Glassing and Painting techniques

[Terryscustom]

If your using an automotive basecoat, clearcoat system, then there is no need to sand between color coats unless you see an issue. You never want to clear over sanded basecoat, it does ugly things sometimes.

A good tip for finding pinholes is to take a powerful beam flashlight and shine it parallel down the surface when it's in gray primer. It makes tiny pinholes look like giant holes, making them easy to find.

Hey @Jetpainter I have a dumb question. For a hobbyist I've shot quote a bit of auto paint but I recently picked up a hydrographics dip tank and plan to do some custom props, spinners, etc. Since auto paint pretty much needs two coats to really lay down nice is there such a thing as "thin" clearcoat that would lay down a little thinner? I'm afraid to reduce the clear for fear of runs and also loosing some of the gloss, but I've also never tried it. On items like this it would be nice not to add too much thickness of the clear, and I refuse to use rattle can. However I have done rattle can lacquer and polished with good results on some small items but it just does not hold up being single stage.

 

[Snoopy1]

Too lazy. I will wait for you to do all the work and show us here.

Used it last year, did the delta with it and showed pictures of it.

 

[Truckracer]

Terry, I'm not Jetpainter but here is my solution. For the last 16 years or so, I've used the DuPont Chroma paints for my base coat / clear coat though sometimes I just use the clear over other paints. Some years ago and probably due to government intervention, they stopped supplying reducers for these paints though there were alternatives that could be used. On one of the auto body forums, I found a product called Blender (DuPont # 19301S) that is designed to be used to feather clear in an automotive application. It can be mixed with catalyzed clear as a reducer and it doesn't seem to change the good characteristics of the clear such as adhesion, die back or as sprayed gloss. I've mixed this stuff up to 30% with ready to spray clear and the finish coat is noticeably thinner with no negative effects that I can detect. Probably not what one would want to do on a car but for our purposes, it solves a problem.

For those who have asked, automotive clears polish extremely well though if sprayed in a clean environment, the as-sprayed gloss is impressive and usually good to go as is.

 

[Terryscustom]

Terry, I'm not Jetpainter but here is my solution. For the last 16 years or so, I've used the DuPont Chroma paints for my base coat / clear coat though sometimes I just use the clear over other paints. Some years ago and probably due to government intervention, they stopped supplying reducers for these paints though there were alternatives that could be used. On one of the auto body forums, I found a product called Blender (DuPont # 19301S) that is designed to be used to feather clear in an automotive application. It can be mixed with catalyzed clear as a reducer and it doesn't seem to change the good characteristics of the clear such as adhesion, die back or as sprayed gloss. I've mixed this stuff up to 30% with ready to spray clear and the finish coat is noticeably thinner with no negative effects that I can detect. Probably not what one would want to do on a car but for our purposes, it solves a problem.

For those who have asked, automotive clears polish extremely well though if sprayed in a clean environment, the as-sprayed gloss is impressive and usually good to go as is.

Cool, and agree, I've never buffed or polished clear before.

 

[Truckracer]

Terry, what paint brands are you using? Some of the older higher VOC paints (Urethanes) are becoming harder to find and the ones still available seem to constantly change. As a hobby user these days, things can change and become out of date between uses and my leftovers may not be compatible with newer stock. I've tried Nasson, Sikkens and some others but always go back to DuPont (name changing now) for predictable results. Seems many of the auto shops are being pushed to the waterborn products these days. Dang, its all very expensive these days!

I just need to build some warbirds and switch to flat house paint I guess!

 

[Jetpainter]

I use the 19301 Blender all the time. It will thin the clear and works great on airplanes. I would be careful how much you use and how heavily you lay it on, because it's made to melt into the finish your blending. You shouldn't have any issues with it over new paint.

And like Terry said, 2 part primers and clear if you want it to last.

 

[Jetpainter]

If your using Nason 2 part primers, you can also reduce them to make them lay a little smoother. I don't have the number for the reducer in front of me, but I can post it later.

 

[Truckracer]

The first time I used the blender, I quickly noticed it doesn't hang on the surface like straight clear does. It also acts like a high temp reducer and doesn't flash off as quickly as the straight clear does. Flow and open time is excellent.

 

[Terryscustom]

Terry, what paint brands are you using? Some of the older higher VOC paints (Urethanes) are becoming harder to find and the ones still available seem to constantly change. As a hobby user these days, things can change and become out of date between uses and my leftovers may not be compatible with newer stock. I've tried Nasson, Sikkens and some others but always go back to DuPont (name changing now) for predictable results. Seems many of the auto shops are being pushed to the waterborn products these days. Dang, its all very expensive these days!

I just need to build some warbirds and switch to flat house paint I guess!

I use Dupont most of the time but for colors that don't need color matching I use Kustom Shop paints. They have a lot of great base colors, paint is cheap and many times I'll mix and match to make my own colors. Kustom Shop also has a zero VOC reducer that is nice: http://www.tcpglobal.com/Automotive-Paint/Custom-Shop-Automotive-Paint-Colors/

I mostly use Nason 498-00 clear just because it is cheap, easy to work with lays down and holds up very nicely. I am going to try some of the PPG clears this summer though.

 

[Truckracer]

I have an account with TCP Global so will check them out. I used some of the Nason clear with mixed results but that was before I learned the blender trick. It went on slick but dried with a bit of texture that I didn't like. The dealer said I wasn't the first to complain of that. I think I probably used the wrong catalyst and should have used a slower one. I used PPG clear some years ago but the local dealer went away. I liked it then.