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It’s Tony. Thank you for watching the video and checking out the blog today. Our topic is Spraying Automotive Clear Coat Over 2 Tone Green & Gold Base Coat.
In the last episode, what we did is finish off our base coat, which is the green and gold. We also laid our decals. Now, we’re taking off our decals to reveal the gold base coat that we laid underneath.
I’m going around the car to take off the decals, tack the whole car down and get ready for clear coat. It takes a while to do this. I think it took me about 30 to 40 minutes just to take all the decals off.
You need to be careful in doing this. Grab it with your razor blade and peel off the edge without scratching the paint. You also have to be slow, you can’t rush this and risk messing up your paint job.
I didn’t want the gold band to go all the way into the fender well, so I decided to do feathering with the green.
I put a little bit of green base coat in my Warwick 878SHE, which is a great mini spray gun.
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I’m blending our green here to give it a custom look. I decided to go into the Mazda a little bit more and do a little bit of paint spray graphic look. I went too much with it though, regretted and wished that I could have stopped earlier, but it turned out nice anyways. It doesn’t look that bad after all.
Now, we’re going to mix up our clear coat. Remember the directions are always at the back of the can. Sometimes it’s a 2:1 mixture and sometimes a 4:1 mixture, which is four parts clear coat and one part hardener.
Sometimes it’s a 4:1:1 which is four parts clear coat, one part hardener and one part reducer, so just refer to the directions on the can. Right now, we’re using the House of Kolor clear coat. It came out really well.
We want to make sure that we’re spraying at a wide open fan, wide open fluid flow. That’s the gun setting that you want. We want to spray with 29-30 psi to get good atomization.
I’m backing up the material flow there and want full material flow. I usually go all the way wide open and turn the knob just a quarter.
I started on the passenger roof rail then working my way around to the passenger door. Then, I’m going to work my way around the hood and go around the car that way, panel by panel.
I’m making sure it’s laying on nice and thick, taking my time and not doing a dry coat. I’m doing two heavy coats.
Don’t be afraid to lay your clear coat. It’s always better to have a little more than not enough of clear. I did add a little bit of silver micro sequence flake to this clear coat, so it’s going to pop when the sun hits it. Check out the video as I demonstrate to you how I do it.
We’re now doing our second coat of clear. We’re hitting that roof rail. I’m going to hit the door and then around to the fender, the hood, the front bumper cover and just go around the car. Always hit your wheel wells and don’t miss it.
I’m about four to six inches away. It just looks really close. Remember to use the light and make sure that we’re laying on glossy.
If you’re doing a custom job, you’re going to let it cure for a couple of days before wet sanding it with 1000-grit. Then, lay an additional two coats of clear on it, if that’s something that you want to do. Although two heavy coats of clear is more than enough paint. You’ll have enough room to color sand and buff or Pro Gloss.
We let it cure for about an hour and a half to two hours. It’s a perfect timing and enough time to start taking off your masking tape at that point. If you wait too long and wait until the next day, you’ll have the risk of peeling some of your paint off, some of your molding areas because it’s just set too much.
Then, let it cure overnight. I put in another 8-hour day today. The paint job is done. It came out pretty good. You can see in the video how it looks.
I think we have a few areas we can do color sand and buffing to really make it pop. Maybe do the whole hood. There is a little bit of orange peel, but it laid on really nice.
That’s how it looks with the fade. The body work on the rear trunk came out really nice. I can probably water sand then buff out the trunk to pop a little more.
It’s Tony of LearnAutoBodyAndPaint. I hope you enjoyed this series. For the complete step-by-step videos of the Mazda Miata Project, check out the LearnAutoBodyAndPaint VIP Course.
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Cheers! Talk soon!
Tony
Other Helpful Links:
Spraying Automotive Base Coat Paint
How To Color-Sand and Buff Clear Coat To Get PRO Mirror Finishes!
NEVER Tack Between Clear Coats! Mixing & Spraying Automotive Clear Coat