Specialist paints
As well as the usual range of colours that are used by manufactures and the aftermarket paint industries there are some paints which will fall into the specialist category. All prices for resprays with specialist paints are POA. Email or ring with your requirements.
Chromaflair (flip) paints.
Although these finishes have been available for a while now they are only just beginning to fall to within the price range of most enthusiasts. They are still expensive but considerably less so than a few years back. These amazing paints actually change colour depending on the angle at which they are viewed. The secret to these incredible paints is very small man made symmetrical flakes that due to their unique multi layered film construction causes interference to incoming light waves and relects them back out. Chromaflair paints contain no pigment - their incredibly rich colours actually being produced. The same effect can be found in nature in things like bubbles, some butterflies and sea shells
Painting with flips can be a very tricky business. They must be painted over a ground coat of varying colour dependant on the effect required. Darker ground coats produce the most startling effect with a definite colour change being clearly evident. Lighter ground coats will produce a more delicate and subtle shimmering effect. So many different chromaflair paints are available from so many different paint companies and each one is so changeable dependant on ground coat used (plus the chromaflair can even be tinted with other colours or topped with candy) that your choice is almost endless. It is relatively easy to come up with a combination that has never before been seen. Chromaflair paint varies in price from £100 per litre to over a thousand. As a guide when I did my own mk2 CRX VTEC in Rage's XTC blue green flip I used 3.5 litres which included all the door and boot shuts but the engine bay & underneath of bonnet were done in gloss back.
Candies
The term candy paint is used to describe semi transparent coloured paint sprayed over a bright metallic ground coat. The paints themselves are actually very cheap being little more that a tinted lacquer - unlike the chromaflair there is no clever technology here. The effect is amazing, especially in sun, with the colour on the angle rich and deep but any panels or corners facing the viewer explode into bright almost blinding colour. Candies are very tricky to spray with 15 to 20 coats (including ground and lacquer coats) commonplace. If the painter slows down, double hits an area, hesitates or speeds up even just for a split second the imperfection (because of the paints semi transparent nature) is carried through to the finished job. The only way to eliminate it is rub it all down and start again. Very few other places will be able to deliver a quality candy respray.
Flakes
Flakes are basically just brightly coloured metal flakes very similar to those little pots of glitter that you probably used in conjunction with pritt stick to make your mum a card when you were a kid. Flakes are very cheap and there are many different types and colours to choose from. They are now even producing chromaflair and various effect flakes. They are usually bought dry in a small pot and added to lacquer or colourless basecoat. Due to their large size they often protrude causing tiny bumps or bobbles in the final painted surface. Providing enough lacquer coats have been put on this can usually be sanded flat with very fine wet & dry and mopped back to a glossy, shiny finished surface - be warned however this process is time consuming.
Email: jcautobody@hotmail.co.uk
Tel: 07787 813606 (9am - 9pm 7 days a week)
