The only difficulties I can see with the alternating color layers would be that the sanding of each second layer would have to be pretty precise so as to not sand down to the lower layer in spots...

The reason this layering effect first bubbled up in my head is that my car was done in a black primer. I took the black primer down to an 800 grit finish. Then I added my two layers of almost translucent Fire Red. The color was EXACTLY what I would have wanted ( a Black-Cherry ).

But I could see that by each additional Fire Red layer I was moving farther and father away from the optimal Black-Cherry and moving closer and closer to the Fire-Red.

And unfortunately I am not a clever enough color mixer to figure a way to blend two Tremclad basic colors to arrive at a Black-Cherry. As I previously noted I did try to cut the FireRed Tremclad with some Black... but the color combination resulted in something closer to a pottery brown.

Maybe there is some color mixing genius out there that can suggest which of the Tremclad basic colors could be combined to arrive at a deep blackish red.

As for the aluminum / clearcoat layering idea... I would be tempted to try it... as the only problem I see with that layering effect is that :

a ) again you have to be very careful with your sanding between second coats in order to avoid cutting through to the lower layer... and

b ) each layer would have to be consistently layered on GOING IN THE SAME DIRECTION so that the underlying aluminum layer has a consistent direction to its layer ( otherwise you might end up with a crosshatching or weaving of the underlying pattern ).

I would experiment with this... but I am already in the midst of 'going Black Cherry' or at the least FireRed... and the 'brushed high gloss aluminum' look would not be as appealing on the particular car body that I am working on at the moment.

Let me just say this : This thread has been the single most important automotive discovery that I have stumbled on in the last couple of years. I had a sportscar quietly sitting in a garage... all mechanics done, all bodywork done... and just waiting for a bag of money to fall into my hands so that I could afford the $3500 that the bodyshops all wanted to charge me to paint the car. And so the car just sat. THIS THREAD INSPIRED ME.

I got out my sanders, did a final sand on the primered body, bought the supplies and followed the recipes that we have concocted here - AND I WAS AMAZED with the initial results. I gotta say that again... I WAS AMAZED and totally re-inspired.

I don't know how perfect I will be able to achieve in the end... but I do know that this thread gave me the hope and inspiration to put some time into a project that had become totally stalled due to the HIGH COST of body shop paint jobs. And so far I am truly impressed by the results this Tremclad Rollerjob is doing.