I recently sprayed a car with PPG DelFleet flat black. Seemed to be good stuff that sprayed good and flowed out nicely with minimum orange peel. I noticed tiger striping after painting it. The next morning after it cured it was even more noticeable. After noticing it after the first coat I went from a 50% overlap to a 75% overlap and still had the same results. I am using a DeVilbiss GTI gun, 1.4 tip and 17lbs of pressure at the inlet with a shooting distance of approx 8" from the panel. Any help is appreciated
What temperature is your booth at ? Save yourself some $$ next time and use SPI Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The booth is my garage which was approx 75* at the time. I used the slow activator seeing that it was for an overall finish. I've sprayed several cars with HotRod Flatz with great results even though I've been told that it was difficult to work with. After painting I went to the Finish Master where I had bought it and asked if they ever had striping issues with this paint. His reply was that it was common for that to happen. After going over my technique which he said was done correctly he just said that. "It's tricky paint to shoot" WTF?!?!
I am guessing it was a moisture issue. What was the humidity like? Do you have any kind of heat exchanger in your air line between you compressor and line to your gun? Black seems to be the worst for this problem.
I have used Delfleet single stage gloss with excellent results-in my un-temperature controlled garage. I personally thought the paint sprayed good and was easy to work with.
I have used Delfleet in my un controlled garage environment also and just jambed my Coupe in Ember Red with it. GREAT STUFF!!! Closest thing us Canadians can get to Du Pont Centari single stage which is still the best-an most period correct looking paint both in finish and color match.
I couldn't tell you what the exact humidity was. I do know that I have painted many times even when it was raining outside with great results. It's safe to say that spraying a flat is more difficult than a standard color or clear. I just need suggestions on what I'm doing incorrectly with this flat paint versus other flat paint which worked fine for me.
Check your spray pattern. Real easy to get it heavy on the top and bottom when shooting flat materials. Also, and it seems counter intuitive, bump your pressure up just a bit to atomize the material better. It's going to count on your application vs flow out like gloss materials do. Last but not least, CHEAT! Well, it's not really cheating, but twist your air cap 90deg for each coat and spray it on in a crisscross pattern, one side to side in the usual position, one up n down turned 90deg. You could also do a "flow coat" where you reduce it more on the last pass and help the layers blend into each other.
I used that ppg AUE I think it was in there industrial line. I found after cross coating and a little over reduction on the last coat was a good baking in the sun. Seemed to help fade out the zebra stripes a bit. But it was a tuff run to get it right. I almost want to say that where my filters come into the booth (on ceiling) made the trunk lock up to quick and striped it out. So you may want to cut your air flow down if you can or move parts away from the air flow if that makes sense. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Spray gun set up , air pressure, and technique are all causes of modeling or " zebra stripes". Practice a bit before ya hit the car.
I'm happy to report that I reshot the car with much better results. The only noticeable things that I changed were..... -bumping up the air pressure from 17 to 20lbs at the gun -today there seem to be way less humidity than the previous week that I shot it last. I appreciate everyone's suggestions & input. I just knew that there was trouble to be had when the main FinishMaster counter guy said that it was common to have this type of paint to tiger stripe
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