Customs Candy paint questions...

I know in recent years the traditional silver or gold basecoat, adding pigment in greater quanities to the successive layers of clear has been replaced with some simple base/clear method...but what about doing it the OLD way?

I just haven't seen anything in the past several years painted with the modern technique that had the miles deep look of a traditional candy job...

My choice of color is going to turn some people's stomachs, but oh well...I want to do a candy root beer metalflake. I saw it once on a car in the Kemah/Bacliff area of Texas when I was 5 years old and it stuck with me. Is there a way to do this with paint available today but not with the cheap look of the typical bc/cc job? I would think it would be a simple matter of spraying the base color and using tint in the layers of clear...but I hear rumors that modern clear coats don't hold up well that way?

any thoughts/ideas?

 

I think its more a matter of product availability then anything else. Most Candies done in the 50s,60s were done in Lacquers which gave a different affect then then the Urathanes of today. But having said that I also think that a high quality Urathane candy will out last a Lacquer candy 10 fold.

 

House of Kolor has a Root Beer Kandy.

 

Hey, check out my buddy Brewton's car on my blog linked below or look up his profile.

He used a modern metallic Root Beer with extra Roth flake.

You might want to go the route.

 

I can't seem to get an image to work...urghh....

*Edit: I think it is working now...that's Brewton's paint. You need to see it in real life to really "see it."

 

You need to contact a paint store that will understand what you want your car's paint to look like. Stan Betz has been mixing paint for over fifty years, and can make paint dance! He's in Anaheim, California at the (now) Sherwin Williams store on Katella. Maybe he can help you, or refer you to someone in your neck of the woods that can.
You can't buy generic paint, and expect it to look like a showcar.

 

True kandy is still possible. The challenge is in modern equipment as well as newer mat'ls. A gravity fed HVLP gun puts out so much volume that the successive coats build quicker than you expect. Add to that the required overlap to keep it even, the high-solids nature of the clear, potential 'flow checks' (runs), drying times...you go bro. Big job even for a pro. Kandy Koncentrate by HOK is a good start. Use it sparingly and be prepared to do it twice. They dry pretty dark in urethanes and it's safer to let it dry a day, wet sand complete, then do more until you get to color. This method will keep film build in line. PPG still sells lacquer clear, DCA468 Hi Performance Clear. Transparent tints also. Midas Gold and Rich Brown would make a nice rootbeer color. Lacquer base is also still available.

 

u think that modern kandy jobs dont look the same? thats is crazy! modern candies look wayyyyyyyy better. different color options such as house of kolors metaljuls for a base color that really pops with a kandy over it.

u will get more depth out of a kandy job using a catalyzed kandy such as hok uk kandy. its a kandy in a clear carrier and not a basecoat. with 5 to 8 coats its has alot of depth with the thickness of the paint. it would take a hell of a lot of lacquer to get that thick.

and what rumors are u talking about? most paint companies dont warranty paint thats over 7 mils thick, and a normal kandy paint job will get well over 10 up to 15. thats y house of kolors is warrantied up to 15mils. not to mention the most uv protection out of any of the refinish clears.


and to your first statement... how is a base/clear job easy then lacquer? and since when has doing a kandy over silver,gold or any other base with transparent layers over the top changed?

 

Nuff said!

 

I used to shoot a lot of the old Kandy's, Metalflake brand and such. Then I shot the PPG single stage stuff, can't remember the name, the new HOK urethanes are a walk in the park in my estimation. The newer Kandy's look outstanding I think. I don't miss the lacquers.

 

hok the only way to go

 

Root beer candy is one of my favorite colors but have not seen much of it since the mid 80's. The new candys are great and much easier to do a nice paint job today than the past and they will easily out last the old.
Hok And Sem both have a good root beer consentrate. I'd Put it in a gold or puter base and then flake it in silver it you realy want your flake to pop or the other way around if you want to tone down the flake. Large flake is still hard to spray but there is the med size flake that can be sprayed fairly easily. Do yourself a favor and do a few test pannles before you do the whole car and keep good records of what you did to get the color and affect you real like. Keep us posted on any progess

 

I have a drum drum set in burgandy sparkle... or as people usually refer to it... root beer sparkle. Nice color.... I get many compliments on my drums...

 

Man, that is gorgeous!

Thank's y'all for all the input, I plan on doing a lot of test panels...maybe lightbulbs like they did way back

I get a good discount where I work, we use PPG and Deltron, and I could pretty much mix any color I want, but I've not found anything in our color samples that really moved me...other than the "antifreeze green," I might use that on something else.

The first half of my double major when I earned my AAS degree was earned in auto body/refinishing, and I've done plenty of blend jobs and all over jobs in production shops, so I have SOME experience with spray patterns, overlap, ambidextrious spraying so maybe I can pull this off.

Right now I'm doing the firewall and inner fenders in the last of my black lacquer I had left...USED TO BE that my cars were clean enough to eat off of, I've been in a slump for a few years, but that's over.

Thanks again, every one of y'all!

Mark

 

LoL, it's okay, my psychiatrist thinks I'm nuts too

 

Using production colors, chances are you won't get half the depth desired. When a kustom finish is wanted, a brand dedicated to kustom finishes is required. The only thing that might help you in PPG is their Vibrance line. I don't know if you'll get the same discounts though because it is a different line altogether, but its woth a look. You'll need the discount though, the prices in that line are astronomical.

 

the old school radiance toners are cool.

but ppgs candies all together are so so. plus, i dont think they will warranty a paint job of that thickness.

house of kolor, complete from the epoxy primer to clear, would be cheaper then ppgs system. and is still the best candy system out there. i will put sem in as number 2.

 

u do some very clean kandies. like the candy red black widow merc. awesome chops btw too.

 

I'm a fan of HOK, it's a damn good product..

I think candy root beer will look sick on that '73 Impala on 32's your building...

 

donkalicious.

 

I do LOTS of candy work, and I'd add to the HOK supporters. HOK has candies in both lacquer and urethane. Lacquer WILL look much better, more depth, but is also more fragile, and you'll have to do more coats. Urethane is VERY tough and will last as long as a regular paint job, even though it's a lot thicker, as has been mentioned.
Just a couple things for you to consider...Candy looks great, but if you even get a dent., or have to do any repair work it is VERY difficult tt get right. Most people will say you can't touch it up, you have to repaint. Not entirely true, but it is VERY hard to touch up.
From all the painters I know, Green and RootBeer are the toughest candies to paint right. There are tricks to make it a bit easier, but they are still tough, even if you are a decent candy painter (NO it's NOT like painting regular paint! Most good painters I know can't paint candy right, I should know, I've fixed a lot of their work...it takes a special technique to do it, and perfect gun control and discipline)
It's expensive to buy the paint, so if you're not a good painter, it's going to be an expensive lesson, if you mess it up. But I have known good painters who've got it right the first tiem. I'd recommend getting Kosmoski's video on painting candy and watch it about 5 times!
If you just want the color, but not the true depth, use HOK's Kandy basecoat system. You can also "jazz" the KBC up a bit by putting real candy over it (same color) and it's not as difficult as doing a "real" candy job. I'd add a TINY amount of micro flake into the first coat or 2 of the real candy if you do this, and you'll get more of a true candy glitter effect, (the KBC is based on colored pearls, not metallics) besides the added depth.
As SIk said...Metajules give a SUPER sparkley base to candy, but it's very expensive..like 130 a quart (?).

 

+100

 

i still disagree that a lacquer kandy, will have more depth then a house of kolor uk kandy. u will get about 5 to 8 mils just in the kandy. with laq it would be ALOT of coats to get that thick. not to mention the stability issue.

house of kolor doesnt still make laquer kandy per say... as much as they still sell the lacquer clear. mixed with the kk kocentrates, then u would have the kandy.

 

I'm gonna stick by what I said...lacquer has more depth. And there used to be other brands of candy other than HOK. In the shop where i was taught custom paint, John used to use Metalflake brand candy. Unbelievable depth! Look into a can of HOK candy urethane. Most colors, you can't see the bottom of the can. All the old Metalflake candies you could.
John even had a gallon of Cal Custom Candy Apple Red lacquer.....you could see bottom in that! I believe it was nitrocellulose lacquer.
No it wasn't very practical, and VERY fragile. also tended to fade badly in the sun, but you couldn't beat the look of a real Candy lacquer job...ask any old timer!

 

ive seen metal flake candies. the old type, and they still make metalfake. i wasnt impressed.

hok stock mix on the uks is strong. u can "let down" the kandy with some uc35 to make a weaker mix. but for a deep look in the kandy its gunns take the mill thickness to give it the layers. thats y if u take a red candy with a silver or gold base shoot 10 coats over it, compared to taking a red metallic base and shooting just a couple. it will be about the same shade but the gold or silver based red will have more depth.

im not denying that say a nitro-lac black will kill a black bc/cc or ss urethane. that has alot to do with being able to get a laquer flatter then a uro. but in a candy, like with a urethane hok uk kandy, will beat a lacquer metalflake candy.

 

Fuckin eh, right. The thing with the lacquer is that it can be flattened out to the max with no 'cellulite' like urethanes have. Yes there's downsides to the old stuff but PPG still makes the same formula lacquer clear for near 30yrs and is still their standard that they're trying to get out of the urethanes. Their "Velocity" line 4000 clear isn't bad, good and hard, a bitch to buff, blah, blah, blah...

 

Wild Cherry on a 51 Buick today.... over black for the body and gold.

 

Let's see some pics! That's a color you don't see a lot of...I don't know why, I love it! (though I'd probably put it over silver, so you don't lose any of the purple tone)

 

If you're talking about factory colors, there's a specific reason that the tri-stage "candy" colrs aren't nearly as glamorous as "real" candy paint. It's called "paint match".

Alot of the tri-stage colors cheat, and have pearl (mica) added to the translucent color coat which gives it a certain amount of opacity and makes it less challenging to spray.
Also may have flatteners- both help the color dry evenly over the base metallic coat.

Real candy colors aren't focused around matching an existing color on a factory car, so you can build layers of pure translucent color over the metallic base.

 

my wife wants candy apple eggplant ,, with at least 3 different colors of pearl ghost flames...it's going on my '48 dodge 4 door choptop...she saw the car/project and told me i could buy it if it was painted her way....
and i didn't even ask her if i could yet!!!
going to have to do it the old way... things just don't look like they used to...
and 'OVER GOLD "of course!!!