Metallic Paint Job

[busmechanic87]

So I'm working on a new model. It's AMT's 62 Pontiac Catalina kit. I'm building it as the Arnie Beswick drag version. Anyway, I thought I'd try my hand at a metallic paint job. I wet sanded the body with 1,000 up to 6,000 grit. I then laid down a coat of Testors Metallic Silver Enamel as a base. My question is can I wet sand between color coats? I got a small piece of lint in the base coat. Once it dries can I wetsand the body and then proceed to shot the color coat? The color coat will be Testors Custom Blue Metal-Flake Enamel. Can I wetsand that coat and then Clear Coat the body? Or should I Clear Coat and then wetsand? I'm never used metallic paints and I don't want to mess this up. The silver base went on gorgeous besides the small piece of lint that landed in it while drying. One other question. After I apply the BMF and decals, can I clear coat over that? Or will the clear mess up the BMF ? Thanks everyone for reading my post. Any input would be appreciated.

[Ryan S.]

Metallics are tough because the flake is suspended in the paint. You can sand but you need to go very light and only do what is needed in as small an area as possible. A brief recoat of the sanded area would probably be a good idea too before continuing on with the color coat.

I've never cleared over BMF, but you should be able to. I would always test a sample on a piece of scrap plastic first with your paint and clear of choice just to make sure you don't have any adverse reactions.

[cobraman]

You can clear coat over BMF .

[Ace-Garageguy]

Sanding basecoats and metallic color coats is fine, just DON'T SAND THE LAST COAT BEFORE CLEARING. As partially stated above, if you sand the metallic, the little sparkly particles in the paint will be unevenly uncovered, disturbed, and will look a right mess, and the mess will be trapped under the clear, and sometimes actually magnified. Sanding is fine if you're removing orange peel or trash between coats, but you MUST color coat over the sanded coat to get an even, uniform surface back before clearing. Experiment doing this on a test body, and you'll see exactly what I mean. Once you have that last perfect color coat, then you clear with NO SANDING of the LAST METALLIC COAT.

If you get a little trash or orange peel in your clear, you can sand it out at the end, and polish. Try to make sure whatever trash that DOES get in the clear isn't a light or dark colored speck that will show up against your metallic color. Little pieces of colorless dust will virtually disappear when you sand and polish your clear, but colored specks must be sanded out of the first coat they appear in. Otherwise, you'll bury them in successive layers of clear, and never get them out.

Edited July 2, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy