How to use Metallic paints

[George Rom]

Hello I am trying to get some one to help me with metallic paint I have been trying to get better at both reaglur and metallic the reaglur comes out dull sometimes and shiny other but metallic never come out shiny I have watch videos I have talk to people and no one can tell me what I am doing wrong so if anyone can help me on here I would appreciate it if u need a pic I can that for u to 

[Ferbz]

Just now seeing your question here. Have you had any luck since your post or gotten any further info? Not sure what's going on with the dullness, but one thing I know for sure is that metallics usually need a gloss clear coat over them anyway. Maybe post pics of the dullness of the regular color as well as your metallic color? 

[StevenGuthmiller]

Specifics please.

There are many different kinds of paints.

some will exhibit gloss right out of the can or airbrush, others require a clear coat.

There is no possible way to give you a  satisfactory answer without specifics.

 

 

 

Steve

[Skip]

Likely the reason your metalics are not coming out shiny as you want them to is that they are using some sort of acrylic based lacquer or other acrylic based paint which requires a Clear Coat to bring out their shine.  If we were talking non-metalic paints, then you could probably polish it out and then apply a good coat of wax to really bring out that luxurious shine. 

You didn't mention a paint type or brand, so most of this will be guesswork from all of us until you offer specifics. Everything in the Automotive Paint world is going to environmentally friendly formulation, which means that the Hobby Paints normally follow suit soon after. 

Unfortunately, most of the pearls, metalics and other flip-flop type paint aren't using real pearls or "metal" as the metalflake, they use a polyester or plastic "chromed" flake, think craft glitter only a lot smaller. So, if you try to polish out the un-cleared "metalflake" you end up cutting a lot of the shiny part off of the flake ending up with a whole lot of clear, white or other base-colored plasticky bits in the color-tinted-clear-coat which look like contamination to the paint or worse. So, to get metalics to get the shine if they don't when they're dry, you'll need to spray on some sort of clear coat which can then be leveled and polished out.

Here is an example of what the flake material looks like without the base and tinting, looks like a bag of really finely ground glitter.                                    Metalflake Example from eBay

To use the loose flake, you need to come up with some sort of flake duster / buster to spray the flake onto a wet clear. Then spray clear over the flake multiple times to build up enough to level and shoot a final couple of clear coats on top of that, then color sand and polish to bring up to a high sheen. 

Just a bit of FYI if you really want to get into the whole flake scene - Little Daddy Roth (Ed Roth's son, Dennis) makes a large Bass boat to Low-Rider fine sized flakes in a rattle can, appropriately named "Little Daddy Roth's Rattle Bombs" which usually are a mid-coat over a black, white, silver, gold... base coat. Then the flake is Rattle Bombed over the base and cleared with normally a 2K catalyzed clear. Here's an example of the Little Daddy Roth Rattle Bomb in Gaitor Aid Green Rattle Bomb   I've used the Rattle Bombs on a few non-model related projects that came out really amazing - without the cost of a flake duster/buster or any other stuff needed to lay loose flake.  

So, either that helped you some of just confused you to death, hope it helped!

 

[peteski]

This is an older thread (from Nov. 15, 2023) and the person asking the question (which was also their first post) has not even visited here since January 8.  We probably won't get any more details.