Sunshine Coast QLD / since 1989
Your colour into a spray can, mixed on site and collected in store A factory rattle can holds a colour the factory chose. This counter fills one with the colour you bring in. A machine injects a measured shot of mixed paint into a can already charged with propellant, so what leaves the nozzle is your formula. The format is aimed at professional repairers, mobile technicians and small panel shops, rather than sold as a DIY convenience. The colour gets read first, then the can gets filled. Both happen at 5 Main Drive, Warana, on weekdays from 7:30am.
Local since 1989
Same Kawana site for over 35 years
Overview
Walk past any aerosol wall and none of the colours on it is the colour on the panel in front of you, and a near miss out of a spray can reads worse in daylight than the chip it was meant to hide. The way past that is not a better shelf can. It is a can with your colour in it.
That puts the jobs in an order. The colour has to be read and settled before anything goes into a can, and our custom paint page sets out how that is done. This page picks the job up where the colour already exists and has to get into a pressurised can.
The counter
How the mix and fill works at the counter.
A filled custom can is a different object from a factory rattle can. The can on this counter arrives already charged with propellant, and the paint goes in afterwards as a single measured shot pushed into the pressurised body. That is the whole reason a counter can produce a colour nobody has ever asked for before: the pressurised container is the stock item, and only what goes into it changes.
In practice it means the can decides nothing. The mix is made to the formula the match produced, and it is that mix that goes into the can. Nothing gets approximated at the can itself, which is exactly the step where colour goes wrong on a shelf product.
What the fill needs from you.
The fill copies a formula and cannot improve one, so the colour has to be settled before a can is touched. Bring the code if you have it, and bring the object itself if the job allows it. If the reference on your job sheet is an AS 2700 number rather than a vehicle code, bring that and a physical sample together and ask what the counter can work from.
The can then has to be brought back into one liquid. Paint driven into propellant sits in layers, so shake it before you spray, longer and harder than feels necessary. Put a test spray on a card first. It tells you the can is atomising evenly, and it gives you something to hold against the panel in daylight before the colour is on the work.
Same corner since October 1989.
A gun needs a pot mixed, a compressor running, masking, then flushing afterwards, and none of that gets shorter because the damage is small. Mobile technicians working out of a vehicle and small shops turning jobs over quickly lose the margin on small work in setup time. A filled can puts the same matched colour into a format needing nothing but a shake and a test card.
Aerosols are not one product. A two-pack aerosol carries its hardener in a separate chamber, and from the moment it is activated the pot life runs down whether you are spraying or not, after which the material no longer meets the manufacturer's specification. Warm weather shortens that working time, so an activated can left on a bench overnight in a Queensland summer can be finished before you are. Tell the counter what the surface has to survive before you plan around a can, rather than assuming an aerosol is the right format for it.
Aerosols and flammable liquids such as paint are on the list of items that cannot be sent through the Australian post, within Australia or overseas. No online seller can put a filled custom can in a satchel. The service exists only somewhere you can physically reach, which makes a local counter the point rather than a fallback. Filled cans are collected at the Warana counter, so we give you the address and the hours up front rather than a delivery estimate.
The building sits on the corner of Main Drive and Commerce Avenue in Warana, and the entrance is on Commerce Avenue rather than Main Drive, which is the address the map gives you. A can is collected in person, so the trip is part of the service. Circling the block eats into a counter that shuts at 4pm and does not open on a weekend. Come in from Commerce Avenue. Main Drive runs east through Birtinya and Bokarina, so for much of the Kawana strip this is a detour rather than a trip across the Coast.
The colour is settled at the bench before any can is involved. The fill cannot fix a formula, so the formula is finished first, and the reading off your part is what the can gets filled to.
Colour matchingYour mixed colour injected into an aerosol can on site at the Warana counter. The can arrives already charged with propellant and the paint is pushed in afterwards as a measured shot, which is why a counter can build a colour nobody has ordered before instead of stocking one.
Call the counterColour in the format a small repair actually consumes, rather than the volume a gun needs to run. What goes into the can is a measured shot of the finished mix rather than a pot of it, which is why the format fits a scratch or a bumper corner rather than a full panel.
Ask about the aerosol formatColour in a can for work that is not a vehicle panel, subject to what an aerosol can carry. The can does not care where the colour came from. The real question is whether the coating your surface needs can go into an aerosol at all, and that is a counter conversation rather than a yes on a web page, so bring a piece of the substrate and ask.
Ask about your substrateStocked, matched, and backed by experience
The counter has been on the corner of Main Drive and Commerce Avenue since October 1989, on the same site it occupies now, and it is run today by Cory and Candice, a local family. For a custom colour that matters more than it sounds: a one-off mix is only repeatable if the place that made it is still there when the same panel gets damaged again. What goes into the can comes from the refinish systems the store holds, among them Concept Paints and its NO MIX system, Cromax, Bernardo Ecenarro, GPI, ACE and Finixa. The colour behind it is measured rather than eyeballed, and the trade van carries a spectrophotometer and computer for colours that are hard to identify. Hours are Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4pm. Filled aerosols are collected, not posted, and that is not a policy we chose. A mix and fill service can only exist somewhere you can drive to, and this one is at 5 Main Drive, Warana, postcode 4575. The building is on the corner of Main Drive and Commerce Avenue, and the entrance is on Commerce Avenue, which is the detail first-time visitors get wrong. Main Drive carries on east through Birtinya and Bokarina, so buyers along that stretch are pulling off a road they are already on. The counter runs Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4pm, closed both weekend days, with no after-hours service. The 7:30am opening is the part trade buyers use: the can is in the vehicle before the first job.
Local since 1989
Same Kawana site for over 35 years
Concept Paints distributor
Including the NO MIX system
Cromax and BESA refinish
Cromax and Bernardo Ecenarro
Custom colour matching
Spectrophotometer on site and in the van
Questions
That is settled before the can is involved, not in it. The colour is read first, and the can is filled to the formula that reading produced rather than to an interpretation of it. Spray a test card and hold it against the work in daylight before you commit.
The honest answer turns on the material rather than the format, so tell the counter what the surface has to survive before you plan around a can. A two-pack aerosol has a pot life that begins running the moment its hardener is released, whether you are spraying or not, and warm weather shortens it further.
Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4pm. The counter is closed on Saturday and Sunday and there is no after-hours service, so a weekend pickup is not possible. The address is 5 Main Drive, Warana, and the entrance is on Commerce Avenue rather than Main Drive.
Handle it the way you would any pressurised paint aerosol. Keep it out of direct sun and out of a vehicle sitting closed in the heat, keep it away from ignition sources, and do not leave it loose where it can be knocked about in the back. This matters most for mobile technicians, who are carrying cans around the Coast all day rather than storing them on a shelf.
Tell us the vehicle, the colour code if you have one, or just what you are trying to finish. We will tell you what you need and what it costs.
Bring the code, the part or the panel to 5 Main Drive, Warana, entrance on Commerce Avenue, any weekday between 7:30am and 4pm. The colour gets matched first, then it gets filled. If you are unsure whether your colour or your surface will work out of a can, ring 07 5493 2088 before you make the trip. Filled cans are collected at the counter.