How to make HOK Eclipse Orange more red?

Mozella

New member
I'm on the verge of selecting a paint system and color for a complete respray using House of Kolor Shimrin2. That system is a primer/base/clear system with a semi transparrent base coat made from a limited pallet of colors mixed with a huge selection of pearls, metallics, etc each with a selection of a half dozen or more colors. I guess the idea is to give painters a wide selection of colors without having to stock thousands of factory mixed paint colors. They publish many hundreds of examples but because the base coat is mixed from two products each of a different color, the combinations are nearly limitless.

I like the HOK0861-02 using S2-08 Eclipse Orange Karrier (a base coat with some transparency) mixed with Kosmic Spark effects pack S2-FX61 (a white pearl), over KDA3002 (a white primer/sealer). The color of the end result depends on the primer/sealer color as well as the carrier/effects color after the two components are combined.

The color is OK; it's what you might call an "orange orange" with some light pearl highlights, if you know what I mean. But I'd really like it a bit more red.

It seems to me I have several choices. I could mix in some HOK red to the white sealer coat, but I'm worried about that approach making the end result tilt toward pink.

Or I could replace some of the white pearl effects pack with S2-FX63 (a Blushing Red effects pack). House of Kolor actually has a recipe using their red effects pack, but it's really darker than I really want. It looks more like trying to change basic orange by adding dark burgundy. I'm looking for a brighter color. Using part white and part blushing red pearl effects might work, but without some experience in this area I'm not sure this is the safest approach.

What strikes me as perhaps the best approach would be to mix in some S2-15 (Solarflair Red) or S2-16 (Re-entry Red) to the Eclipse Orange karrier base and stick with the white pearl effects pack. I imagine that would make the base coat more red while keeping the pearl from being too dark. It also seems to be the least risky because I'd like to hit on a solution without buying a lot of unnecessary product which I'll never use.

I've painted a number of cars, several aircraft, and quite a few boats, the largest being 55 feet long, so I know a little about spraying paint. But I sold all my equipment some years ago and now I live in a place not suitable for painting. Therefore, I'm turning the job over to a local paint shop. Of course, he's not willing to absorb the cost of my experimentation and I don't want to wast money either. Fancy automotive paint and the products that go along with it are frighteningly expensive as it is.

If anyone has experience altering Shimrin or Shimrin2 (or a similar paint brand) by mixing several base coat colors, please tell me what you learned.
 

TAZ

Administrator
Staff member
Basically what I would suggest if you have a color pearl color and you want it more red, you can simply add more red toner. Just add a little at a time.
Use a more transparent red toner to make the color more on the red side.

Most pearl and metallic type colors do have transparent toners in them. In fact, I guess you can say all toners are transparent, but some more than others.

.."I guess the idea is to give painters a wide selection of colors without having to stock thousands of factory mixed paint colors."...

The Shimrin II is really not a true toner system. You're limited on the colors you can make.

If you want a true toner system, you could choose, Shop-Line, DBC, Diamont, Omni....
All these have true toners to them with formulas to make actual colors.
No need to stock thousands of factory mixed colors. These 'colors' are all made up by 'toners'.
Most of the toner systems I mentioned you can make pretty much any color.
 

chopolds

Member
I'd just carefully drop in some HOK Candy red concentrate. It's transparent, so it won't "hide" the pearls in the paint, and it's a pure red color.
 

Mozella

New member
I'd just carefully drop in some HOK Candy red concentrate. It's transparent, so it won't "hide" the pearls in the paint, and it's a pure red color.
Good suggestion. I'll talk to my painter this morning. I suppose it would be wise to give HOK a call this morning and see if I can get their take on this.
 

Mozella

New member
I talked to HOK this morning and got in touch with someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He said the best way to shift the color to a redder orange was to simply use their red primer/sealer as opposed to the white sealer which was used to make the color samples. Since the base coat is semi transparent, the underlying red primer will shift the final color toward red but not too much since the base paint is orange and will dominate the overall hue. I think I'll give this idea a try.
 

Mozella

New member
Well, I finally got my Magnum back from the paint shop. The two and a half week job turned into two and a half MONTHS. However, the end result is pretty nice.
The final HOK recipe is the Shimrin 2 Eclipse orange over their red primer. The "effects pack" consists of a fifty-fifty mixture of both Red Kosmic Sparks and Red Styling Pearls. The final color is a slightly redder orange which looks rather ordinary in the shade. However, with direct sunlight, the red pearl and red Kosmic Sparks really flop hard and show beautiful red highlights. I've gotten a lot of favorable comments from "car guys" as well as strangers. It was just what I was looking for.

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