Durable paint options?

[Endgame]

Just finished working with an older case as practice for an upcoming mod. Decided to paint the old beige box using duplicolor auto paint. I decided to go with the auto paint as I had used basic Krylon on a past project and it had almost 0 durability.

I used the following procedure:

Scuff with 120grit sandpaper
2 Primer coats (duplicolor sandable primer -- http://www.duplicolor.com/products/sandablePrimer/)
2 base coats (duplicolor Ford Shadow Gray -- http://www.duplicolor.com/products/perfectMatch/)
2 clear coats (Duplicolor Perfect Match top coat)

This stuff doesn't quite scratch off with my fingernails, but just taking off and putting on the case cover (the old U shaped style cover from the 90s) scratches the crap out of the paint. This is in comparison to the original beige coat on it where I could aggressively attack it with a Key and not see a single scratch.

So where am I going wrong. If off the shelf spray paint scratches this easily, I have no idea how it doesn't drive modders mad...

 

[cobaltdog]

after my paint project last year i found that if your gonna use can paint you are better off striping the older paint off completly. i stripped on side down to bare metal and the other side i just sanded and primer painted. the primered side still seems to chip off in places mostley corners but not as bad. I transport my case a lot for almost weekly lan partys and use the old case ace straps for the tower. the body of the tower where the straps touch don't seem to have any scratches or rubbing off of the paint. i used rustoleum 2x coat which seemed to cover a lot better than the paint i used for the other cases but again it chipped a bit while the others didnt chip at all. i may have just gotten a bad batch though.I can send ya pictures if your interested.