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Gloss Black Flames on Matte Black body?

22K views 9 replies 8 participants last post by  charchri4 
#1 ·
My 1st post!
My '54 Mercury Coupe is finally headed to body and paint. My concept is having the body painted in Matte Black with contrasting Gloss Black Flames. The issue arises with apparent edges between the Gloss and the Matte. Is there a way to do this concept eliminating the harsh edges? Here is a pic similar of what I am wanting to achieve. However, it looks like in the pic they "hid" their edges with pin-striping. I do not want any pinstripes, just a edgeless transition from Gloss to Matte. Am I asking too much?

Thanks in advance!

Darren


 
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#2 ·
There is really no getting away from the flame edge. Most painters will have the flames striped as you said then bury the flames and stripes in clear which will make the edge go away.
You may want to have the shiny flames striped in shiny black. May kill 2 birds with one stone.
 
#3 ·
Welcome to the forums Darrin!
Get the car ready for paint then mask off the flames and spray them gloss black. Remove the masking then back tape the flame pattern leaving a small (1/16th inch) edge of the flames to spray the matte paint over. Once it's painted and cured you can sand the over painted edge to level the two paints. Go slow on the sanding and use 2000 grit or finer paper so you don't "de-gloss" the shiny stuff. Now you have no edge.
Mark
 
#4 ·
You will have an edge no matter which way you go. I would do a gloss base in the flame areas, and buff if you need a better gloss... then mask the flames... sand the rest of the car... and shoot a flat finish.

That way you will get the best finish on the flames... and an edge no more than two paint layers thick. If you shoot the gloss paint last, your edges will be shiny making them more visible.

Sanding around the edges sounds like it would have a potential to cause numerous touch ups, which may be bad news! Your choice.

Life is full of compromises. :) ...especially in the paint biz!
 
#6 ·
You will have an edge no matter which way you go. I would do a gloss base in the flame areas, and buff if you need a better gloss... then mask the flames... sand the rest of the car... and shoot a flat finish.

That way you will get the best finish on the flames... and an edge no more than two paint layers thick. If you shoot the gloss paint last, your edges will be shiny making them more visible.

Sanding around the edges sounds like it would have a potential to cause numerous touch ups, which may be bad news! Your choice.

Life is full of compromises. :) ...especially in the paint biz!
I was thinking the same thing and if he has as much linear footage of edge as his example , a person could spend a lOOOOONG time feathering...:pain:
 
#7 ·
I'm not suggesting this because I'm pretty sure it won't work for what you are doing but it worked on a test panel I tried it on. My car is semi gloss black and I was looking for matte stripes with no edge and no messing around with paint again. So on my test panel I taped off a stripe and hit it with 0000 steel wool till I got a uniform matte on it. In most lights it looks really good but at an angle in the sun it has a light grey hue to it like a scratch in black does that is not soo good. I think if it was a finer skuff pad it might be better. Anyway what stood out over the 2 different colors of paint I tried is no line at all in the transition and the paint is perfectly flat. That part of it looks really good.

I never tried it on the car because of the grey hue but I wonder if there is some way to take this concept and make it work for you.
 
#9 ·
I have no idea if this would work, but it sounds like you want traditional flames painted using the "realflames" techneque (the deal that they've been doing for the last bunch of years with flames painted with an air brush and some templates but basically freehand).

I'm betting someone good with an airbrush could do what you want, but it would probably be on a bigger scale than they're used to, might have to use something like a detail gun instead of an airbrush.

Thinking about it some more I'm betting that a good graffiti artist might be able to do this freehand also.
 
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