Blending with Pro Spray base?

K

kerristallax

I don't do many panel repair type jobs, so I'm not very experienced at this. I'm repairing a friend's 99 Civic SI, electron blue metallic at the moment. I painted a few of the panels, and I noticed on the trunk in particular you can see the color blended area. I re-cleared the whole panel, but the color is just different enough that you can see it when you look at it from the right angle indoors.

Is this the correct procedure to blend it out a little bit more?
  • 3 coats Pro-Spray base mixed normally over repair area (or until coverage, we'll just say 3 for now)
  • 1 coat of a 1:1 base:intercoat clear around a larger area
  • Clear whole panel as normal...

Is the pro-spray compatible to be mixed with the SPI IC?
 
I usually just blend the basecoat into the next panel, have never tried mixing with a intercoat, i'm wondering if that's seperating the color out to much? I am unsure just never tried that.

I have used a few pro-spray toners in the spi IC, but that was more to create a candy type product.
 
What most shops do for blending the nasty metallics.
Say you are spraying a door and only front part will need base, they will first spray one coat of Intercoat clear over the whole door, reason is metallics will lay different over a clear base then a sanded cured paint.
They do their blend and when they think it is right, they then spray one more coat of intercoat over the whole door, now they can see if the blend shows and if it does, in ten minutes they can respray the uneven parts, where once you use clear, your screwed until the next day.
 
Yeah, intercoat first. If you notice the way metallic goes down, the first coat usually doesn't look right. The next coat always looks better, and that is because the coat below helps hold the metallics in place due to a few different reasons. Just think of the intercoat as your first coat of base out in the blend area that will help the following coats of metallic lay properly.
 
Right, I did spray the intercoat first. I forgot to mention that in the original post. When you are talking about blending the color then, are you guys referring to just reducing the base a little extra and spraying one coat farther out then the repair area?
 
I usually do not over reduce the base to blend, i just blend it across the panel, usually a regular coat but faded a little at the end, i usually don't do a straight blend either, if i'm blending a full door i'll usually blend quite a ways towards the back of the door on the bottom, and forward around the moulding if it has one, then back to the door handle area, then back forward towards the mirror as I go up. I don't know if a lot of other painters do this but it has really worked for me.
I do it differently depending on each panel and how the light will hit the panel.
 
kerristallax;22343 said:
Right, I did spray the intercoat first. I forgot to mention that in the original post. When you are talking about blending the color then, are you guys referring to just reducing the base a little extra and spraying one coat farther out then the repair area?
Click to expand...
No, over-reduction is not normally a good thing, though high hiding colors or certain metallics sometimes blend better when mixed with some intercoat type product that will cut the strength of the color without lowering the viscosity too much.

What doesn't get talked about much in blending discussions is flop. Flop is the appearance of the metallic with light hitting pretty straight on but with a viewing angle off to the side. When blending, it's almost more important that the flop match well than the face in many cases. Most paint lines have a flop control additive that will lighten the flop while not affecting the face very much. A bit of white will lighten the face and the flop, black will usually darken both, and basecoat clear can sometimes darken a flop a little.
 
I appreciate you guys taking the time to explain this to me. The face is right on, you can't tell where it was done looking straight at it. Looking across the trunk from the driver's side, the repaired area looks lighter than the surrounding panel, so the flop is off a little. I used my mini gun to base the trunk and first round of panels and I was suspecting that my spraying technique might also be contributing to the flop mismatch. I'm going to be spraying the hood and rear bumper tomorrow. I am planning to use my lph400 with the purple cap for this round. Thoughts?
 
Do a sprayout card of the color with the exact gun & technique you will use on the vehicle, then clear the panel and use it for comparison.
 
Car is all finished up now and gone. The blend job came out better with the LPH400 and a little bit more trying to spread the blend area out farther. It's not perfect, but you can't see the "border" of exactly where the old color stops and the new color starts, it's much less obvious as to where it was done. The customer was happy with it.
 
It ain't easy to learn how to make invisible blends, and it seems each paint maker has a few colors that are really tough. Good on you for pulling it off!
 
I appreciate your help. I don't know where I got the idea on mixing with the IC clear, but I'm glad I asked here first.
 
One thing I didn't see mentioned is rolling the wrist at the end of each pass to help trail off the paint. Is this something you don't do? Have I been taught wrong on this?
 
I have seen that in videos, but you're right, it's not part of my routine. I never understood why it was done. I can see your point though, didn't think about that. In this case, I rotated the spray gun so that I was "blending" with the top of the spray pattern rather than the sides. The top of it has a much finer taper off than the sides, with the gun set for a vertical spray pattern. This is only the third panel repair kind of job I've done.
 
[QUOTE='68 Coronet R/T;22765]One thing I didn't see mentioned is rolling the wrist at the end of each pass to help trail off the paint. Is this something you don't do? Have I been taught wrong on this?[/QUOTE]

There are many techniques to do a blend. That is just one and is the most common taught, I believe. As you are rolling your wrist you want to start pulling away from the panel.
 
most everything i do is Blending(95 percent)on my jobs.

most of the time i sand the panel i am wanting to blend on with 600 on my DA then scotchbrite.

if the color looks like a bad one i lay a coat of intercoat down(this really helps me).

if not i dont,lol!

i always roll my wrist and fan out.moving away from the panel at the end of the blend most of the time.

sometimes it is different with me depending on color.

Travis
 
What about doing a complete paint job using a ProSpray metallic base and Universal Clear (not blending anything). Would an Intercoat still be useful?
 
Max, in that scenario the intercoat clear isn't necessary.
When blending a panel it is sanded first thus making it difficult to see the true color you are trying to match. Intercoat clear is basically a base coat with no color in it that when applied over the sanded panel allows you to better "see" the color your are matching.
 
I like to use the intercoat clear as a wet bed for golds and metallics when blending. When I get coverage on the primer spot after I start my blend with color I mix my reduced intercoat clear with my reduced base 50/50. I finish out the blend as 68 described with this and have had great results every time. Seems to go easier for me this way....anyhow it works for me....but I have never shot pro-spray...
 
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