Tried a $90 paint thickness gauge off Amazon and it was junk

Picked up one of those cheap electronic gauges last month to check some panel work before a respray. It kept reading 200 microns on bare metal, so I learned the hard way to stick with the old magnetic pull-off gauge my mentor gave me back in 98. Anyone else had bad luck with budget tools for measuring paint?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathan54511d ago

Hold up though, cheap gauges aren't automatically all bad. My buddy grabbed a $50 one off eBay just to check his project truck and it matched up fine with the professional unit at the body shop. Your mileage may vary, but sometimes you just get a bad unit.

ericschmidt11d ago

Your buddy got lucky... most of these cheap electronic gauges have terrible consistency from one unit to the next because their calibration is all over the place. It's the same pattern you see with cheap multimeters and infrared thermometers - the specs look fine on paper but the actual readings drift like crazy once they warm up or hit a slightly different surface. A bad meter or gauge can cost you way more than the $40 you saved when you end up chasing a false reading.