if you've ever had any questions or been nervous about spring pearls or flakes
like these ones that we've got a display from Eastwood
well we've got some great tips that we want to share with you that will
hopefully get your confidence up
now keep in mind this is a fraction of what Eastwood has to offer when it comes
to especially coatings pearls flakes and candies but the tips that we're going to
show you will get you up to speed and get you set on a direction to where you
can properly plan your custom paint job and do the job right the first time
now when it comes to flakes there's two schools of thought in flake application
and we're going to talk about both of them but it all comes down to technique
at some point and that's spray gun technique you want to make sure that
you're very very consistent because with specialty custom coatings their way more
sensitive to bad technique and compensating with your spray gun than a
conventional base coat or a single-stage paint system is you can't come back on
the second coat and correct a mistake because they're stacked and it'll
amplify so make sure that your technique is up to speed
also prep is king it's absolutely critical that your panels are sanded
with the record sandpaper all your panels on your project vehicle are
aligned properly because a lot of these specialty coatings they take like
different way and they refract and throw it back to you
so if you're misaligned your panel gaps are wrong it's going to show up and even
though your pain technique might be perfect
your projects not ready for it yet and it shows up in the final outcome
so make sure that your T's across and your i's are dotted when it comes to
really really super prepping your vehicle so that way you don't have any
reduce and you can get the custom effects that you want
now as important as spray technique and prepping your substrate of your panels
properly it's just as critical that you do some sort of a spray-out panel like
we've done with these speed shapes it doesn't have to be these can be just a
piece of sheet metal
the point is spray out your custom effect on something small tour you can
see how many coats it's going to take what that certain effect colors are
going to do even what kind of ground code that you're going to need to get
your desired effect
speaking of ground codes your traditional candies are either with the
gold metallic or silver metallic base like this skateboard has a silver
metallic base and three different tones of candy all layered up for a
spectacular effect and is buried in clear the point with all of this stuff
is this allows you a road map and a great way to test out the custom effect
that you want to get without committed your project and wasting a lot of time
and money now like we said there's two schools of thought when it comes to
applying flakes there's dry application and wet application dry application
starts with the ground code of some sort of a clear and the flakes apply dry with
a flake gun like this one from eastwood until you've got full saturation over
your wet bed then you come back and bury it in clear coat and polish out or you
can suspend your flakes in an inter code clear like we've done on this gas tank
this has a black base and the gold super flake suspended in inter coat clear and
then bathe and clear-cut and rug out of those two methods I prefer using an
inner code clear all school guys used to dump the flake into the top coat clear
and just layer it up until they got the desired effect
well clear coats have changed and they don't like those maximum tolerances
anymore so what you want to do is use something like Eastwood's enter code
clear
that's designed to be stacked up and layered and it's actually underneath the
clear coat so it does two things it allows you to focus on getting your
flakes distributed how you want for your pearls or your candies and then after
that's done then you can focus on clear coat application for maximum shine and
maximum gloss one more thing about flakes if you're applying flakes through
a spray gun and it's a large flake you want to use a large orifice preferably a
1.8 or a 1.7 even that way the flakes have room to dance around and do their
thing inside the clear coat and lay down and be distributed evenly
one more thing about screenflex most spray guns like our concourse pro are
shipped with gun cup filters that you can put in between your gun cup and your
gun body make sure this is removed because the fine mesh can actually
collect the flakes and with it removed you'll always get nice even flake
distribution if you're concerned about Mick serrations don't worry eastwood
makes it easy
we recommend 50 grams per gallon of spray material these bottles are
completely package it 50 grams for a bottle just dump it into your gallon of
inner code clear and you're ready to go
but now i want to show you a
very important technique that's going to guarantee that your pearls and flakes
are applied really really evenly and professionally
there's an inside term in the custom painting world called walking the side
of a car and this technique is critical when it comes to spring flakes pearls
and especially candies and even in a regular day-to-day paint job it's a good
idea to have this skill in your skill set because it promotes the idea and the
technique of consistent and even paint application
so if you've ever wondered what it means to walk the side of a car we're going to
show you the problem starts when your spring within your comfort zone and
you're going from panel to panel within the zone of area that you have control
over
well after you layer up a candy six or seven coats deep you end up with dark
spots on either side of your pattern where you stopped and started we've all
seen those jobs
it's not pretty so here's the proper technique on candy application or even
consistent base coat here's walk inside of the car
we're starting here
it's as simple as it sounds and i'm using about a 75-percent overlap paying
attention to the distance of my gun from the substrate for the side of the car
and you'll notice then I'm not cheating around my wheel openings I'm treating
this like a solid box because the candy doesn't care
even around my mirror
I've got it masked up I'm painting right over top of that masking tape so that
when i'm finished with the side of this vehicle my color application is one even
consistent coat
so what we end up with after layering up six or ten or however many coats of
candy that I need for the effect that I want
we've got a beautifully layered panel that I've treated the car like a Kleenex
box and it shows perfect consistency
so this is a technique that takes a little bit of practice to master but
once you get it under your belt
you will never be in bear
about a candy job I guarantee you that and one more thing to avoid splashing
this and your coatings always in between coats pour out of your gun cup into a
mixing Cup because just like it settles in this cup here
your flakes and pearls will settle in the bottom of your mixing Cup and then
stir it up again thoroughly agitated
pour it into your gun cup before you go in for your next coat
that way you'll have really consistent results so make sure you click on the
link below for more information on these to add pearls flakes and other custom
painting products and don't forget to subscribe and we'll give you more videos
on how to do the job right
yeah
ok
yeah