Engine Paints

Eastwood

The American restoration supplier's own engine paints: a brush-on ceramic enamel, a 2K aerosol whose mask advice falls short of HSE's, and the two UK distributors.

Updated 2026-09-18

On this page
  1. Who they are
  2. Two paints with nothing in common
  3. The mask problem
  4. Buying it in the UK
  5. Sources
  • A restoration tool supplier from Pennsylvania that sells paint under its own name. It doesn't say who makes it.
  • Ceramic Engine Paint is a brush or spray enamel rated to 343°C. Eastwood says it is not for manifolds.
  • 2K Aero-Spray is a two-pack in an aerosol and contains isocyanates. Eastwood's sheet asks for a filter mask. HSE says that is not enough.
  • Two UK distributors are named: Frost and Moss Europe.
  • The colour charts are built around American engines.

Who they are

Eastwood is a restoration supplier that grew a paint line. Curt Strohacker started it in the autumn of 1978, selling metal finishing equipment by mail order, and had half a million customers by the end of the 1980s. It has been based at Pottstown, Pennsylvania since 2000 and now sells welders, compressors, spray guns, metal shaping tools, a powder coating system and several thousand own-brand products, paint among them.

In May 2019 the investment firm Kian Capital reported buying into the business from Strohacker, as the company's first outside investor. Eastwood's own history page doesn't mention it.

The catalogue follows what a restorer needs next. None of Eastwood's public material says who formulates or fills its paint. Its rust and chassis coatings are outside this site's scope.

A note on our figures. Eastwood's website blocks automated retrieval, so the numbers for Ceramic Engine Paint come from a reseller's listing, and those for the 2K aerosol from Eastwood's own product information sheet. Both are linked below.

Two paints with nothing in common

Ceramic Engine Paint is the conventional one. It is a silicone alkyd enamel rated to 650°F, which is 343°C, sold by the quart. A quart covers about 40 square feet, a little under four square metres, and it can be brushed or sprayed. Eastwood sells an optional activator for it. The listing says plainly that it is not for exhaust manifolds or headers. 343°C is a hot block or a bracket. A downpipe runs far hotter, as the page on very high temperature coatings explains.

2K Aero-Spray Ceramic is a different kind of product, and its information sheet deserves a read before you buy. It is a two-component urethane in a can with two chambers. Press the button in the base, shake, and the hardener mixes into the paint. The sheet describes the raw materials as urethane acrylic resins "with a hardener containing isocyanates".

The working figures from that sheet: abrade to 320 grit and clean with wax and grease remover. It goes over most urethane and epoxy primers. Apply one or two passes with a 50% overlap, three to seven minutes apart. It cures fully in 12 hours at 20°C, or in 35 to 40 minutes at 60°C under infrared lamps. Once activated, the can lasts 48 hours at 20°C and less in warmer weather. Unactivated, it keeps for two years.

The mask problem

Eastwood's sheet says the 2K product is for professional use only, that respiratory protection must be worn, and that it should be used with good ventilation and away from flame. The protection it specifies is an A2/P2 respirator with latex or nitrile gloves.

An A2/P2 respirator is a filter mask. HSE's guidance for vehicle bodyshops says: "Filtering respirators are not suitable for spraying isocyanate paints." It requires air-fed breathing apparatus with an assigned protection factor of at least 20 and a low-flow indicator. It also warns sprayers not to lift the visor to inspect their work, because the mist is still in the air.

So the American sheet and the British regulator disagree, and in Britain the regulator's standard is the one that counts. Read the isocyanate safety page and the page on two-pack paint before buying a 2K aerosol from any brand.

Buying it in the UK

Eastwood sells through named distributors in most countries. Its international list gives two for the United Kingdom: Frost Auto Restoration Techniques in Cheshire and Moss Europe at Feltham. The rest of Europe gets one each in Norway, Finland and Sweden, which gives a sense of how small the brand is outside North America.

Frost's Eastwood pages are grouped as welding, tools, paints and powder coating, so the paint does cross the Atlantic along with the equipment. No public source shows how much of the American colour range reaches a British shelf. The marque colours on Eastwood's charts are Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler and Oldsmobile. For an Austin, a Rover or a Triumph, start with the colour reference.

Sources