We had a major problem with Sherwin Williams H20 products where the color was changing in the bucket. As a result, they will no longer sell to us based on potential litigation. That being said S/W is off the table. We switched to Chem-Craft and it has been nothing but a shit show. Many problems, conflicting solutions. tens of thousands of dollars lost.
What are the other options out there?

Do what I did Dan.........retire ;-). After 30+ years in the Trade I put my respirator to rest.
Good luck !! and Merry Christmas

Surprised to hear about your issues with chemcraft. I have had nothing but success using their products over the last 5 years. Should look into changing reps.

Otherwise, depending on your location, I would suggest looking into Sivam. It's just recently been introduced to the US from Italy, I like it a lot so far.

I would avoid MLC personally, I had nothing but problems when I used them.

Otherwise if you want waterbased coatings Gemeni, and Target have worked well for me in the past. Although I've always preferred solvent coatings.

You may want to try Italian H20 lacquer products. ICA, Sayerlack, Milesi, and what has been stated above. Not cheap, but far better than what the United States produces at this time. ( I no longer want to support US corporations who pay less in taxes than I do!) I do not have a 'pass-through' business.

I'm not necessarily looking for a water based solution. Just trying to get something that works!

Are you dealing with a retail store for your Sherwin products or one of their real division for professional finishes? aka Products finishing division..... Reason I'm asking is because some retial locations for contractors/home owners can source some of these materials but their paint mixing skills and attention to detail can be very lax...... I'm a Sherwin Customer on a fairly large scale (Over 400 gal. of assorted chemicals per week) and color & product consistency over here in the south east is excellent..... I don't have to worry about ordering 40 gallons of a color they mixed on a different batch 6 months prior.... they pull up the formula... mix the batch... pull the old control card from previous formula/Lanella card and compare before it gets sent out for color/sheen...

We were dealing with the Allentown PA Regional Industrial Coating Div.
We were spending over 10K per month with them. They did not want to acknowledge that the product was defective. They did determine that the black pigment was being encapsulated by the other pigments in the Chem-Aqua CV and I had considered the problem resolved. A few months later we had to do a not the Chem-Aqua job with a similar color and we had the same exact problem and we had to repaint almost one entire job. In the end we forced them to buy back all our unopened product, and even the partials to avoid litigating. In the end they fired me rather that truly address the problems. ISO 9000 means nothing.
They started putting tags on the cans telling you what catalyst and percentages to use. We received a can of a product we pisin't use often. We catalyzed as per the label on the can they put on and to job never dried 100%. When they came out to look they told us that we used the wrong catalyst. We showed them the can and they ultimately said it was our fault because we should have cross checked with the spec guide.

dan, which SW product were you struggling with?

It was the Chem-Aqua but at this point this is years ago. S/W isn't an option we can go back to. Our local chem-craft dealer we are using is in over their head with us because we do such specialized work. The have a hard time hitting colors. We had multiple failures with cracking of finishes. Our clients demand perfection and we just can't get there with their products.

totally get it, and i'm not questioning your judgement or experience.

we spray a lot of kem-aqua plus, in both clear and tinted. the clear is fairly straightforward, and i've only seen a few "bad" gallons come through my distributor - caught them immediately, and they made it right. clear is easy.

the white... much harder. that stuff is seemingly chemically different than the clear, difficult to spray, and temperature sensitive. i was able to successfully spray the white on a big closet job, and it looks fine, but it was difficult.

we've upgraded to a kremlin rig, and it seems great with the KAP clear. it's my go-to finish, especially at $30 a gallon and readily available. it seems to stick to just about anything, seems to level ok, and dries hard. sands nicely, too.

sorry you had a bad experience. i'd be curious what you ultimately switch to, always good to hear other's experiences.

---dz

I've been using MLC Duravar and Krystal for years without a single problem. I first used an HVLP system with two stage turbine. Worked pretty well. This year I upgraded to a CATechnologies pressure feed with air assist and the finish time has been cut virtually in half and I can now apply two heavier coats instead of three thinner coats with the old HVLP system.

My rep here (Wurth Louis & Company) has been outstanding. When I made the switch from the old spray system to the new spray system he spent 3/4 of a day in my shop with me coaching me on using the new pressure/air assist system. He also gave me a great education on which MLC products to use in different projects.

I used SW products for 20 years encountering so many problems it'd be impossible to list them all. I avoided change because there was so much tied up in inventory and historical formulas that I felt locked in. But eventually enough was enough and we made the switch to ML Campbell. Major difference in quality and service. Sherwin Williams markets themselves as a leader in the industrial coatings market, but in my experience their products and service was simple awful.

I'm in S. Jersey, so recommending our local supplier would be of no use to you geographically. I strictly use the Valspar line of finishes, specifically the c/v solvent line. We just ran into a large job ($400K) that spec'd strictly a w/b finish in multiple Pantone colors. We went with Valspar's Zenith w/b line.

Our local rep did a spot-on match with 7 of the 8, the last one we outsourced to Richelieu's color lab in N. Jersey and they did a great match. The product is real easy to use, sprays nice, lays nice, no complaints. Richelieu is a big distributor of Valspar. The N Jersey location may work for you.

That said, post job, I'll be going back to my solvent based finishes. I'm old school = "better living thru chemistry"

FYI, Valspar Wood Coatings Division was sold last year and the line will be re-badged as the new company name, Axalta, in the not too distant future.

Best of luck, Happy New Year!

Dan , We had this conversation many times . The solution is Valspar ! Good luck