Alright guys, so a question that's come up a lot lately has been
how can you guys replicate that caterpillar bead?
We see it a lot around the crush caps on
the rear body panels of Toyotas and Lexus vehicles and they're like
What can you guys give us that will help us achieve that look?
For this we're going to be using our 8308 Heavy-Bodied Seam Sealer.
As always with all of our two-part cartridges, you want to make sure we equalize them upward
into a paper towel, making sure we've got equal parts of A and B coming out.
Once we put the static mixing nozzle back on we want to dispense about two to three
inches of material. We just want to make sure that we're getting a good mix out
of the tip before we actually apply it to the vehicle.
In an on-vehicle application our best recommendation would be that we're going to caulk out a
bead, right, remember we've got two dissimilar panels here that we're going
to create a ripple texture look, we're we're going to brush our
material into that seam to ensure that we have a good seal.
And then we're going to come in on top of it with our bead.
One of the keys here is to not go too fast.
Let the material do the work, you don't need to move back and forth.
Just keep it vertically against the surface, and just above the actual material.
This is a really easy application.
A lot of people, though, want to try to get in here and they're going to
want to, you know, they're trying to manipulate and move this around and
they're trying to make shapes and do all this other stuff.
You don't need to do that.
You can just, right above the surface, right and all we're going to do is
just draw a line right where we want it to go and just don't go too fast.
Let the material do the work for you. The material will create that shape
that texture and that look without much effort.
One of the things that commonly comes up, guys will say well you're doing
that on a flat surface. Of course, it's in an upright position on a
vehicle, this is going to be a totally different scenario.
Like the material is going to fall and sag and drip.
What I want to show you here is that we're going to do
it on a horizontal, or on a vertical surface rather, and then it's going to
hold its shape when we're making this bead.
We can draw whatever we want to draw.
Again, we're trying to match the OEM look and appearance.
But I do this as an example to show you that it's not going to
sag, drip, run or fall off the panel.
We're able to accomplish that right on the vehicle.
Again, we're going to brush out a stroke first, make sure we've got a good
seal and then by applying the material directly to the surface we've got a good
tight seal. This is important so we've got good adhesion, good corrosion resistance
built right into the product
If you've got any other questions about this or any of
our other seam sealers please visit us at 3M Collision Repair Academy.
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