The problem with clearcoats is the longer you wait the harder they are to wetsand and buff later so you dont want to wait too long because you will tripple the amount of work needed. Here is the readers digest version of what I did after primer. Wet sand primer with #600 Sprayed Lime green PPG basecoat Sprayed 2 coats of PPG 2021 clearcoat Let sit for 24hours 24 hours later wet sanded the clear with #1000 washed, dried, let sit in the sun for 3 hours Sprayed 2 more coats of PPG 2021 clearcoat Next day started stick sanding with 1000 to 1500 to 2000 to buffing Still working on the sanding and buffing part. I wanted to have it done by this weekend but my fingers are starting to hurt.
Looking good. I just spray at least 4 coats of clear one after the other. Any reason you did it the way you did? Seems like twice as much sanding.
A few reasons why. With show car quality clears you can not put on more than 2 coats of clear without the risk of solvent pop. Solvent pop is not noticable from far away, but when you get with 1 foot of looking into the paint you will see little needle like dots all over the paint. The second reason is that clear sprayed on top of clear that has been wet sanded flows like glass which means less wet sanding. Another reason is that when you look down the side of a car and see those waves in the paint, a lot of this is from last coat of clear. Even wet sanding on 4 coats means by the time its smooth the last coat is a lot thicker in some spot and thinner in other places, it tends to act like eye glasses and distorts the clear. When you look down the side of the car at an angle you will see waves. When you shoot two coats of clear let it dry wet sand everything perfectly smooth, the next two coats go on as smooth as glass, when you wet sand this it will be uniform and looking down the side of the car should be perfect.
I have only used UTeck clear and it is a inexpensive but excellent clear. However, when I do my Comet GT I will probably stick with PPG stuff. What defines "show quality" clear? What you say makes sense, I'm just looking for as much info so I only have to do it once. Also when I do my GT, I plan on painting the stripes and bury them in clear. Would you still do 2 coats at a time? Thanks
Before we decided to go urethane our painter wanted to use show clear on mine. All I can tell you is its damn expensive for the high end stuff. He showed me a car he did with it and it does look different. It has a real deep look to it.
YES. As paint drys it releases solvents. If you put too much clear on, then the solvents get trapped between the layers of clear and make little pinhole dots all over then plan on repainting the car all over. Solvents are such an issue that even if you wet sand clearcoat thats 1 week old, after wet sanding you should put the car back outside and let it sit in the hot sun for 3 or 4 hours to bake out any other solvents. I wanted to use glasurit clear but it was about 700$ a gallon. In my opinion any high solids clear will work, I have found what seperates clears is not so much the gloss it has, but how well they spray for the conditions your working in. PPG 2021 is really easy to work with and doesnt have a lot of the common problems you may experience with other clears. It was also 1/2 the cost of glasurit clear.
I guess my car has 3 coats of clear, for the reason, once it's wet sanded and buffed, it'll have enough for what needs to be done. That's what I was told by my body guy. It's all PPG.
Solvent pop only occurs when paint & clears are not baked at proper temperatures and only allowed to AIR DRY in uncontrolled conditions with humidity as a main factor. What happens is the top surface dries to quickly just food for thought.
So can you allow 2 coats of clear to dry under the sun or after a couple of days then wet sand it and shoot another couple coats of clear? Reason I ask is everybody doesn't have a baking oven and some people on here do their own painting either in their back yards or under a homemade tent. Basically anywhere they can. clint
Yes thats how its done. No more than two medium coats. Let it dry for 24 hours. Wet sand with 800, set it set in the sun for 3 hours then shoot 2 more coats of clear.
