Order of steps

[Gunner]

What's the best way to accomplish the following:

I want a Kandy Tangerine finish over a base color, flames a slightly darker color, and pinstriping that's slightly lighter.

I was planning on a gold base coat for the pinstriping, adding a little bit of black or other suitable color for the medium base coat color, and a bit more for the darkest flames color. I just want different shades of the same color, not different hues.

How do I lay out the flames in order to keep a nice edge and limit edge build up? My first thought was to spray the whole tank with the lightest color, tape the flames with 1/8 tape but not mask any more, spray the medium base coat, tape off the non-flame portion, and spray the darkest color. Very easy and limited steps. The problem I foresee with this is the amount of time before I pull that 1/8 tape up. The medium color will have to be dry so I can mask it over to shoot the darkest color and I'm worried about the border between the pinstriping and the medium color. I'm not worried about the pinstripe to darkest border, since I can pull the tape while the dark color can still lay down a bit.

I'm going to shoot test panels, of course, but don't want to waste my time when I have some experts to ask up front! Anyone have suggestions on what order to tape and spray this?

Gunner

 

[rex]

Here's what I would do but remember you're playing with HOK and your recoat times are much quicker than my PPG.After spraying the base color I'd lay out the flame outline including the pinstripe for size.Spray your stripe color and when it's dry enough run a piece of fineline around the edge,then spray the flame color.An airbrush or detail gun would be great for spraying the stripe to keep it thin and contained to just the outer edge if you're worried about millage.You're probably going to be better off using some sg100 at some point to avoid rushing,the way I take it HOK only gives you 1 hour to recoat their bases so this means you have to tape and spray the stripe and flames and put candy or clear on it within an hour of the last coat of the first color,man that's fast.That's also at 70 degrees,at 85 you only get 30 minutes and you're in one of the hot states.

 

[Gunner]

Have I got the right idea on tinting the base coat? Would black be the right color to use to mix with the gold. All I want is slight variations in the brightness of the same color, not different hues.

On a related note, being that this is my first experience with kandies, would I be better off just going with the Kandy Base Coats? They're said to be easier to spray, though not giving as deep a finish. Watching Monster Garage the other night, they sprayed Black, then Root Beer Kandy, then Pagan Gold Kandy and the color was pretty close to what I'm looking for. Going that route, I imagine I could just add white to the black base coat and lay my flames in it before going over it with the two kandies.

Gunner

 

[John Pierce]

Just my opinion, but I don't think the UK Kandy's are difficult to spray, at least on a motorcycle.... where Kandys can get weird is on large panels if you don't have a very consistant spraying pattern you can get blotching or banding.

On a motorcycle tank and fenders it's really not hard; just make sure and turn the fluid knob on your gun basically "off" and then open it up just a bit to restrict trigger pull for the first 2-3 coats of Kandy; then open up the fluid another turn or so and spray a couple more coats. Don't be afraid to try it, the Kandy "look" is well worth the effort.

Also, HOK is no big deal to use as long as you use SG-100 Intercoat between steps to give you some breathing room. The steps Rex outlined sound very good:

1) add a little black to the gold base for the medium dark and spray base.
2) 2 coats SG100 Intercoat to give you some time and protect your base from overspray
3) tape off flames
4) Spray un-tinted gold for pinstrip on inside edge of flames
5) 2nd 1/8" fineline tape on inside of flames to protect pinstripe
6) Tape over the "seam" between the 2 1/8" tapes to prevent leakage
7) Mix darkest gold base coat with a bit more black than base and spray.
8) 5-6 coats Tangerine Kandy over the whole kit'n'kaboodle
9) 2-3 coats clear
10) Wetsand with 1000 to eliminate flame "edge"
11) 2-3 coats final clear
12) sand with 1500, 2000 then polish

Your Mileage May Vary

That Tangerine Kandy is SWEEEET!

JP

 

[Gunner]

Thanks, John. Perfect answer for my post. You've also given me the confidence to go ahead and try the kandy. Now I just need to decide which gold base to use!

Gunner

 

[John Pierce]

Oh yeah, one more thing... the base coats have a 12 hour window before you have to put a topcoat or clear on... the only reason I put sg100 on the first base is in case I miss a tiny area on my tapeouts I can touch it up with some 600 wet sandpaper before I Kandy and clear it. So, you do have some time to work with your base coats/pinstripe/flames and if you have to stop, coat it with sg100 and do it later.

I used to use 600 wet paper to scuff the SG100, but after reading Scott's flames how-to I started using the maroon 3M scuff pads dry and those things ROCK! Much easier and faster than wet sanding the Interclear.

As Rex said, there is some time considerations here. The Kandy/Clear step is where you have to hoof it.... you can't let the Kandy get totally dry before you clear it, so that means as soon as the Kandy coats are tacky and stop "stringing", start doing the clear coats. It's not that big a deal, I usually do the whole Kandy/Clear coat thing in about 2 hours total.

Have fun!

JP