Found a 20 year old trick for blending metallic paint that actually saved my bacon

Got a 2018 silver Honda Accord in the shop last Tuesday with a nasty scrape on the rear quarter. Spent two hours mixing and spraying test cards and nothing matched right, the flake just laid down weird. Then I remembered an old timer I used to work with back in 2003 in Toledo, he always told me to spray a light dust coat of clear before the final color pass on metallics. Tried it on a scrap panel and it settled the flake perfectly, blended right into the factory paint without any tiger stripes. Anyone else ever use that trick or am I just behind the times?

2 comments

2 Comments

emmaj3326d ago

That's actually called a "sealer coat" and has been standard practice since the 80s.

dakota_nelson4326d ago

Nah hold on I gotta push back on that. A light dust coat of clear before the color pass sounds like a recipe for adhesion problems down the road. That sealer coat trick works fine on a fresh panel in a booth, but on a 6 year old car with factory clear that's already baked on, you're basically laying color on top of a super thin layer of clear that might not even bond right. I've seen guys do that and get peeling or fisheyes a year later when the sun hits it hard. Better to just thin your basecoat a little more and do extra light passes from different angles to get the flake to lay flat.