Alright guys, so let's talk about a few tips and tricks around spreading out our
seam sealers and how we're going to accomplish that factory look in some of
our larger applications.
Now, you might be familiar with, you know, most commonly the acid brush, a lot of
guys will tape them together such as I've done here and use this to create
some of those brush strokes. We're going to show you a couple of techniques here of how
we can use some different tools to get a better brush stroke and make it
continuous like they have from the factory. For this we're going to be using
our 8308 Heavy-Bodied Seam Sealer. As with all of our two-part cartridges
we want to make sure that we equalize it upward into a paper towel. Once we apply
our 3M Static Mixing Nozzle and lock down our ring we want to make sure
we dispense a little bit of material right out onto the onto the mixing board.
If you don't have a mixing board you can just dispense it into the paper towel.
We just want to make sure we get about two or three inches of material out so that
we've got equal mixing coming through that nozzle. So what I'm going to do here
is I'm going to make a couple beads.
I'm just trying to get material out onto the board right here.
And again, we're just going to show you a couple quick tips
and tricks as far as replicating that brush stroke. Now, most commonly you might
be familiar with trying to brush this out, create that continuous look, and when
you do it over a large area you're still only getting just that width of whatever
your two taped-together brushes might be or your single depending on what it is
that you're using. So what I want to show you here today is an opportunity
to, I'm adding more material here because this is where I want to show you the
actual tip. I'm going to use a spreader, I'm going to knock down my seam sealer first.
As you can see I've used tape because I want to make a clean cut dedicated
bead here and what I'm actually going to use to replicate this is going to be one
of our grey scuff pads, Scotch-Brite pads, that I've trimmed down to a more
manageable size for doing this. And what I've done is I've just rolled it in half
so that it's going to be easy to work with and it created a nice smooth edge. I
don't want to use this sharp edge right here because this is going to create
some inconsistencies in the bead. And again, when I apply this I'm not looking
to remove material. Just like the spreaders where we just sort of dragging
the material out. With this, all I want to do is
the feature and style lines into the material. So I'm just going to drag it over the top
and I've got a consistent bead with the spreader here, or with the
Scotch-Brite pad. Now, another technique that you guys may have seen is a long
continuous brushstroke that may be going side to side.
If we're trying to use a taped-together acid brush and we're trying to
replicate that and we're going side to side
we have really created kind of a mess, and we may have some inconsistencies, and it may just not look
quite right. So, again, what we're gonna want to try to do here
is utilize that Scotch-Brite pad again. If you want, I recommend using a spreader to first
knock it down. This is pushing the material into the surface, it's creating a
tight seal so that we don't have any intrusion issues with water, moisture, air
and we've got a good tight bond. Now we can come in with our spreader, and again
it's going to be rolled, no sharp edges, and we're just going to drag it over the top to
create that brushed look. Now, if you need to make it a little bit deeper you can put
a little bit more pressure into it.
Depending on exactly what it is you're trying to match, this is sort of the basic techniques for this.
There are some beads that start off nice and clean like this
and then they sort of brush out at the end. So how do you accomplish that?
Once you've got a lot of material on your acid brush it becomes very
difficult to get that nice, even, consistent look. We're going to take that
same Scotch-Brite pad. If you've got too much material on it like I do here
go ahead and have another one at the ready and it's just cleaned up, trimmed up.
I'm going to roll it and we're just grabbing the edge
We've made our consistent brushstroke bead across the top, and all
we have done is just hook the edge of the surface and just drag it out.
Most commonly you see this on rear body panels where they come up to the trunk
trough area where they're trying to knock it down and get it brushed out so
that the gasket will clear it without any problems. A lot of manufacturers do
this because this is how they create that nice tight seal so that there's no
corrosion or water intrusion that's going to penetrate the edges of that seam sealer.
Plus when they put their top coating surfaces on here, they don't have
to make sure that they're not missing material along
that critical edge and they're not creating any sort of shadow lines or anything else.
That's two opportunities.
If you're working on a rear body panel and you've got a long area to go
and after you've caulked out all your material around say we're working on
like a trunk floor belly pan or something like that, you've just replaced
the rear body panel, and we're coming up and around, back up on top of our frame rails.
How are we going to get that factory continual brushstroke in there?
With an acid brush it could be a little bit difficult.
We're going to go right to the spreader.
Sorry the grey Scotch-Brite pad rather, not the spreader,
We're going to push this in. In this case here because I didn't use a
spreader, I'm actually putting a little bit of pressure on the surface so that as
I'm pushing that material out ahead of me, it's forcing it to the surface and
then behind here is where we're adding that texture as it passes by.
If you're looking for a little bit easier way to create some brushstrokes in your
application of OEM beads, this is a great opportunity.
If you want some information on our seam sealers, please visit 3M Collision Repair Academy.
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