Newb with pearls, got a question...

[ericstevens73]

So I layed down a couple of coats of HOK Cobalt Blue Kandy intensifier in clear coat over carbon fiber. Has a really cool effect. The piece also has aluminum which I covered in black base coat befor spraying the whole thing with the Cobalt Blue. Looked great, but I wanted a little bit more POP, so I threw down a Silver/Blue ghost pearl in another coat of clear.

My question comes in at this point -

The pearl really took away from the look of the carbon under the Kandy. I like the look of a little of the pearl, but not as intense as it ended up coming out... Can I wet sand and cut into the pearl a bit to tone down the look, or should I steer clear as I may end up completely botching the job by sanding completely through the pearl in some spots and not others leaving a splotchy pearl job?

I was thinking 600 or 1000 wet.................

 

[ericstevens73]

Since the room was quiet!!! I went ahead and did it! I took 600 wet paper to it... It appears as if it worked? I still have to lay down graphics and then shoot clear, but it looks as if I reduced the amount of pearl? With water on the piece it looks really good. I'd say just as I'd wanted to begin with. Though I did rub too much in one area... That area's going to be covered by a graphic (logo I should say). I thought I'd see how far I could go, in that one area, since it was to be covered anyway. And as everyone probably knew - yes, this could have been a very dangerous proposition! It ended up working out, as far as I can tell!

 

[TAZ]

Yes, if you put pearl over or under the candy, this will make it so you can't really see the carbon fiber through the candy...as you found out. The more pearl you put on, the less you will be able to see through the candy.

Sounds like you sanded some of the pearl/clear off. Pretty risky like you said.
Sounds like it worked out for you though.

Another way you could have done this if you wanted a tad bit more pop is do a mix of oriental blue and cobalt blue and coat it directly over the carbon fiber. This will give you a slightly brighter blue, thus showing the carbon fiber more.
You could have also put a VERY light coat of silver metallic over the alum areas that you painted black. This would have given you a very dark candy blue metallic out in the sun.