- Hey YouTube, this is Donnie Smith
and I'm back with another Q and A.
And in this video, I'm gonna talk about
matte and flat clears.
(car screeching)
(fiery explosion)
So DipYourRide India says,
"Can pearl be used with matte clear,
"or it has been added only to base coat
"and can clearcoat gloss be mixed
"with clear matte for satin finish or sheen
"for better durability and better looks?
"Here in India, clear base is not available
"so it is possible to add a colored base
"and then mix the pearl in a clear gloss
"for second coat, and then add a third coat
"of matte and gloss mix for the sheen?
"Really looking forward for the pearl effect
"in satin or sheen finish."
And thanks for asking this question.
I'm a little confused about not having the clear base,
but I'm gonna try my best to answer this
and hopefully this helps.
When you say there's no clear base,
like if you have a tricoat there,
that midcoat, can you get that formula?
For example, you know a lot of your tricoats,
a lot of your pearl coats or tinted clears.
You put your base coat down, and then that midcoat,
that's gonna be your pearl or your tinted clear.
That is in the base form, so I don't know
if that is not available there or if,
kinda trying to figure that out.
Because to get some of those colors,
some of those tricoats from the factory,
you'd have to have that midcoat color.
But I'm still gonna try my best to answer that.
"Can you mix in the clearcoat?"
I have not personally done that with this matte clear.
You probably could.
I'd probably only do it with the first couple of coats
and then finish it out with your regular matte clear.
Maybe one coat of pearl, or two at the most.
And then put your regular clearcoat, your matte, on top.
And of course, just like with any of this,
especially when you're custom painting
or experimenting, try this in small volumes.
Get you a little test panel to make sure that it works.
And especially when you're adding pearls to clears,
sometimes it doesn't come out the way you think it does.
Sometimes the pearls shift a little
different than you was expecting.
So I recommend really doing test panels to achieve
the look that you wanna have, and then go from there.
But I think it'd be very important
whenever you're doing this,
and we'll talk more about this here in a minute.
But if you did put some pearl
in your first coat of clearcoat,
be certain that that has dried all the way,
it's completely flat, matte, before you apply another coat.
And that's true even if there is no pearl in it.
But if you come with these type of clears
and you put another coat down,
and there's still a spot that's kinda wet,
it's probably gonna affect the way that area looks.
It's probably gonna look blotchy right there.
So in between coats, in between your flash times,
make certain there are no wet-looking areas
that haven't dried completely.
So can you add the clears together?
And I'm just gonna go by PPG.
I'm gonna talk about that because I'm familiar with it
and I've got a sheet that I'm gonna pull up.
But really you're gonna have to
look at your technical data sheet
for the products that you use.
If it doesn't say nothing about mixing the clears together,
I would be nervous to do that.
I don't know, that'd be just something
you'd have to try, if you're wanting to do that.
But there are, with PPG, there are
two different clears that you can mix together
to get the amount of the gloss that you want,
and we'll go over those.
So let's go ahead and pull that up, and we'll just
kinda look at the technical data sheet and go over that.
'Kay, I have the technical data sheet, and this is PPG,
their matte and semi-gloss clearcoat finish.
And we'll talk about this.
This is the D8115 and the D8117.
And this is a clearcoat system.
We'll just kinda go through this
and talk about how to apply this
and how you can intermix these
to get the desired look that you're looking for.
First it just talks about preparation.
And I'll go ahead and mention that right now.
It is very important to have a clean job
when applying these type of finishes, and the skill level.
These aren't the easiest jobs to apply either.
You have to be very good with your overlap, very consistent.
If you're not, you might have some
streak stripes, things like that.
Flats are not the easiest to spray,
flats and mattes and things like that.
But it's very important that you have a clean job.
That you're clean, the car's clean,
the spray environment's clean,
because you can't really sand and buff this type of paint.
Because if you have a run or if you have some dirt
on the finished product, if you sand and buff it,
that area's gonna look different.
It's gonna be glossy there.
So you can kinda denib as you go along
until the final phases, final coats,
and then you're kinda stuck with what you have.
So you need to make certain that
everything's good and clean before you apply this.
And then it's just talking about the mixing ratio.
And it's the three, one to one,
and again, that top one, the clearcoat, that's gonna depend.
And we're gonna talk about how
to blend that here in just a minute.
But it's gonna be three parts of the clear,
one part of the hardener, and one part of the reducer.
And it says here the pot life is one to two hours.
And what that means is how long
do you have to spray that before it starts
gelling and getting hard in your gun.
And again, that's gonna depend on the temperature.
This is at 68 degrees.
If it's a lot hotter there, and it's summertime,
it's gonna be shorter than that.
Okay, now here's where we're getting to
pretty much answer your question, I believe.
And this is with this one system,
and probably every system has their own way of doing this.
But depending how flat or gloss you want it,
you can have anywhere from flat to matte
to eggshell to satin to semi-gloss.
That's all the levels.
And of course if you wanted flat,
you could just use the D8115,
'cause that's totally flat there.
100% that.
So it'd be three parts of that
to one part hardener to one part of the reducer.
But if you're wanting the matte look,
and again you can play with this.
This is just kind of a guideline
to get the exact effect that you're wanting.
The matte, you're gonna use 85% of the 8115,
and 15% of the 8117.
And then you can kinda see this chart as you go down,
that eggshell's gonna be 70/30, the satin is gonna be 40/60.
Then you get to the semi-gloss,
if that's the look you're going for,
you don't need the 8115.
It's gonna be 100% of the 8117.
So you can intermix these two clears,
but getting just another PPG clearcoat,
just a regular gloss clear, I would not recommend that.
I don't know if the hardeners,
they might react with each other.
I'd stay within the system and the recommendations
of the system that you're using.
And it sounds like you have a pretty good idea
of what you're looking for in this clearcoat.
So I would just get these, and you can play at them,
tweak them to the appearance that you want it.
And with all technical data sheets,
they'll give you the recommendations
for the spray air pressure and the settings.
1.2 to 1.4, viscosity at 15 seconds
if you use a viscosity cup.
HVLP, it always says 10 psi at the air cap,
and that's gonna vary to the gun that you use,
what that is at the gun.
And if you're using a compliant, of course,
it's gonna use a higher pressure at the gun.
So to apply this clearcoat,
you're gonna apply one full single coat.
And again, I wouldn't try too hard to get it too, too thick.
Maybe more of a medium wet, almost full wet coat.
But the key to this is to put it on nice and even.
Make sure your overlaps are right.
Make sure all that's right.
You might have some streaks or something like that.
So put on a coat, and be sure to let that flash off
until you cannot see any wet spots and it looks flat,
that the sheen has gone down to what it's gonna look like.
Like I said, if you still have a wet spot
and then you spray on top of that
again before it completely dried,
you're probably gonna have a spot that shows.
It's gonna be different right there.
So make sure that that flashes off to the flat appearance.
Once that is done, you put on another full wet coat,
and immediately by a drop coat.
It's a lighter coat, and this is just to help even it out.
So it's recommended here at 68 degrees,
it's gonna take about 15, 30 minutes between coats.
But again, make sure that you look at it to be certain
that has flashed off before you apply more on.
And it goes through all the tape time,
like if you are gonna re-tape.
The dry to handle, 12 to 16. Dust free, 45.
Tape time's 12 to 16.
And of course, this is PPG's product.
I'm not sure what product you're using.
Be sure and look up the technical data sheet for it,
that you can go over this information
for the specific product that you're using.
I mean, it could vary some.
So anyway, I hope that helps answer your question.
Again, I'm a little bit confused
on there being no base clear.
I mean, like in PPG, that'd be 500 DBC, DBU500.
But if you have a tricoat,
are you able to get that midcoat color?
That's kinda what my question is.
And it's mixed with the mixing bank,
but it does have just a lot of binders, clears,
things like that, mixed in with some pearls.
And that's how you get that midcoat.
Kinda curious about that. I'm kinda confused on that.
If you had a tricoat job there,
are you able to get that midcoat?
And you should be able to.
If you find a formula that you like
or a color, and it's a tricoat,
it uses, I would think, it's used with
the same mixing bank, like PPG or whatever.
And you'll have the part A,
which will be the base coat, the color.
Then you'll have the part B, which is gonna be your midcoat.
And it should be able to be mixed up just like your paint.
But I'm not sure. I really have no idea there.
Maybe there's that don't use it.
I know even here in the US, we have a lot
of different rules, even from one state to the other,
like from California to here in Kansas.
There's different rules that apply.
And I hope that helps answer your question.
If not, leave a comment below.
And if someone is familiar with that area and knows
what the rules are or how you could get by with that,
or if there's anybody out there's put some pearl
in your first coat of matte clear, let us know.
Share with us so we'll know.
That's something that I have not personally done.
So like I said, I have put it in regular clearcoat,
in the first coat and it worked fine.
But I haven't used the matte.
And I hate to recommend something
that I'm not absolutely sure about
because sometimes things could go wrong.
But other than that, I would just say
just get some of the products and try it.
I probably would not try to mix
the matte clear and gloss clear together.
Probably they've got two different hardeners
and everything else, and that's probably gonna cause
some type of a chemical reaction.
But just try it. Just don't be afraid to try things.
Just do it on a test panel though.
You don't want to mess up a whole car or anything.
But get some different test panels.
Put a little bit of pearl in the first coat
and see what it looks like.
Play with the different mixtures.
If you're using this system, you know
how much of a gloss level you want
to the appearance you're looking for.
So I hope this helps.
Thanks for watching this video.
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