posted
Hi I have a helmet to paint and decided to use metal flake on some areas.I have never used it before but i figure as good a time as any. I ordered the flake, along with it came the spec sheet which tells you to mix the flakes with a base binder/colour less basecoat, then it mentions mixing the flakes with clearcoat. So is there a difference? which gives the best finish?
posted
When I spray metalflake, I mix it with House of Kolor SG-100, which is just an intercoat clear or binder, and reduce it til it 'feels' thin enough to spray. I'd also devote a gun to nothing BUT metalflake, because this stuff stays with you a while.
My experience with mixing it in actual activated clearcoat is that, somehow, the flakes will get pushed to the surface. This may not be true with all clears, though. I use DuPont 7600 (whatever they call it now).
Also, if you spray it with a binder first, you can just lay straight clear over your flake, and when you sand, you're not likely to 'move' the flakes because they are all buried. It's like using pearls, just really BIG pearls. And spray a similar color underneath. The big flakes leave lots of 'holidays' that you can see the groundcoat through. Even if you dump multiple coats, it still seems to show.
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