clear coat problem

[iTrucker]

Not sure what I did to cause the issue, only thing I can attribute to the issue is weather. I was ready to clear coat my metallic plum purple chevelle, laid down one coat, waited awhile, then the second coat and when it finally dried I went to check on it and suddenly the paint was very flat, no gloss, nadda..still new to all this so could someone point me in the right direction?

[Petetrucker07]

I've had that problem when the tempature is too cool.

[iTrucker]

I've had that problem when the tempature is too cool.

that's what I was guessing, kinda bummed, have to sand everything down and start over.

[Guest]

Could you take a pic of it? Could be blushing, which is caused by high humidity.

[Howard Cohen]

1 - what brand of paint are you using? 2 - did you mix paint brands? 3 - is the paint mis-labeled? Maybe you have dull coat instead of gloss. 4 - how long between coats? 5 - you may be able to give it a light sanding and then another coat of gloss rather than start over.

[StevenGuthmiller]

If it's just "fogging" or "blushing" you can probably just polish it out. Steve

[slusher]

I Would just light sand and try another can of gloss clear.

[checkmate]

To cool will cause this result with Holts Duplicolour automotive acrylic paints.

I've has it happen before, wait for the weather to warm up and recoat it, when it happened to me I didn't even sand mine I just recoated it and it came up fine.

[TFchronos]

I've had this happen a few times as well, it's always been in cooler temperatures 60 or below. It'll still polish up nicely.

Before polishing

After polishing

[iTrucker]

Ok, maybe the polishing is the trick because it looks similar, I'll snap a pic in a few when I get home, it was Model Masters Paint and Model Masters Clear, I'll double check everything when I get back though, thanks for the input everyone! Also, with the mention of polishing, could someone point me in the right direction on how/ or a thread that does?

[Pete J.]

That looks like severe orange peel not blushing. The cause is you are holding the airbrush/rattle can too far from the model and the paint is drying before it gets too the model. Without sufficient solvents on the surface, the paint doesn't flow out and self level. That is when you get orange peel like that. The can should be no more than 6 to 8 inches from the surface you are painting. However keep it mind, the closer you get to the model, the tighter the spray pattern and the more paint is going on so it is a two step solution. Move the nozzle closer to the surface and move faster. For most cans, a move from 8" to 6" just about doubles(reduces the spray pattern area by half) the amount of paint that is going down. Therefore if you double to paint at the surface you need to move twice as fast. Remember, light coats built up is better in several ways to a single thick coat. If you want to check the size of the pattern, get a piece of poster board and hold the can at your normal distance and just blip the nozzle enough to get a circle then move it to the recommended distance and do the same thing. Measure the diameter of each circle and use the pi(radius squared) formula to determine the size of the spray pattern. This will give you an idea of how much faster you need to move.