Sunday, 05 July 2009 19:39

How to blend car paint

Blending is probably on of the biggest challenges for painters today, learning to blend is ultimately learned through experience, but here are a few tips to help make life a bit easier:

1. Use a similar undercoat - by choosing an undercoat that is close to your topcoat you can decrease the amount of paint required for coverage, this leads to more blending space and less overspray to paint over

. Choosing an undercoat with a closer value is more important then a closer hue.

2. Use an Orientation Coat - this will fill in the scratches on the surface and give your high metallic colors a better area to land on. This will help keep your base landing better and blending easier.

3. Angle Blends - this helps building up material all in one area.

4. Use the Best Lighting Possible - if you can't see it, ya can't blend it!

5. Use the trigger to regulate output - easing up rather then fanning can be a great technique when experiencing halo problems.

6. Simulate the clearcoat with a clear toner - if your ever wondering what it will look like cleared, spray some transparent basecoat over it and you'll have a pretty good idea.

7. Dilute your Color - add in some clear toner to make your color more transparent. This will help you achieve a better blend.

8. Spray from the outside in - It does sound backwards but can help you because when doing this you are never painting over the previous coats overspray. You will always have a smooth surface to blend on, if you can get the hang of this method life can be good!

9. Pick the right Variant - make sure your color is blendable before starting. Your color should be as close as possible if you want to save yourself a bit of headache.

10. Use the right equipment - make sure your gun and tip correspond with what the paint manufacturer is recommending.