QUESTION: What is the best clear you recommend?
You can get the best depending on your budget. So what is your budget? Because you can get the best for under 150 bucks. You can get the best for under 300 bucks but if you’re looking for an overall like medium-grade, good clear coat that I’ve been using. I’ve been using Acme that I get from Sherwin Williams. It’s an Acme brand clear coat really good clear, and it’s about $110 per gallon kit here in Hawaii.
QUESTION: Is Epoxy primer good for going over bare metal that was cleaned up?
Yes, epoxy is good for going over bare metal. Some 2k filler primers like the one I got, you could go over bare metal as well. I’m currently using European genuine coatings, EGC and it says that you can go right over bare metal. If I’m going to go over a large bare metal I’m going to use an epoxy primer and then followed with a 2k filler primer on top of it. You don’t have to sand the epoxy, you can just let that cure let it, set it for 2-3 hours, and then spray your 2k filler primer right on top of it. But if I have small areas, like a little piece of bare metal showing or some edges of a hood or a fender then I’ll just put the 2k right over it with no issues.
QUESTION: Sagging runs. What’s the best method for a clear coat?
You could literally get a razor blade if you have some big drip runs. Make sure it’s dry and give it a good at least two days I would think. Sometimes your cleaning is going to be soft. So if you’re cutting it with a razor blade, just be careful because sometimes as you’re cutting it, you’re literally going to peel off the whole run down to the base coat -that could happen. But on big drips, you can get a brand new razor blade and you can just literally just slide up the panel and just cut them off. Then you can wet sand them down with like 800 grit to get it flat and then you could go down to 1500 – 2000 and buff.
If it’s a darker color that you’re buffing over, you can go down to 2500 to 3000. I normally don’t go down to 3000, 2500 will be my max, but you could go down to 3000 and then buff it out. You can put a light coat of primer over your sag area and your run area and then basically block it out. As you sand you’re going to see the high spots, cut down, and then whatever’s not cut will be low spots and you’ll see the primer as your back layer.
So the idea is to basically block everything out until your primer starts sanding off, that’s when you know you got it pretty flat and you could buff over. Generally, you want to buff over 2000 grit if you’re going over darker colors. You can wash it down a little bit more, go down to 2500 grit even 3000 If you choose to.
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