Intercoat Clear Question

challengersteve

New Member
Hello Everyone, this is my first post here but I am an experienced painter and restore muscle cars for a living. My question relates to intercoat clear. I have a 70 Duster in my shop that was painted close to 15 years ago and it got some damage when a building collapsed on it. I have repaired the dents on the quarters and roof and have them in primer all feathered out and ready to blend. This is a base clear paint job but I have no idea what brand was used.
This is a pretty heavily metallic color (Mopar Hemi Orange), and I know about using the intercoat clear for a wet bed on the blend edges. I will be clear coating the whole car as the blend areas are fairly large (and the old clear had a LOT of trash I sanded out).
My question is would it be a good idea to go ahead and use the intercoat clear on the whole car to kind of "lock in" the old clear that I scuffed with 600 before I clear or should I just do the blends normally and then clear the car.
Also, I am using PPG deltron color and Matrix MS 42 clear.
Thanks in advance for any help, Steve
 

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Doing what you are doing, I can't think of any reasons why there would be a need for doing that. That's not what it's intended for anyways.

Things you can do to make the job go smoother, activate your DBC basecoat at a ratio of 1oz per 32 oz RTS base. I have always used either PPG DX 57 (expensive) or since I switched to SPI products any of the SPI clear activators. If you have trouble with the blends you can use your RTS DBC base and reduce it up to 1(dbc):2 (Inter) with intercoat to help with the blends. 1:1 usually works well. If doing this the Intercoat used should be reduced 1:1 up to 1:2 with urethane reducer. Activating it also helps. Don't reduce your RTS DBC with unreduced Intercoat.
Using a quality urethane reducer will help you greatly. SPI 885 or 895 (if it's hot). Using cheap urethane reducer like Matrix's or God forbid Omni will make your job a lot more difficult. I've sprayed quite a bit of DBC over the years and when I switched from PPG DT to SPI's reducers when spraying DBC, there was a noticeable difference in how DBC sprayed and laid down.
 
Hello Chris, thank you for the reply and info. I have learned my lesson with cheap Omni reducer and never again. I will probably reduce the base like you said so I will get a better transition. I have never used the SPI products but will call and see if there is a distributor in my area (Arkansas).
Thanks again, Steve
 
Remember blending intercoat with base is only neccesary if you are having an issue with the blend, whether that is with color or shade, or if it's a metallic, blotchiness, striping, mottling etc. Most of the time it isn't neccessary and when it is you only do it on your last coat or if you are really having trouble two coats. Get coverage first, making sure not to have any hard stops or starts on your passes, once you have coverage, if you can see the transistion area, that is the time to reduce your base with inter and spray one or two more coats.
 
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