Painting in silver

[Hoxviii]

Is silver a forgiving color to shoot? I've never painted a car silver and am looking into doing it, but just wanna see if it's hard like black or easy like white.


Justin

[JawKnee]

Anything metallic is not forgiving.

white/off white are great choices for a first paint job. maybe a light gray

[little ld]

Silver is one of the hardest colors to get down good. It will shadow real quick. And that aint no fun to get out! But it is one of the best looking colors when you get it done. That is one of my favorite colors of all. Good luck! You can shadow coat it and it will help with the stripes.

[deac]

It will shadow real quick

You can shadow coat it and it will help with the stripes.

little ld, can you elaborate on this? What is shadowing? Is it striping from inconsistent application?

FWIW, I opted for off-white on my first job because I knew that it would be most forgiving. Check my website for some pics. They all look good, but you can't see the runs and orange peel. It's a 20/20 paint job...looks good going 20 mph 20 feet away. I still haven't color sanded it yet, but hopefully will be able to smooth it all out and get a respectable finish.

deac

[wellington]

Silver is very hard to get the metalic to flow evenly. Many light coats is the best way to put it on. Not for a beginer.

[little ld]

Ok, shadows are when youpaint a metallic color and there is stripes you cant get to go away. A shadow coat is when you pull your paint gun lets say 2 ft. off the panel you are painting and "mist" paint on the panel. This will make it blend together and the stripes will most of the time go away. But remember this is very hard on some silvers to get to work. I did my dads in a pewter color and I had to put many shadow coats on it, but it turned out very good. But I also spent 3 years painting gold and silver so I had a chance to get good at it. Just take your time and you will get the hang of it.

[deac]

I think I saw your dad's car at CYW17, if so, NICE JOB! It was right about the time that I was painting my ghia so I was scrutinizing cars' paint jobs pretty much all day. I remember remarking to my fiancee about that car in particular.

Does keeping the gun so far away from the paint result in a overspray/dry spray texture? Would keeping the gun close to the car and turning the material knob way down and moving the gun faster work as well?

deac

[wellington]

Misting is good , as well use a slow reducer, it eliminates the "dry overspray"

[hillbilly]

You could use a grey base coat then put a metalic,silver base coat and then base clear the whole thing.Base coat clearcoat systems are the easiest to use, mind you you prep has to be finer and your paint materials are a bit more,but well worth it in the long run......speaking of runs..with base clear it is almost impossible to get runs in your metalic as it goes on very dry allmost like a satan finish then you dump the clear on (sorta so to speak).you could get runs in the clear but at least you can sand and polish to get rid of them.....you get runs in you metalic silver paint (be it enamel or any two part paint) well you got them for keeps till you repaint the panel /s.not alot of fun.Then you have colour match problems and halowing .The same can of paint can produce two diffrent colours if applied two diffrent ways...so Justin.wanna be a painter.
I work in the collision repair industry as a body tech.and see the problems that painters have and I'll tell ya they can keep it.the main reason is colour match and texture matching (Can't have orange peel on a benz and can't put a benz finish on a ford.) You put clear on a panel and it changes the color and deepth of that panel. ........oops....... there I go again Blah Blah Blah

[wellington]

Hillbilly say it best. I use to be a painter in collision repair. Use to be. Difficult work for little pay and health concerns as well. As a hobby I turn out some of the best work, but not interested in doing it for a living.