| Author | Message | ||
     Psykick_machanik |
Has anyone shot metal flake? I'm getting ready to shoot some metal flake on a Harley and am wondering if anyone here has any tips or hard learned lessons. (Blue flake on white base.) I've watched some youtube clips and it looks pretty straight forward but still nervous, id rather not mess it up and start over. | ||
| Sifo |
It's been a long time, and paints have changed drastically since then, but I don't think it's going to be all that different. If you are talking "bass boat" flakes you may want to test if the flakes will flow through your nozzle. Smaller flakes shouldn't be a problem for most nozzles. It never hurts to do some testing with any new paint setup though. A paint gun with that stirs the paint while spraying is best, but few have that. Toss in some large ball bearings, or marbles to help agitate the paint while spraying. Roll them around frequently. I also learned to tie a rag on to the paint cup, right around the seal. It will catch any drips if the seal leaks, or if the breather hole in the top leaks any. After you shoot the flake, it's not going to be a nice smooth finish. It will have to be buried in clear coat. That used to take a lot of coats of lacquer, but shouldn't be too bad with today's paints. I would probably shoot a couple of coats of clear right after the last coat of flake. Let that set over night or longer. Then wet sand it to get it nice and flat. Be real careful to not over sand it, especially near edges, body lines, or any high spots that are easy to over sand. Then shoot another couple of coats of clear to get the final finish. Lastly, POST PICTURES! | ||
| 86129squids |
OK, just hit the "easy" button and give Vern a holler (etennuly). He can advise on whatever you need done- he did the paint/bodywork on my Triumph Sprint ST and converted it from stock red to British Racing Green, looks pretty sano now! (Of course, a requirement is once you're done, you'll have to ride the bike down here so we can see it, and take it through the mountains!) | ||
| Etennuly |
If you can afford it practice on something else like a junk tank, this is not a cheap exercise. You want to practice on something with similar shape to see and feel how it will go to the surface. I haven't done it in years. I don't know if it will work with a gravity feed gun. With a suction gun you need agitators(a couple 1/2" nuts) in the bottom of the cup and constant shaking to keep the flakes in suspension. Your base color is important to how light and color reflects back at you, flake build up needs to be even and you will have to try it one layer at a time to see how much base color you want to show up through the flakes. It will take a lot of clear coat. Using a cheap clear for deep build up is usually not a good idea. I would use a "high solids" clear, putting on like two or three coats, wait a day, sand it and repeat until flakes are covered and the surface is smooth, then give it a few days and start buffing. Watch those videos several times before you start. | ||
| Psykick_machanik |
thanks for the good advice and i will post pix when im done, well, only if it looks decent. I was curious about using a gravity gun but haven't seen or heard it so i figured there was a good reason to not to. I have a non HVLP siphon gun to use and hope the tip is large enough for the .015 flake. Ive got a front fender to practice on and allot of Prism clear to use. The flake should be here in a few days, weather permitting, then its time to dive in and see what happens. "Easy button"?!?!?! if it was easy, pilots would be doing it. (hehe) nice thought tho, and as far as a ride south...the plan is to get two buddies and i south next summer to the Buell meet up in Colorado. | ||
| 86129squids |
"South" to the Buell meet in CO? Ummm, didn't catch you're waaaay up there in Moose country. Oh well. I've read some neat things about how ginormous garden vegetables can get in the AK growing season, post up pics of that if you bother to do a garden. Good luck with the paint! | ||
| No_rice |
the last metal flake paint i messed with required a special gun with a stirrer in the reservoir and a big nozzle all to help flow the flake through. | ||
| Akbuell |
A friend did his pan head years ago; while self-taught his chopper was 'color of the week' so he painted a fair amount. When he did do a metalflake job, he used a siphon gun, and did a paint with big flakes. Ended up doing the job more than once, as the initial coat was really foggy, so it looked like not much was on, so he ended up putting on too much paint, which sagged/ran. Guess there was a fair amount of air in the paint as applied. So yeah, practice sounds like a good idea. Hope this helps, Dave | ||
| Sifo |
Ended up doing the job more than once, as the initial coat was really foggy, so it looked like not much was on, so he ended up putting on too much paint, which sagged/ran. Fogging like that used to be a problem with lacquer paint in higher heat and humidity. You had to use a slower drying thinner to prevent that. I'm not sure if today's paint has that sort of issue or not. I've only done a hand full of paint projects in recent years. I'll take modern paint over anything I sprayed as a painter in the early 80s though. There's nothing to be ashamed of shooting something for practice. Top painters will do that when trying something new. I used to do it when shooting candy or pearl paint, unmasking a new area for each coat so you could get an idea of how it looks after x number of coats. | ||
| Etennuly |
I did a red and silver bass boat back in the early 90's that I had acquired. It had really low hours and was faded from six years in the Florida sun. Faded to cracking clear coat and really looking like crap. It cost me more money for black base, red flake, several gallons of really good urethane clear, lots of finish sand papers and compound, than what I paid for the boat and trailer. Then I invested probably at least sixty hours. I had a really great looking low hours boat, but altogether I could have bought a new two year old left over boat from a dealer for what I ended up having in it. Or.....I should have painted it white with stripes!  I bet I have at least one estimate per year for the past twenty years, for flake paint jobs. Cars, boats, bikes and pickups. I have not done one since before that boat in the early 90's because the price gets crazy when the materials and labor are calculated. I did a bunch of that stuff back in the late 70's when the labor rates were quite low and materials were cheap. They used to sell a "mixer" cup for siphon guns that had mixing blades in the bottom that was air powered off the inlet air to the gun. Most clear coat gun air caps are large enough for flakes. | ||
| No_rice |
oh, the other thing is that with big flake, you will have a VERY deep clear coat. i cant remember anymore exactly, but it seems like we had 30 some layers of clear to level out the finish of our monster flake. | ||
| Etennuly |
That..... and, if you sand colored flakes, like red ones, they turn to silver where the flakes are contacted by the sand paper. It will turn a red or blue or green or what ever color flakes into the color plus silver, totally changing the effect.  | ||
| No_rice |
Lol, yeo. Make it smooth in the clear coat... |
