so i know tinting taillights with solvent you mix black or whatever color you want into the clear. how would you go about doing it with waterbourne?

That could be tricky,I don't think you could tint the clear with a waterborne toner.You would have to use a transparent base (sikkens clear binder 666) tint with 245 black, then clear coat it,definately more of a pain.You could get some black single stage or a black candy and tint the clear.Thats the route I would go...

I've done a few the way Jason mentions, putting a bit of black tinter in a clear base. It does the job, but I think a candy would give a much more even effect.

you are asking for a fail with waterbased binders plus the added difficulty with aplication

i can see absolutly no advantage to useing waterbased for such an aplication as your are just makeing extra work for an inferior job

one way is to extend black single stage with clear untill you achieve the transparancy you require ,candy tends to fade where pigment is far more lightfast
Paul

ARTSPRAY wrote:
Thats why I said tint your clear with single stage,or candy,5grams of black SS per half pint of RTS clear is all you need.

ARTSPRAY wrote:
Maybe the OP doesn't have a choice. Certainly when I was in a compliant bodyshop it was water or nothing

Andy T wrote:
correct me if im wrong but compliancy doese not automaticaly require water ,the rule is VOC compliance not an insistance on waterbased ,just becouse manufacturers decided to use waterbased in order to comply was not a compulsary decision and many companies now have compliant solvent systems with VOC reading even lower than waterbourne systems

that apart we are talking tinted clearcoat aplications and as far im aware there is also no requirment for clears to be waterbased

the main issue if a waterbourne basecoat was used would be that of adhesion to plastic as waterbourne requires a physical adhesion so would require the plastic to be sanded which would in the case of clear or transparant plastics create a hazey finish and still have adhesion issues ,as far as i am aware there is not a viable adhesion promoter to allow waterbourne to aplied indirectly to a plastic surface ,if used without any scratch or a suitable adhesion promoter the waterbourne would simply peel off ,thus choice is severly limited imo

Paul

i cant imagine why basf's toners wouldnt work. my understanding is they are in solvent form until mixed with other waterbased products. You can use them to tint sealers, i dont see why adding a few drops into clear would be a problem. That would include RM Onyx and Glasurit 90 line. The other ideas mentioned are good as well.

ARTSPRAY wrote:
A pedantic point I think Paul, but I'm happy to correct what I said because of it:

Maybe the OP doesn't have a choice. I've worked in a few bodyshops where it was waterbourne colour or nothing.

I don't disagree that solvent would probably be the better choice, but one has to work with the products one has to hand sometimes and I have used a tinted clear waterbourne basecoat more than once without issue.

Nobody actually suggested mixing waterborne base tints in with 2k clear. Both Andy and Jay said tint clear basecoat with black tint, then 2k clear over that