Adding metallic or pearl to clear

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h2operf

Hi, new here, I am doing a boat project and saw all the reviews for spi products and went with it. I have painted the entire top side with black epoxy ,came out great... I painted the transom with imron black and uv clear and it also looks exellent. I am using single stage on the sides and transom due to speeds 130mph and possible clear peeling, the rest of the top will be ppg gm laser blue with spi clear. My problem is the single stage is metallic black, 44435 imron, it looks gold in the sun, i have used several different ones and they all come out gold-ish, i have read you can add metal flake/ pearl to the clear , has any one done this and do you think it will fix the problem and give it some silver reflection or totally mess it up. Also if i do decide to try this, do i really need to use the big 3 brands or is the paint with pearls type stuff the same thing, Thanks Dave
 
Yes you can do it. Remember your black ss is just clearcoat with pigments added to it. adding pearl over isnt going to kill the gold. It will just add additional silver/white sparkle. The more you apply the more graphite the black will start to turn. You dont need to go with the major lines for pearl
 
Cool, gonna get some and try it on a test panel, next question is do i want metallic or pearl, i have found silver pearl and silver metal flake, smallest size flake is .004, the metallic in the imron looks like silver/aluminum paste but i quess it gets buried in the black giving the gold color.. I dont have a problem sanding and re shooting what i have done with single stage pure black, i just really want a silver metallic not gold or brownish which is what i have now, a mix of the two may be tolerable.. Thanks again, Dave.
 
I don't think additions of reflective material will get rid of your gold/brown look. Many colors that you would think of as dark metallic charcoal actually for instance have bluish and magenta toners in them to counteract the tendency for black and metallic to produce a muddy gold color.

Some colors actually use red and blue pearl to counteract the gold tendency as well. Ford's Tuxedo Black in my paint system uses white pearl and about 7% lapis blue, which is a reddish blue. The white pearl lessens the gold tendency, so this color ends up not gold, but pretty neutral, maybe a tiny touch greenish.
 
I looked at tuxedo black on a ford truck and its silver/white met looking, they told me couldnt be made in single stage ppg dcc. maybe i will just have to do the base clear and hope it doesnt peel, i activated the base on everything i have done so far with the ppg laser blue. So do you guys think if i go full black with the base it will look ok with the flake over it. Man this imron eu is nothing like the older stuff either doesnt even smell the same, probably get spi black if i go solid . dave
 
you can use base clear no problem on any boat, down to the chine. just no bottom. almost every race or go fast boat you see is painted with base/clear. the marine industry for some reason is stuck on this imron thing. imron is terrible! there are so much better ss finishes out there. your black is brown because as crash said its probably just straight black with metallic in it. straight black is very brown so it will need some blue and violet to counteract that and move it from a warmer color to cooler.
 
Im sure you guys are right on with the color thing but its way beyond me to start mixing in blue and violets,i wouldnt know where to start the paint is usable now on some other project i would just ruin it.,Also i really dont trust any of the paint shops around here for mixing anything, they kept trying to sell me omni and shop line or some crap like that when i said i need deltron dbu and dcc...I like the imron not from marine stuff, i worked in the aircraft industry for many years and it holds up really well on aircraft and most fluids dont toutch it, like you say im sure there are better things avail now days , i can tell you this black is nothing like the last gallon i bought, the old stuff is like plastic. The more i think about it i will probably just spray it with pure black this week and maybe try the pearl / met i ordered in the clear on some test panels.
 
well if you shoot it straight solid black first and put a pearl or metallic over it then thats a different story. in that case with the metallic over it, it wont pick up the brownish hue of the black pigment. it has to be mixed into the color to do that.
 
yeah, we just laid down a single stage black inside the jeep fiberglass top and added intercoat clear with the silver metallic and it looks like the night sky. Extra gold flake in paint turns it brown, extra silver flake in black turns it gray. I would definitely go that route to keep your black, but if it already looks gold then maybe some candy black in the mix with the flake would help.
 
The more I look at it the more I hate it, gold I can deal with but my girl says it looks brown a color a definitely don't want, so.... with that and all the advice here from you guys I think its getting sanded off. I will go with ss pure black and put the met in the clear. This sounds like my best option to get rid of the gold/brown look and be done with it, I will try it on some test panels first this time before I shoot it on , live and learn lol. thanks for the help,Dave
 
actually i like it. its a warm met black. if you dont like it though then do like we recommended and put the flake over the black. you will just have to really watch getting it on evenly. it will be easy to stripe it or have area with alot of flake and areas with hardly any. only way around that is to mix the black to the tone you want then add the met to it. that being adding blue and violet. in a nutshell, if you add blue to brown/black it will end up having a greenish cast then a little dark violet toner will kill the green and bring it back to a neutral or cool black.
 
A good jobber could do a custom that would look fine. If I had that system to mix, it would be no problem, just mix a small amount while recording amounts, then multiply it out to the desired quantity. But most jobbers don't have that kind of person any more.
 
crashtech;n84175 said:
A good jobber could do a custom that would look fine. If I had that system to mix, it would be no problem, just mix a small amount while recording amounts, then multiply it out to the desired quantity. But most jobbers don't have that kind of person any more.
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I agree. Our guy that mixed our paint retired one year ago last Feb. He had been mixing paint since 1975. He had probably forgotten more about paint than most painters know. One time I needed an orange to match new sportbike plastics. Could not find any paint chips close so he mixed it in about 10 minutes off the top of his head. Totally amazed me and IT MATCHED. Needless to say I miss him being there. I think about half the paint customers left with him when he retired. So far no one has been able to fill his shoes.
 
There might be some shops around here that could do it but probably not in the imron,i wish i had some of the color tints your talking about just to see it change. I will post some pics when i get the met for the clear and shoot it on some test panels, learning alot on this project . Thanks for all the advice its much appreciated, Dave
 
How are you still getting Imron? They dropped it a few years ago. Was my favorite chassis paint besides using epoxy for chassis black.

I like the color in the picture. It looks rich.
 
The color isn't bad it just doesn't look good next to the gm 218 laser blue it really makes the brown tones come out. The imron is the new eu quality med solids .... definately different than the old black im used to, we would paint engine cases and components and they looked like they had a plastic coating this stuff is way thinner and takes much much longer to cure, yea only a few shops cary imron around here now not sure what happened. The SPI universal clear is AMAZING if the rest of the boat comes out like the stuff i have already done im not gonna mess with sanding and buff looks fine as is with 1 med and 2 heavy coats.
 
Also took the gal of met black to a dupont shop today and told them i was wanting to add some toners like you guys said to change it abit and he said the colors sounded right but wasnt gonna take the chance of ruining my otherwise good gal of paint. He recomended what i was told on here , put metallic in the clear or intercoat-clear over some pure black, atleast he was honest lol. Dave
 
since your using all urethane products, dont do regular intercoat clear. spray your imron, mix some clearcoat, reduce it down so its thin. add you metallic to that. dust on a couple coats then do 2-3 regular coats of clearcoat over that. basically use urethane clear as your binder for the metallic instead of a clear basecoat. let the imron sit am hour or two before you spray anything on it. also, use a slow cat in the clearocat. i am assuming your using spi clear over the imron?
 
Sounds like a plan, yes SPI and i have the slowest activator, its really hot here and retarder if needed. I sanded everything today and finished with 500 just waiting for the metallic, Im going to hit a test panel first though don't wanna sand anymore. If it doesnt work out with an even pattern i will just go with pure black and leave it alone... I see alot of cars with metallic colors and solid stripes. he black is basically going on the nose, transom and some of the sides. Do I thin the SPI uv with standard slow urethane reducer?Thanks
 
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