Back about 2 months ago me and my dad were doing bodywork on my camaro and decided that when we were done, my dad would paint it white. He used to be big in the bodywork/paint business along time ago (nearly 8 yrs ago). Anyway, he was talking with one of his old friends from a bodyshop and the guy said that if you mix the clear coat and base TOGETHER it would produce "a shine that no one will ever forget". My dad wasn't familiar with that method so he used just a few base color coats and no clear coat. The car is painted, and it looks lovely (except for where a little mosquito landed on the hood in wet paint, damn 'squitos :]). Its got a nice smooth finish and you can't tell if we used clear coat or not. Anyways my real question is, would mixing the clear and base coats actually work? I'm not sure how it would, as well as producing a nice "shine". My bro wants my dad to paint his T/A white too, so we're thinking of experimenting with something different.

ty much

 

I work at a paint place and ive never heard that stuff b4....... But ill tell you what....... put 3 layers of pearl white paint...... and 3 layers of pearl clearcoat individually wetsanding each clearcoat...... it will shine like a show car.... and the paint wont fall off in 6 months cause you put the clear with the base.

 

There are 2 kinds of paint (well, actually more but for the sake of this discussion there's 2), single stage and dual stage. Single stage paint is the old style that you spray on, stand back and enjoy the shine. Cheap and easy. Dual stage is the basecoat/clearcoat style. The basecoat goes on rather dry and dries to an extremely dull finish, and no matter how much you buff it, it stays dull. Then you put the shiny clear on. This dual stage paint is what virtually all show cars use, and it's what most production cars use too. I can not possibly imagine that mixing clear into a base coat will produce any sort of good results, or the paint companies would be happy to tell you all about it. They make money by having the best product, so if it really worked, they would be happy to promote it.

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Hey thanks for replying. That really cleared up a lot of stuff for me. Thanks!