There have been a few posts on how to achieve satin finishes, but I feel compelled to start a new thread. My PPG guy suggested DX685 flattening agent. Let me be blunt. Do not use this product ever.... Not unless you want to ruin your day, be late on jobs, waste material, and generally loose your gentlemanly demeanor. I have no idea why PPG sells this crap. You have to mix it at twice the spec to get it to do anything close to going satin. The real stinker is that it is way, way, way too sensitive to how much material is put down. Too much material, it goes glossy. Too little, it has a texture like overspray. I need Goldilocks..... Just Right, this stuff aint Goldilocks... Now, I finally got wise and checked in with my pro-painter buddies. They recommended DCU2060 Flex 'N' Flat (the same stuff my PPG guy told me NOT to use!). I have no idea why PPG sells DX685, when they have Flex'N'Flat. The Flex 'N' Flat product is GREAT! Completely forgiving to variations in process. The more you put on, the more consistent the finish and gloss/flattness. I made some test panels to validate the ratios and played around with the amount of material put on. I tried everything from a really light orange-peely coat to a "'bout to fall on the floor" coat. I force-dried the samples with DCX61 hardener and they both flowed out great. The flatness was consistent with both, but the consistency of finish was better with the heavy coat. This is another huge distinction relative to the DX685 product. The parts I was shooting had a lot of shapes that forced more coverage on certain areas. Those areas would gloss up heavy and the other parts would go satin. The forgiving quality of the Flex'N'Flat allowed the part to be completely consistent. Anyway - I had such a disasterous time with the DX684, that I really felt like I needed to comment. Particularly, when PPG sells a product that does what we need it to do with zero drama. Other guys on the HAMB have suggested it, so here's another testimonial!
good info..... the problem with most paint reps they do not believe in cross mixes or thinking outside the box, almost nothing in the custom paint way is straight forward and the coolest effects have almost always come from a mistake. test panels or always the best and the experiments that go wrong sometimes turn out to be just what your looking for, the mad scientist painters and pussing the envelope will always help to further the custom paint techniques. generally if the rep says it won't work, why always come to mind and a new experiment needs to be undertaken. just because its in tec sheet or the engineers say so, does not make it written in stone.
Its funny to me that I don't know any paint reps that paint. I know not one. Thanks for the info.......well written.
I have had the same experience with DX685. First coat looked great and I was really excited with the look I got. For good measure and consistant coverage I applied a second coat and it went glossy on me! Rather than start over I've learned to live with it, for now anyway.
The DX685 is used in the mixing process of a lot of PPG colors to get the metallic and pearls to sparkle right. It doesn't work very well when doing flattened colors. They actually have a new flattening agent part number SU4985 that works really good in clears and top coats. The DCU2060 also works really good.
I've used the DX685 mixed in DC4000 clear. While it was really delicate on how you mix/spray it, I had no problems with it as a product. I followed the recommended ratios for the desired level of gloss anf got even coverage throughout the pieces. This was a set of bike tins so it did have nooks and crannies, etc. I have heard of the go to being the DCU2060 and using the DX685 to vary the gloss beyond that, but haven't tried it as of it. Glad to see another testimony that it is good stuff because I wasn't super happy with the DX685 on its own.
We use DCU2021 exclusively at my shop. It's not cheap, but the trouble and time it saves makes it worth it. As to the ratio question - I used 100 parts DCU to 35 parts FlexNFlat. You really need to try different ratios on test panels and season to taste. Everyone has their own definition of what "satin" is. As to the spray gun question earlier in the thread: I am kind of embarassed to answer it...... My good SATA gun stopped working, so in an act of despiration I ran to Harbor Freight and got a cheap HVLP gun........... Shockingly, the thing actually worked pretty darn good. Then again, Aston Martin has their crank shafts made in China now, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised............
in my opinion when you do a suede paint job with flatner in the clear ( dont care what brand you use ) to me it looks like a crapy paint job. suede jobs look there best when its just a base coat with alot of pearls in it alot of ppg's base coats lay down shinny but not all.the 40 chevy we did was ppg. ive had best results with RM & H O K. its the perals that make a kick ass suede job.
theres nothing wrong with mixing flattner in the clear if u know how to treat it. flattned mixed clears can be a pita. its basically spraying a candy. but ive had great results with them. ive used alot of matrix msv 21 with there mx85 flattner (which is just a copy of ppg as is the rest of matrix.) and its came out fine. i did mechannically aggitate the flattner for a few mins before hand. and triple strained it.
One of the drawbacks of using flattner in clear is the more you wash it the shinier it gets and dont even think of trying to rub something off of it as it will go shiny on you,quick.
I know one guy that WAS a painter....he got to fat and old so now he works as a rep....I'm old and fat but I'm not a muffler rep.
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