of house type paint to contractors over there (and they keep that type stuff by pallets) and they have a separate "commercial" counter in back (or used to) so they might work a deal...that many painters can't be over-paying for their commercial paint. If I ever think of the name I'll post it (of course they may have changed formulas or some such too by now).

Used to go there, then the FtW store was better in price. The latest SW CR Randy and I have been trying to shoot is crap. It "fingers" just like what "Duece" is complaining about. I've got an order processing from Technical Coatings.

Hey guys, Read Stripes last post about SW paint not spraying properly. I thought it was my tip. We tried exactly what Asphaltman posted, boosting the pressure as well as thinning out the paint and behold we had great spraying but fogging like aexel CR. SW needs to either evaluate their chemists or formula. (read as foulmula), their paint has really gotten trashy. We had the finger problem with the white cr & Yellow cr. I like the alkyd but the coverage is not as good and the atomization is just not very good, too much overspray. But that's just my 2 cents. Domingo

I would love to know who SW's market is, it always seems not matter who you talk to from the store manager to up on the district level or even the guys at the show that they just don't have too much care for the small or mid size parking lot stripers, so I would assume they market to large long line guys, funny thing is I have never seen their paint on any long line truck. I bring this up because obviously they care somewhat for the business, I mean look at the money they spend to come to the expos, or put on the party's, but for all this why don't they listen to actual customer feedback and develop better pricing systems and most important a decent CONSISTANT paint.

Since we are located in the NW, we are lucky to be able to use TMT Pathway paint. Since we never use SW striping paint I never paid too much attention to posts about SW paint. All this pricing has me curious as to why the NPCA has never tried to contact SW headquarters (or maybe they have) regarding universal consistant pricing for member stripers based on volume used. It sounded like they did an excellent job in getting insurance for contractors in the pavement maintenance business and this would seem to be a natural extension of NPCA service for its members.