Clear base over sealer for mettalics?

Arrowhead

Arrowhead

Oldtimer
Went to a car show at a clolision/custom paint shop yesterday. Was talking to one of the guys from the shop and the subject of painting the silver on my hot rod came up. I told him it was tough to spray and he asked if I sprayed clear base over the sealer before spraying the silver. ?????

I was kind of confused at first, but he basically said the silver wants to absob into the sealer, that's why it can be blotchy (even assuming air pressure and spray technique are good and consistant). He said if you spray a clear base over the sealer, it will give the silver base coat a solid foudation for better color consitancy.

I had never heard of this, but it started to make sense. Kind of like when I did some satin single stage motorcylce tins, they came out horrible until I wet sanded w/ 600 and resprayed, then it flowed real nice and came out much better.

Is this some secret painters trick or is he smokin something?
 
I don't do that except on blend, because the first coat of silver acts as the same thing, and it usually takes at least three coats of silver to get nice coverage anyway. Now if you were short on color and you knew it covered in two coats, a starting coat of intercoat might be a good idea, you'd still be using three coats, but only two of the more expensive silver.
 
Years ago at a BASF training seminar I went to it was recommended to spray a coat of clear first before spraying a metallic so the flakes would lay down better. They called it a "European Blend". I would assume clear base would have the same effect. I've use it when doing spot repairs on difficult colors and it seemed to work well.
 
Arrowhead;12125 said:
He said if you spray a clear base over the sealer, it will give the silver base coat a solid foundation for better color consistency.
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Wrong, your first coat of silver does the same thing as spraying one coat of intercoat/clear base. Intercoat does work well as a first step before performing a metalic blend, but on a complete repaint it won't make a difference-your first coat of color will achieve the same results.
 
i dont think a coat of epoxy is going to absorb anything . sounds like a waste of time and materials to me.
 
Really the problem is that when basing over a cured substrate, the base solvents have nowhere to go but up, which means the metallics swirl and flip around a bit before the solvent has time to evaporate. The cure for colors that want to do this is to just go a little easy on the first coat, not dry but not too wet either.
 
as the other guys said the clear base thing is for blends over cured surfaces. it will do absolutely nothing to coat your sealer in clear base before the silver goes down. clear base is the same as your silver base without the flake in it. just spray the silver.
 
Just get the first coat on and let it flash good so it holds the next coats the way you want it.

On a complete I really don't pay much attention to how the metalics look on the first and second coat-my main concern is that it's going on wet enough and flashing smooth, the third and fourth coat of base is where I control the metalic orientation.
 
exactly!! Especially a very fine metallic silver...can look horrible once sprayed but as it starts to flow and flash off it looks better. It's a balancing act for sure...i do it about the same way as bob...smooth and get coverage...then control the metallic. If it is going on smooth and flashing smooth, the metallic stays "smooth". On those fine metallics, i'll often throw a shot of "clear base" into a sprayable qt along with a 5-10% more reduction. It really helps with sikkens base....which isn't the easiest to spray metallic. Autobase PLUS has always been like that for some reason.

though, if you are using low quality bases you'll be sword fighting all day long in the booth and be worn out by the time you are done. So i'm guessing this guy is probably using cheap products and has to re-invent the wheel to get good results.
 
So would it make since on light metallics ( as long as time permits) to lay down two medium wet coats, sand that, and then two medium dry coats with jeremy's special blend of clear base and reducer?
 
NEVER spray metallic dry. Wet enought to let metallic flow, but not too wet. Some bases will spray wetter than others. As said above my experience with sikkens is to do it this way...all bases ARE NOT the same you cant really apply every technique to every basecoat system. For example the wanda base system....it is bulletproof with metallic. It could be the spi reducer used it in, i dont know. The spi VERY slow reducer makes all the difference in the world also. Simply the best reducer on out there, imo. I dont even fool with sikkens or wanda reducers.
 
paint is designed to be shot wet no matter what it is. drop coats or dust coats will never give you true color. i shoot the first coat just like the last coat.
 
jeremyb;12181 said:
The spi VERY slow reducer makes all the difference in the world also. Simply the best reducer on out there, imo. I dont even fool with sikkens or wanda reducers.
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I agree, slow is best. When a fast reducer is used the painter ends up putting the paint on thicker trying to keep it going on wet and this ends up mottling the metalics or if it goes on dry you end up with texture and or delamination problems and clearcoat contraction when it reaches full cure. Slow reducer with ample flash time works best.
 
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