Metal Flake
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Hey guys. I want to spray my gf motorcycle with some metal flake. But I don’t know where to start. Does it have to be spray with clear or can I use my clear binder in envirobase(t490). I use in all my tri-coats. So just looking for any info you guys have.
I always use base coat as a flake carrier then bury it with clear but depending on how much you lay you could have drying issues with base as it has limits on film thickness ,large flake is more problematic and i usually stick to small or micro flake and HOK Metajules
i do the same as artspray and use clear base binder as a carrier for flake. i almost never spray large flake though. small or micro sized flake. anything bigger or chunky and i will use clearcoat as a carrier. you are using envirobase though so waterborne paints are a bit different. i dont think i would use a clear water binder as a carrier for flake. i could be wrong but i dont think waterborne is stable or meant to be applied with a high film build with alot of coats. that is why you usually dont see it used for custom painting.
Another advantage of solvent base is you can increase its stability by adding activator to it at about 5 to 10% this also increases it time window for clearing ,HOK do a 2K base carrier specifically for flake
as I say water based is more problematic although it does an excellent job as a flake carrier due to its inherent higher viscosity ,but due to the amount of material you have to lay with flake drying or moisture retention could be an issue
a tip with large flake is to lay smaller flake first for overall coverage otherwise you will end up either with a poor job or extremely high film build ,some do prefer to use clear simply as it is more stable at higher film builds but with the large tip sizes required to lay flake then you also risk sags and runs which will ruin a flake job
What size is the micro and small flake? I bought some deep purple flake it’s 0.008. I tried it today with my waterbase clear binder. Seemed to work but I think I needed to add more flake.
.008 is what i would consider medium sized and the max i will go with basecoat binder.
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