Well after visiting 3 different body shops yesterday, it appears I will be painting my 70 Bee myself. Body shops are just too expensive when I was willing to do 80% of the work myself ( taking down to metal, body work, blocking etc...)
I have painted several of my cars in the past, but have always shyed away from dealing with metallic paint (BC/CC)
Can anyone give me hints on how to avoid uneven paint application with the metallics? I dont want the car to be in the sun and have "tiger stripes" visible.
Thanks

I can't give you a technical answer about painting like some, but I can tell you that I'm no pro painter either but have painted several solid color cars. I was worried like you about my first metallic and was told it's alot easier with BC/CC than a single stage, and it is. Just get it all covered well and you should be fine.

Good luck, you can do it. Make sure you use a red primer. If you use the gray, the purple will appear a lot lighter. Good luck.. Take pics.

If you've painted several vehicles, you have the basics down by now, metallics, esp colors like PlumCrazy can be challenging to paint for some, even professionals, ....depending on the mfg of choice for paint, follow their recommended choice for a value shade regarding the primer or sealer base you'll be spraying over, do a spray out test before commiting to the mfg recommendations, just incase you want to alter the shade value of the base,......painting almost any light colored BC/CC, esp metallics, you want a uniform base value/color, wether your using primer or a sealer shade,

to avoid tiger stripe, or bands of color build up, break from the habit of flashing off at panel stops when painting, this way you prevent paint build up at panel to panel gaps, flash off after a body panel gap, into the next panel in one direction, then starting from the opposite direction, paint right past your last stop/flash off and finish/flash off in the middle of your first pass, then repeat on your next overlap, just make the flash off/break farther down the car,...it's hard to describe, but think of your flash off and overlap like laying bricks, the staggered pattern they have over one another stacked, thats just for the first coat of base, your second coat, repeat the procedure, but try to avoid repeating the same flash off stops from the second coat on top of the 1st coat, same goes for the 3 coat, and the 4th coat,....with Plum Crazy try and avoid getting color coverage with a minimum of coats, inother words, avoid heavy coats/passes, better to do twice the amount of thinner coats, than fewer heavier coats, this way you achieve a better uniform coverage, esp if your flash offs, and overlaps are not repeated coat after coat like they may be with a solid color, or single stage,...you'll find that painting metallic with BC/CC is actualy easier than single stage, it just takes a different technique, I find that if you want the metallic to really stand out, your last coat of base color should be reduced about another 10% with thinner/basemaker, and dust the car completely, but increase your spray distance about 6 inches, and flash the vehicle rapidly, don't touch the surface after this at all, this allows the paint/metallics to "stand up" on the surface, so that when you spray the first flash coat of clear you suspend the metallic at much more pronounced depths, creates a much more "dramatic" finish,....thats the difference between looking at some metallic paint jobs and bearly being able to see the metallic in the finish, and some metallics that jump off the paint....

Just take your time, BC/CC can be very forgiving, esp with the base, the clear coat can be applied in your standard painting "mode/fashion"...Good luck

Mike

I'm no pro either but from my understanding FC7 is about as hard of a metallic to get right as there is. Try to do everything right and good luck. I sprayed my Hemicuda in single stage and it was a tough colour to spray, I never was happy with it.

Sheldon