urethane clear over lacquer color coat?

What is the point of the black single stage? This bizarre mixing of various top coats, primers and material types seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

 

i don't know dude, sounds like WAY to much material to me. i guess i really don't understand why you would paint single stage black and then sand and buff it, then put red epoxy primer over that. that makes no sense at all. why dont you just put down the red epoxy over the primer and trace coat it and block that? then you can put your red lacquer over the epoxy. 2 or 3 coats of tinted clear and 2 coats untinted clear is enough. unless you have a booth with a bake cycle, i think your setting yourself up for a long and maybe disappointing end result. you really need to cut back on the amount of material your using.

 

I'm concerned this is a lot of material also.
The point of the SS first is for me to be sure it's as straight as can be or I can get it.
I'd hate to find a little ripple or twist after it starts turning black from the candy.
Maybe fellas who are more experienced can get it off of guide coat but I'm not sure I can.

 

And then if it isn't straight after the SS base you are going to go back to step 1 over top of the wavy SS base adding another layer of material?

You really need to figure out a way to get step 1 straight. I would hate to see you go to all this trouble and expense to see your paint job start to delaminate because you have too much and too many different types of product on it.

 

I have a logistics issue with the 1st couple steps. Something seems redundant, and I'm not being insulting. No matter what you do, you'll need a fully cured 2 part "foundation", be it surfacer, epoxy, basecoat, and yes even SS opaques. There are Polyurethanes and Acrylic Urethanes. To get to the least amount of mil thickness and a perfect Black base to start from the "red out", a better investment in labor and mat'l would be Catalyzed Base Coat. You also eliminate the danger of contamination caused by a full cut and buff, not to mention the fucking mess of it all cleaning up. And the shop environment gets trashed too so there's that aggravation. Do you smell what I'm steppin in?

Sand and surface your black basecoat all the way to 2000. You'll read the surface just fine. Lay down the occasional incandescent bulb and make bright reflection of the shop in the car surface. I'd do both clear topcoats to a minimum of a 1500 surface in between each to perfect the base as you go and keep film build down. Does this make sense? 3 stages over a black base is common practice, but yours is unique in the base color mat'l. You already figured that out.

 

I follow you,
Waves sounds like such a drastic word to describe the slightest imperfections I'm going after. the black primer looks great while wet, it really does. Problem is I can't see it like that from more than ten feet away, or outside, or with house siding reflected In it, or on a walk around or any of the other stuff we do while eye balling a black paint job.

I don't think I'll need to go back to step one and add material. The SS might maybe need some spot vs even wet sanding with paint sticks at 1000 grit to perfect the surface. Very Worst case that I actually see is another coat of SS wet sanded to even things out far beyond the good enough level.

Maybe it's a confidence thing but as you are worried that step 2 may lead back to step one , I'm worried step 8 brings me back to step 2.


Now don't forget my question was about DBC 500 instead of the SS and epoxy.

 

did it on my '39 Ford in the mid-80's. still on there. house of color candy brandywine over gold base with centari urethane clear on top. it's fading, but it has been on there a while...

 

thats how harley davidson did my 1988 fxrs from the factory,so it does work and is resistent to fuel spills,

 

Cool thanks Highlander !

Any suggestion for a "Catalyzed Base Coat" for me to use instead of the Catalyzed SS I was planning on using?

Thoughts on my DBC 500 idea ?

Thoughts on the red tinted epoxy under the red lacquer?

Thoughts on red lacquer directly over the Canalized Base Coat you are talking about.

I hear you on the cut & rub redundancies and mess.

 

What if you used a Red basecoat to block out so you wouldn't have to go back over it with the epoxy. It seems by putting down primer then base and then primer again you are kind of going backwards a step and adding an unneeded coat or tint the DBC red if you were going to use that instead of the SS.

 

That's an idea , but I am wanting to see the surface in shiny black and perfected before hand . Maybe I'm overthinking this but here's where things get goofy for me ..... I am aiming for perfect finish or at least something way better than good enough.

The red epoxy was the buffer ( maybe unneeded) for the lacquer - so it wouldn't lift the SS.
If I do with DBC , it would go clear right on my black primer and the lacquer on top of that .
Remember my question, DBC Under the lacquer- it wouldn't be both.

Lets just say this was going plain old black.
Shoot the base - shoot the clear now it's shiny black. You can see any problems and easily fix them at that time if you need to. No problems then continue on.

My situation is I won't get to see it shiny black until I have it red with maybe 6-8 coats of black candy on it . I damn sure don't want to find anything At that point that i can't live happily with.

Now another reason for the SS in black first is because that will be the cut in color, black.

 

I guess I am just not getting what kind of flaws you are expecting to find that you think you are going to be able to fix with base coat. It has very little film build.

 

I probably couldn't fix them with base coat.
I probably couldn't see them any better with base coat than I could with sanded primer .

That's exactly why I thought the shiny SS would help in both of those areas.
Higher mill thickness,
Higher reflectivity so I can see what I can't feel.
A perfected surface to put the red onto is what I want

 

Block your black primer up to6-800, or even 1000. Dry it off(assuming wet sanding), then spray a mist coat of wax and grease remover on the panel and walk around and look at it. The solvent mimics a thin coat of clear, and if you use the slow drying version(like DX440) it will stay wet long enough to let you see what you have.
As for your 500 question.....don't make me a liar--I don't know

 

Catalyzed basecoat will be stable under the lacquer you want for your 1st layer. It'll also be "deeper" in color (no, black isn't black isn't black) to get the richness you're seeking. After your red base you may wish to use the 500 as a "bonding clear" to seal that lacquer so it doesn't "move around" as you apply your 1st tinted clear coats. Experiment on that, but reduce the 500 so film build is minimized. Worst case scenario, apply a couple coats of 500 and surface it, but that concept scares me some. Straight DBC might craze but it might not. I'd say fuck it and "seal" my red base with 1 coat of your final clear, surfaced to 1000 before the 2-3 tinted coats. There's already more sanding here than most have the will to do, but your success in this will indeed be SURFACE QUALITY. Just sayin...

 

Thanks -
I'm not scared of sanding - not that I like it very much but not scared

This :
I'd say fuck it and "seal" my red base with 1 coat of your final clear, surfaced to 1000 before the 2-3 tinted coats.

Brings us full circle right back to the original question in the 1st post on this thread .

 

Lunch break at the ix center piston power show.
Lots of nice cars beautiful !!!
They also have the ripples and twists ,
Reflection of the ropes in quarters have the slight ripples
These are show cars , garage queens

 

Didn't we come to the conclusion it would be ok? Now that I see it, see the effect, I have a better handle on it. In the part you quoted (the I'd say fuck it part), the plan there is to create a catalyzed and stable base for your tinted and final clears. Your black tint wont find any place to soak your red base and make weirdness in the flop later. You can also manage film build (broken record, I know) layering and surfacing. Even if you broke through the black a simple spot in and your still going. No resand on "red day" needed. Then you can lock all of that up with the 1-2 straight clears and sand it within an inch (a mil) of it's life then go for it. All in you'll be about 20-25 mills before final sanding and might remove 6-10 by the time it's all surfaced. 20 and under is good for kustom finishes. It's not like it's gonna spend 40hrs a week in the parking lot, is it?

 

Just to bring this into a little more detail , I'm going to talk about what I saw and used to see. Used to be s don't count but they add to life's experiences. At one time I had a black 66 goat, it was deemed to have a perfect or nearly perfect finish by every car show judge that ever looked at it. It would always place at shows, even the rigged ones. Best paint at quite a few too. I drove the shit out of it, ran it hard and had a lot of fun with it. That said I know how to look at this stuff. I didn't do the body work or spray the paint on it. But what I got back was a centari black orange. This was known what I'd get back before and the final finish was my responsibility. Body man shot 2 extra coats so there would be plenty of paint to perfect the reflection. All me on that end of it and there were places that needed "blocking" flat . We are talking about minor stuff here to take it to the next level. I'm more than reasonably certain the buffed surface was perfect and also more than reasonably certain that the mills thickness of paint to the primer surface varied greatly. Once complete it stayed that way for 18 years that I owned it.

Car shows bring a lot of stuff to the floor, the big ones bring in some really nice stuff. High dollar, don't dare drive it, probably never been started kinda stuff.
There's exquisite drivers, survivors, fresh but destined to be drivers, and some stuff that you'd see at Walmart.

This was a big ( million square feet) indoor show.

I'm extremely picky on this stuff and probably over critical because these really are very very nice cars , beautiful paint jobs, right color and any human would be proud to own them and gear heads would give a left nut to own it. Curvy sexy blingy shiny paint fancy lights mirrors and everything cars. No expense was spared kind of stuff. ( There were a handful or two of cars there that were perfect or without visual flaws that we could spot scattered around the place)

But walking around them i can see plain as day these bobbles In the reflections on the cars. Some you have to catch at the right angle but some just show up by looking. My girl asked me what I was looking at and she thought I was nuts. Then I taught her how to " look" and what to look for in about 2 mins. She can spot this stuff now like a pro. I know the pros can spot it from outer space on a buffed surface.

So how is it that the pro paint and body guys missed it in primer ? If they tried the wax and grease remover trick it clearly didn't work well enough.
How or why didn't they fix their 10,20,30,80, 150 thousand dollar finish job when they finally did see it ? Remains a mystery and probably involves integrity???

Maybe the body work moved around after they finished it ??

This is why I want to paint it black in SS early in the process and make sure my final finish doesn't have any of that stuff. I don't want to find it after 8 coats of candy!!! I know I'll be able to see it and that's what matters to me.

 

I get it. For the record, I'm replying often because I have interest in this phase of anything from bikes to classics of 6-7figure values. When you do this a lot, create a PERFECT SURFACE you tend to train yourself into some do n don't habits. Configuration of the parts, multiple surfacing operations, knowing where it doesn't matter how hard you work at it. The biggest issue I take doing any of mine is mil thickness. The less there is the longer it lasts. There's no debate there. This includes fillers, corrosion resistance, all of it. Then there's the evil solvent penetration that will disrespect your work like a ghetto criminal when you least expect it.

We spoke earlier about over thinking things. Sometimes you'll lose sight of the goal if it goes on too long. My way of doing things has been met with resistance over the years by many a self-proclaimed "pro" and amateur alike. Most of it is either why bother or "...and I was told that...". Results are hard to argue though. If you really need to cut and polish a SS black finish, go for it. Be prepared to remove a substantial amount of it before you go for the final though. Even if you break through, a quick spot in for color is all you need.

As to why show cars have that "thing" in it? Discipline and knowledge. Foose's "Impression" still impressed me last week. Still as flawless a finish as anyone could ask for. Discipline at it's finest. The last thing I can say about it, usually it's a seasoned finisher or educated consumer that sees what you (and I) see. Like it or not, paint is the least respected task of any type build. Do it long enough in enough venues and you'll see it too. A finisher's most hated question, "You can just touch this up, right?". As if you just fizz on some paint and go about your day. If they only knew...

 

This conversation has really evolved(devolved?)...You know what you want, and the only way to get there is do what you're comfortable with to get there. If you have to finish SS black to "see" your foundation, then that's what ya gotta do. I can't do perfect work for several reasons(eyesight, age, motivation, time, expense, ROI, etc)--I try to do them all to my personal standard, when warranted(i.e., somebody's paying me to)...and they all end up about the same, regardless. To my personal standard. Oh yeah, there's guys out there that do perfect regularly, like Alloway's crew, or Charley Hutton, and they have a formula they follow--and they get paid well for their efforts.Odds are, you look long enough, you'll find something that looks questionable with what they do, too. In your case, it's a labor of love and a personal standard, and nobody can tell you the shortcut to get there. You just gotta do what you gotta do.
I gave up on 'perfect' because there's so much going on that can wreck it even when you get there--film build, heat expansion of weld thickness or panel overlap, ghosting of repairs and heat sinking from inner panels and braces, shrinkage of substrates....it goes on and on. It is what it is--it might look flawless from 359 angles, but one degree of difference with the right light and it's flawed.
I personally think you're overthinking it---the samples you've shown of the color flop(impressive, btw) are going to severely outweigh any slight wave or ripple that might show itself after the fact. Do your best, and enjoy it.

 

Overthinking = OCD