ok so ive been thinking about paint for my chevy for some time now ive decided on a candy green. it will be my first full candy paint job if i mess it up oh well at least i will know it was my fault and i can learn from my mistakes..... ok so i have a lot of mods i want to do to the body including chopping it, but i want to drive the car while i am finishing up the sheetmetal work the chassis should be completed in the next couple of weeks and i want to put the body back on frame and get the car running but before i do that id like to paint the firewall candy green to match the body. so my question is can i shoot the firewall in candy, then after i have completed my bodywork (probably a few months ),paint the whole car and have the candy match or pretty close? thanks
Hey, That shouldn't be a problem providing you use the same undercoat/base, and your mixing/reduction & triggering are all the same. I'd suggest you use a light green base to shoot this candy over. Swankey Devils C.C. "Meanwhile, back aboard The Tainted Pork"
i was planning on using gold as a base so i should be fine huh? i was thinking i could mix up a big batch of paint so i have enough leftover so as long as i leave my gun the same way i did when i spray the firewall i should be ok? great!! sounds good
I have done one candy job and I did some of it in pieces separately. I think you can do it so it matches pretty close. Just keep good track of how many coats you put on, and remember how much overlap you did, and how big of a fan on the gun, and how far from the surface you held the gun, and what the air pressure was, temperature, etc. Count the number of turns out on the knobs on the gun so you can get it the same way next time. Before you start spraying, come up with a game plan for how you're going to make the overlaps, where you're going to start and finish, and how you're going to angle the gun to work around 3D shapes evenly without getting the paint uneven. If you have any brackets or something that hangs out off of the firewall that need to be body color, you might have to paint those separately if you have to paint behind them or hit them from six different angles or something. It's easy to mess up and get too dark when you're trying to paint around some protrusion because you have to hit it from more angles to get thorough coverage. You have to follow the instructions carefully to make sure you allow enough flash time in between coats, and in between the clear coats. The base coat needs to be a really uniform color. Good luck. A candy paint job is fun, but at the same time a huge pain in the ass and it takes all day. You will be cleaning your gun and mixing paint over and over and over until you go insane. A guy at the paint store had some good advice when he told me, "whatever you do, don't run out of candy! ... if you run out of candy, you're f*cked!". And that's true. If you run out of candy, you pretty much ruined it, because you can't wait too long in between coats or the coats after that will peel off.
ok, im in sponge mode soaking it all in..... any recommendation on a good brand candy? and how much concentrate , and clear i should get so i dont runn out i wouldnt mind have some left over material... also sould base be wet sanded?
If it's catalyzed urethane enamel candy, you can really only mix up what you're going to use right then. It can't just sit around for hours or days or it'll turn into stone. I mixed up a fresh batch for each coat, and mixed it with the little bit of leftover paint that was left in the cup from doing the previous coat. For the catalyst, wipe the threads clean with lacquer thinner so the lid won't get glued on. Put the lid on tight in between each coat. The catalyst reacts with water vapor in the air and starts to go bad if you leave it open too long. It's not that hard to get the candy the same color for each mix if you measure it out carefully in the cup.
I used HOK and I liked it. It's expensive, and you'll need a lot of it. Get more than you need for the firewall, and you'll start to get an idea of how much more of it you'll need to buy to do the whole car. How much candy you need will depend partly on how many coats you put down. I did five coats of candy on mine. I think you should download the technical sheets from HOK for all of the different parts. There's tons of info you'll want to read in there.
ok i will look into the tech sheets yea ive seen the prices for hok guess you have to pay money if you want the best. are there any other brands that might be a little easier on the wallet?
Put a little candy green in the gold base , then shout your candy green , should find it will take less of the candy green & give you a more even colour without the shadows . It will still give you the almost the same affect of green over the gold
If the color you like is HOK go to the jobber store to get your paint and see if you can have them translate the formula into PPG, It costs way less. Also it will be be redused not catalized so you can save it in a well closed can for the rest of the paint job. Mix your candy into DBC 500 or HOK inter cote clear depending on which brand you end up with. If you mix the candy with clear you run the risk of loosing a good deal of your UV protection and could potentialy alow the candy to fade. Just my 2 cents.
Just my two cents! I havent painted as many candy cars as some other people But I have painted TRUE candy jobs that had no texture or patterns in them. (There was only one car that didnt have texture or a pattern at this years Primer Nats and that was painted by my boss) Stay away from urethane. Keep it simple base coat and clear. Gold or silver base doesnt really matter so much. But mix the candy with the base to get it as close to the the candy color as possible. There is no set amount or ratio of candy to paint. you have to eye ball it. But the thinner or clearer the candy and the more coats you put on assuming you spray it evenly the better the chances it will come out good. Over thin the base alot, it will evaporate. Take your time. and Organic green from HOK is hard to get even. I have more advice but that is it for now. But this is just my opinon and it stinks like everyone elses.
I can't imagine anyone explaining this in a brief statement better than RustyBolts did. It's all about being consistent. Firewalls are often done beforehand, and yeah, often they don't perfectly match. But it's something that close is generally good enough. If you have experience with the modern basecoat/clearcoat systems there is nothing to fear. If not, candy may be a bit ambitious. I would advise a small project to get the feel for it, maybe a bike tank or tool box, etc.
Sorry if I'm a little confused here! So many people saying candy is easy to paint, and you can paint pieces separately and have them match??????????????? I'd like to know what kind of candy paint that is! Sorry to be a spoilsport, but painting candy is the most difficult paint there is. Of the many candy jobs I've seen here in NJ,PA area, only about 1/4 of them look "right". That means, no tiger striping, no blotches, and colors match from panel to panel. Yes there are ways to paint candy easier, tinting the base, same color base, KBC, or Kandy base coat which doesnt call for real candy over it. Putting on LOTS of coats helps even out the color, but also lessens the amount of basecoat metallic you see through the candy. Sorry folks, but there is no way I'd ever paint a candy car with separate panels! It wont match. I've been painting for 33 years, doing custom paint like candies (first in lacquer) for 26 years. I'm not a full time painter, but do it as "a very time consuming hobby". Easily painted over 100 cars in true candy. Not bikes, not graphics, or partials. Full candy paint jobs. It isn't easy no matter how you cut it. I would never recommend a beginner doing candy as a first paint job. It would be a waste of almost $1000 worth of material! Get your experience, practice, practice, practice! do junk fenders and doors, get them perfect first, then do a car. Watch John Kosmoski's video a bunch of times. Then give it a shot. And from what other custom painters have told me,,,Root beer and Green are the most difficult colors to get on right, without stripes or blotches. I hate to be so negative, but paint is expensive, and most people don't know what they are getting into with Candy paint, or get not so great advice. If you mess up and get so frustrated with loss of time and money, you might not want to stick with it!
All the tri coats of todays cars & truck are a spin of of candy & look almost the same ,go to your paint store & see what the base coats are compared to the second coat & that will give you a better idea, you don't see shadows or blotchs on new cars
The great majority of tri-coats are base coat, pearl coat, clear coat. The only thing that makes it seem anywhere near candy is that the pearl coat is transparent. I wouldn't recommend spraying any job panel by panel for all the same reasons Chopolds said, but if you must, here are a few tips. First, I would use all HOK products. A metallic green base will help keep yout color even, but lessen the amount of depth the candy gives off. You need to find a happy medium between lots of depth and impossible to keep even. HOK has kandy base coats that are premixed urethane kandy basecoats that only require clear over them. I have never used them, but they claim to be more forgiving for a first time user and they take any guesswork out, whatever that means. The other option is using kandy concentrates. These you can mix up in a master batch of intercoat clear and kandy. Then reduce and spray. This way you can spray your firewall and have the exact same mixture for the rest. The only thing helping you is that the firewall and exterior of the car, can;t really be seen at the same time. So if the color is slightly off, it won't be noticed by anyone but you. Just be sure to keep an eye on things like temperature, humidity, and spray technique. These will obviously change the weay the color looks if they are altered during the process. Keep them as constant between times your spray to minimize differences. Good luck!
Thats why I said to tint the base , not rocket science , why scare the guy , you don't learn without trying , spray a little on a old panel & play with it
I have been told ,SEM paint products has a base coat that looks like a candy , I am waiting for a color chart from them to see for my self ,DUCKMAN
Chopolds is right. True candy is no game. I've seen maybe a dozen cars around Motown, in MY ENTIRE CAR LIFETIME that look right. But then again I'm so picky about shit I guess...nevermind. It's not for beginners. The best in the biz will fuck it up too. It happens. Get a twitch in your elbow, all done. Run out of mat'l in a critical place, all done. Paint separate panels, well you get it. Firewall? Who cares? Do you see it all the time? No hood? Even then, no big deal. It's separate from the rest of the main car. The best advice in this post, read the directions, watch the DVDs, tech sheets.
You can read & watch all the shit in the world , but you never learn without trying or use this as your moto ( If you don't succeed give up)
I would stay away from HOK. All you're paying for is a name. Any color that HOK has you can get in PPG. Its a better product and its less expensive. I would definitely use a base clear over a urethane clear to mix your candy concentrates in. They are easier to spray and a lot less material build up. I would recommend PPG's DBC500 or DBU500 intercoat clear. Just be sure to use the corresponding base underneath.
Not entirely true! I had a 66 GTO to paint. The guy wanted a SUPER nice red metallic color. I tried to tell him that to get a nice true bright red in metallic was OK, but I think he really wanted Candy Apple Red. So he goes off to talk to his car buddies about it, and comes back with the factory Caddillac tri coat candy red. OK, I'm not hard to get along with here, gotta please the customers (well, most of the time). So I get a pint of each color to do the Caddy color, and do a sprayout for him on a sign blank. I also play the devil's advocate, and spray out a Candy Apple Red over Orion silver base from HOK. He flipped out over how the REAL candy looked compared with the "fake" candy. I call it fake because it's just a red pearl that you put a weakly tinted red over, not a strongly tined red over a true metallic base. it IS harder to do a real candy paint, because the base is a different color than the candies. It IS more brilliant, as well, as it's a pure metallic base, not a color pearl base. The clincher was...when I priced out the Caddy paint, using Dupont Chromabase system, Dupont clear and all....the House of Kolor paint was about 200$ cheaper! Even I couldn't believe that! The Dupont clear was a lot more money, and the red pearl basecoat was a LOT more. So I saved him money, AND he got a better paint job at the same time. More difficult for me, but that's the breaks! Oh...and BTW, tha HOK Candy basecoats are just a basecoat formula that closely matches the colors of candy that are available from HOK. NOt a true candy, not even a tri coat, just base and clear. Good for beginners to get the color they like, but doesn't have the difficulty, or depth of finish of a real Candy job. Might be good for doing parts separately, or firewall like the original poster wanted. I was never pleased with just a candy basecoat job for my custom paint, but I have used it, and put regular candy over it for a deeper finish (it will darken the color, as well) , that's easier to do.
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