kandy

[Envious Interiors]

ok, i think ive seen kandy at a few of the roadster shows ive been to, but how does it work. like say a kandy apple red? ive never shot it before, and i would like to know the various different ways of shooting it? thanks

 

[rex]

All candy is is a bit of color dropped in clear so it's transparent,as you lay it on an undercoat you can see through the color to the base color and the more coats you put on the darker it'll get.You have to pay attention to putting it on evenly but some lighter candies or low strength homemades take quite a few coats to get rid of the 'mottling'.Play with a few test panels but make them at least a foot square,any smaller and it's hard to see if your overlap is off.If you're painting something small like a bike criss crossing the coats helps even things out but top surfaces of autos are hard to cross coat evenly so the overlap is very crucial.The easiest thing to do is pull back a few inches and let it go on a little thinner per coat and build it up,just don't put down a dry coat.Once you're comfortable you can bring the gun back in closer and spray the way you want.If you're not outlining it on taped lines be careful about putting it on too wet because it'll gather at the tape line and cause a dark edge.I personally like the 'ghost stripe' but it isn't always desirable.

 

[TWISTED]

it is also important to keep your gun strait at all times with candy or you will be heavy on the top or bottom of your spray pattern.

 

[Envious Interiors]

ok, that clears it up a lot. thanks for the help. now, are there special addatives for candy, like pearls, or do you just add a little bit of color paint into the clear?

 

[rex]

I'm not sure what you mean by the additives.PPG has a basecoat hardner for DBC if you're playing with tri stages because after 4 or 5 coats of base you can get problems,whether it be pearl,candies or just a poor hiding color.If you want to make candy there's 2 ways.I can't recall what you're using so I'll refer to PPG again.Take some of their base clear (DBC500) and add about 10% of the color you want from one of the basecoat mixing tints,some tints are weaker than others so it's a guessing game.If oyu want to do it in topcoat clear you need to add the color from the singlestage tints.Doing it this way is alot more sensitive to spray technique and will streak and motle more along with getting thick real fast,but I think it has more depth this way.HOK's basecoat candy seems to overcome this and still gives a deep,rich look from what I've heard.

 

[Envious Interiors]

ok, so say i take a white based car, and add a little bit of red base coat paint into my mixture of clear coat, and spray the clear on, will that give a kandy effect, or am i getting the completely wrong idea? if its that easy to create a kandy, then im sure i will have lots of fun in the future with paint jobs.

 

[rex]

Yeah,you've got the right idea.Be careful on white though with red or anything lighter,it really likes to mottle until you get 'so much' on.A white base is cool because it can give a slight illusion of neon but getting it on even seems to make it darker than what oyu actually want.I'd definately do this one in a base to avoid the downfalls of using topcoat clear,the base won't flow and move around as much to cause mottle or streaking.You have to remember too that what you think looks great in many booths can turn hideous as soon as you pull it in the sunlight,Candies are worse than pearls and metallics for this I believe.Do a few good sized test panels and you'll see if the present idea will work or be a nightmare.That gives you the option of playing with the strength of the candy to make it more user friendly and see if the combo will even get you the desired result without totally rethinking it.

 

[Envious Interiors]

ok, ill have to practice a little bit. what do you think a black base with a silver kandy would look like. im half tempted to do it on my car. i think it would be harder to notice any small problems. thanks for your advice.

 

[DDG]

Sorry to say but you're going to have a hard time finding silver candy. There's no such thing. The silver or any metallic would be the base for the candy color.
Sorry,
Dirt

 

[DenB.]

LIKE DDG JUST SAID, NO SUCH THING AS CANDY SILVER------- REMEMBER CANDIED RED, BLUE, GREEN ETC.... IT'S BASICALY ADDING COLOR TO CLEAR NOT TOO MUCH IN THE METALICS (I.E. SILVER) IF YOUR WORKING A BLACK BASE JUST TRY A LITTLE( AND I SUGGEST ) VERY LITTLE BLUE OR PURPLE PEARL MAYBE THAT'LL WORK NICE. GOOD LUCK