How do YOU spray metallic base coat?

  • Thread starter Senile Old Fart
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Senile Old Fart

I have read numerous different ways, wet , dry, drop coat, no drop coat.

What works best for you? material sprayed and gun used would be nice to know,

Thanks.:cool:
 
I usually use my Sata nr 2000 hvlp with a 1.4 setup. I spray around mid 20's to 30ish psi. Medium coats and colors that are tricky, I use color blender as a wet bed, or mixed into the metallic. I tack rag between coats and carefully check my blends, so far so good....
 
i shoot everything the same from epoxy to clear. if met is shot wet it will be even and match. drop coats change the color and you have no control over it.
 
Drop coats as Barry has always told me can create adhesion loss.. Personally I dont drop coat.. As Shine pointed out, they change color etc.. I think a good quality base and the correct gun for the job is where it is at..

That said.. I have an old Sharpe HVLP gun that lays base like no other, but the dang thing eats up soo much material, I wont use it..

I use my Iwata with the silver cap.. I have found I can lay out my bases just fine with that gun like it came from the factory..
 
wet enough for metallic to flow even but not too wet where you are getting mottle/unevenness.

I see guys generalize every basecoat into one, and say never spray wet....medium wet only. Well if every based sprayed the same and was made exactly the same, you could say that. There are wet spraying bases and there are not.

You dont want to spray it wet in terms of the way you would clear, but it HAS to be wet enough for the metallic the flow out.

I use an iwata lph400 with 1.3 tip.......at around 20 lbs with sikkens base. With the wanda base i back the fluid out a tiny bit more and up the pressure a few lbs, as it is a thicker type base. doesn't spray as wet as sikkens either.
 
If you do a drop coat correctly it won't change color at all, there are some metalic bases that are completely impossible to apply evenly without drop coating. Drop coating should not be confused with dry spraying-this is when adhesion suffers. Reducer temperature selection is critical-slower is always best unless you're doing small spot repairs. JMO... SataJet 90 1.3 fluid tip is what I use for most basecoats, I also use an Astro and an Iwata knock-off. My Iwata LPH400LV sees mostly clearcoat.
 
shine;9623 said:
i shoot everything the same from epoxy to clear. if met is shot wet it will be even and match. drop coats change the color and you have no control over it.
Click to expand...

This is where I am at as well. Maybe only subtle changes between the products but the basic same technique. I am by no means as experienced as the pros here but I tried both ways (drop coat, no drop coat) and really didn't see any benefit in the drop coat method. I was using RM Diamont base at the time and the drop coat blended in perfectly. Later when I made some blends repairing sand throughs you couldn't see the repair so the drop coat really didn't seem to effect the final color.
Now I just shoot the metallic like I do everything else and so far it has worked great.
 
I have never needed to use a drop coat. I must be doing something wrong! I also checked with a few professional painters that I know a while back about it. They all told me that they don't believe it is needed.

Aaron
 
I see a lot of mottled hoods in many shops that don't believe a drop coat isn't needed, but then again it does match what the robotics are putting out LOL.
 
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