Wet Sanding & Buffing Pearl Coat

Victor Shidono

New member
4723728645_70e9bc766a_m.jpg

My new project is a blue Nissan Navara truck.

Since TCP won't ship liquids 2 me, I just ordered 2oz Sapphire House of Kolor Kameleon pearls . Two weeks ago I brought Jon Kosmoski's Advanced Painting book. I got some insightful hints on this product on page 113 to 115 of the book.

Since I only have the powder from House of Kolor and not their clear or base coats, I'm not so sure how it will react with the material supplied locally.

I was therefore thinking of doing it this way, (1) prime it. (2) Apply metallic Black base (3) Clear it (4) wait 2 days to cure (5) wet sand it with 800 (6) apply pearl in clear (7) wait 2 days to cure (8) Wet sand it with 800 (9) apply 3 coats of clear (10) wait sand it (11) apply 2 flow coats (12) wet sand with 1,200 1,500, 2,000 and polish.

Jon seemed to have gone straight base, pearl, and immediately top coated it with clear.

Can one wet sand a pearl coat as indicated in step 8?

Regards,

Victor
 
T

TAZ

Guest
Victor,
I would do it this way.

Get your truck prepped, and spot prime the bad areas.
Finish sand with 320 dry sand. Finer if you would like.
Seal the truck in black (HOK KS11)
Spray the black base, then go ahead and spray the pearl mixed in with SG100 (possibly without the SG100, but I've always mixed pearls in with a clear binder type paint).
Then clearcoat (about 4 coats of clear).
Then I would wetsand with 1500 and then buff (white foam pads with 3M 6085).

I don't think I would spray a black "metallic" as this will throw the kameleon out of sync. You need a straight solid black as a background. OR unless they tell you to do this. I'm not at work so I didn't check this out.

If you do each coat correctly and "smooth", then it should be a no hassle job for you.

Easier and a LOT less materials and a lot less work

Please note though, that I haven't used the HOK pearl, but have sprayed hundreds of 3 pearl and color shift paint jobs.
 

Victor Shidono

New member
Thanks TAZ,

Jon actually used a base coat out of their MBC basecoat series. These have brilliant flake material in them.

Just that my project has to be on hold till 1 July 2010 as TCP Global mixed up my shipping for the pearl.

In the meantime I welcome any suggestions.

Regards,

Victor
 
T

TAZ

Guest
Should look pretty sharp.
Never tried it over the MBC type flakes.
 

Victor Shidono

New member
My Sapphire Kolor Kameleon pearls powder from House of Kolor finally arrived last Friday.
I decided to do a test panel using the inside of the truck bed.
Last week I sprayed three coats of metallic black base using Toyota paint code Toyo-209. Then, I applied three coats of clear on this. After three days I wet sanded it with 800 gilt paper.
Yesterday I mixed about 1 quart of clear and added two teaspoons of the pearl powder. The mixer looked a light brown the color of the pearls. This got me confused as I had expected it to turn blue. I therefore added another teaspoon of the powder.
Well sprayed the mixer on the panel...lo and behold...it was blue!!! Therefore I sprayed three coats of the mixer. Covered this with 3 more coats of clear.
The result looks deep, smooth and shinny. It even has the look of a detailed paint job although all I did was to wet sand the clear over the black base before applying the pearl mixer.
However I’m concerned with the black “map-like” large spots showing in the finish. This is more evident on the straight flat part of the wheel ach.
What could be causing the black spots and what can I do to eliminate them when I paint the whole truck?
 
T

TAZ

Guest
I've never used the powered pearls before, but if I had to guess at what the black streaks, or spots are, I would say you don't have the black covered enough. Possibly your mix is not strong enough.

Also, anytime we spray a color shift paint, we spray the black and then spray the color shift paint directly over the black. We don't clearcoat and sand before spraying the colorshift. I don't know if it tells you to do this, but this would save you a ton of time and materials to bypass this step.
 

Victor Shidono

New member
4783958544_efc9ccfeab.jpg
Thanks TAZ,

Maybe I added too little powder...or too much as I wanted it to apper blue in the mixing cup.

I don't mind the extra work and material as I would like to come out nice.

Hope the picture above helps show the test panel results. I have had difficulties uploading the picture.

Will try to upload a better photo later.
 
T

TAZ

Guest
Victor,
Kind of weird looking. Anyway you can get a closeup of a black area? It almost looks like it might have wrinkled on you. Does the black areas feel different when you rub your hand over it versus the other areas?
 

Victor Shidono

New member
Hi TAZ,

The black areas and the rest of it feels smooth and even. After spraying the pearl mixed clear I sprayed three coats of just clear. The black areas are covered in clear.

The photos really are not doing justice to the real look. Apart from the black areas which maybe did not have adequate coverage of the pearls the rest looks quite nice. I would have loved to upload a bigger picture maybe it woould be more clear. The small "whitish" dots are just the reflection of the flakes in the pearl.

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TAZ

Administrator
Staff member
Sorry for the delay...hadn't realized you replied. Yes, I would just say that it didn't get enough coverage. But from what I can tell, I'm sure the overall look would probably be pretty sharp!
 

Victor Shidono

New member
Hi TAZ

He who hath ears let him hear... I should have followed your advice in the first place!

Before committing to do my project, I decided to invest a bit more in the "research and development". Last weekend I had another go at the reminder of the Truck bed.

After a bit of prep, I masked off the panel where I had the first try.

This time was going to use a solid black base (just two coats gave enough coverage) instead of a metallic.
Also decided after spraying the base to immediately spray the mixer of the pearls in clear on and top coat it.


The HOK tech sheet says to only add one or two teaspoons of pearl for every mixed pint of ready to spray clear. It also says on dark bases not to add too much pearls.
I therefore decided to take the measurements to the letter. I bought a reusable PPG 128 Mixing Pitcher online. For my close to 5ml teaspoon measurement, I simply got a medicine measurement cup of the top of a bottle!
Mixed a total of 3.1 (1.1 litres) pints of ready to spray clear. I wanted to go with the minimum amount of pearls seeing this was a dark base and added only 3 teaspoon measurements.

Sprayed 3 coats of the clear mixed with the HOK sapphire kameleon pearl powder. Then top coated this with 2 coats of clear.

This looks defiantly better than the first job. There is no comparison.

I still have some more questions.

My questions boarders around having too much product (5 coats of clear)

Just to refresh your mind. I can't order liquid paints online. Locally I can't get any mid coat clears.
So I'm using Glasurit - 923-255 High Solids Multi Clear both as my mid coat to mix the pearls in and top coat clear.

Since I intend to do a flow coat, after spraying my 3 mid coats should I just spray 1 coat of clear to cover the mid coat?
Which brings me to the next question, won't the 1 coat be too thin to be wet sanded with 800 gilt paper by hand?
Should I switch to 1000 gilt paper? Won't the 1000 be to fine and cause a lot of runs when doing my flow coat? I'm thinking of doing two coats and then wet sand and polish using 1,200, 1,500 and 2,000.

Thanks for your support.:bigokay:
 
Last edited:

TAZ

Administrator
Staff member
Since you can't get any interclear, and you can't order any other type of pearls it sounds as though you did the best you could using topcoat clear to mix the pearls in.
Once you spray this to get your color on, I would recommend spraying 3-4 coats of clear. This will be plenty of material if you decided to just wetsand and buff it (just use 1500 wet, then buff it), OR, you can just resand with 800 grit and wetsand if you wish with 1000 or so, then reclear it. You really shouldn't need to do this though, as long as you put 3-4 coats. One coat would not be enough to do either of the above.
Hope I answered your question...
 

Victor Shidono

New member
Hi TAZ,



Just a quick one.

I did manage to spray the truck as planned.

However the blue is not really coming out even when placed in sunlight. I think I added too little of the powder to the clear (mixed 1 gallon added 8 teaspoons).

I top cleared it with two coats could have gone three but was not sure would have clear for this.

My question

After wet sanding with 800 can I add just one coat of clear with the pearl to bring out more of the blue or this will not be in synch with the color below?


Regards,

Victor
 

TAZ

Administrator
Staff member
Victor,
I will think you will be all right by adding another coat (or even two) over the other coats you had to bring out more of the blue.
Once you do this, of course, you should reclear with straight clear.
 

Victor Shidono

New member
Navara Truck Finished.jpg

Hi Taz,

I did manage to complete the project about 3 weeks ago but could not just find the time to write.

Firstly thank you for all the free advice you gave throughout the process. I’m most grateful.

Attached is a picture of the completed project.

Since we had done 8 teaspoons, for the two coats we added just 4 teaspoons to ready to spray clear.

Two top coats of clear where added on this to cover the pearl coat.

I did learn an important lesson with using pearl, it is better do get it right the first time.

Spraying the additional two coats of pearl on the sanded top clear with 800 wet sand paper still resulted in a lot of runs.

The runs in the pearl coat are permanent in that the pearl color is more concentrated on the runs.

From afar and to an inexperienced person they would not tell that inside the clear coat there are runs. These do show on close inspection.

What helped was hours and hours, should I say days, of wet sanding from 1,200, to 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 and finished off with 3,000.
(Maybe I over did the wet sanding, finish scratches easily, could be worse but I’m using Meguiar’s ultimate wipe).

The Meguiars M-07 Show Car Glaze also after buffing with a machine brought out a wet look to the paint.

Otherwise I'm thinking of redoing the project in a few months time with the experience gained, my dream project will just come out right.

Cheers,

Victor
 

TAZ

Administrator
Staff member
Glad to hear you have your job completed.
Sounds like you did do quite a bit of wetsanding! I'm sure this made it easier to buff.
Looks like you learned quite a bit during this complete process.

Do some research and see if there is anyway you can buy pre-packaged paint and have it shipped to you. I think if you did this and sprayed the pearls in a baseclear, and just top coated this with your final urethane clear, I think this would have helped you out quite a bit.

You can take this knowledge to your next paint job and use it.
That's what it's all about...learn with every paint job you do!

:cheers:
 
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