Candy Apple Red Miniflake lacquer How To

[Dadagoboi]

This is my first attempt to do a true candy over gold microflake over black base paint job. It's a 4 step process:
Black base coat
Gold micro flake coat
Transparent candy coat
Lacquer top coats

Here's the bass: 32" scale with tilt back 2+2 headstock.

Candy powder and .004 micro flake, I'll use 'classic gold' flake and 'bloodshot' candy. This is an Ebay supplier. Quick ship, good prices and fast answers. Each bag will make 1 quart of color or base

Acrylic lacquer media: Hot rod black primer for base coat and Hi-Performance clear for the flake, candy and clear coats.

 

[gsnad2000]

I love this stuff and know very little about finishing. Please document as much as possible! Thanks!

 

[Dadagoboi]

I love this stuff and know very little about finishing. Please document as much as possible! Thanks!

Will do. Any questions, please ask. I hope others will chime in with their techniques, equipment choices, etc.

Here's my spray gun arsenal and regulator. All the same HF siphon feed, old school type guns. Slightly modified to accept wide mouth mason jars. This saves a lot of paint and clean up. Uses 1.5 CFM @30 PSI air. Tips are 1.7. Knowing how to use the controls on the guns makes it easy to shoot just about anything and get a quality application with minimal overspray.

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My compressor is 220V 5 hp with a 20 gallon tank, bought used for $125. More than adequate for the guns.

Mixed paint in 32 and 16 ounce mason jars. ACE is acetone, used to thin the black primer

Candy Red and Gold flake mixed into Hi Performance clear. Each package of the candy and flake will make a quart of paint. I use 3/8" nuts to keep the flake in suspension but marbles work better.

I dribbled the various ingredients on a sheet of paper just for the heck of it. Should have used something to show the scale. The flake is tiny!

 

[Jonny5bass]

sub'd!

 

[Rano Bass]

Nice, I have been waiting for this thread of yours.
Why did you decided to use a candy red instead of red metalflakes?

 

[Dadagoboi]

Nice, I have been waiting for this thread of yours.
Why did you decided to use a candy red instead of red metalflakes?

Thanks, Rano. I'm doing an old school CAR. Red toner over gold, substituting mini flake for metallic to get more depth. Red metal flake doesn't give the same effect IMO, although it's a lot easier. For me it will be easier to use either gold or chrome flake and coat it with whatever candy color I want. Theoretically with red, blue and yellow candy powder I can mix any color but the stuff is cheap enough I can buy pre mixed. Using the same clear for the flake, color, and top coats means less stuff to by and guaranteed compatibility for all paint layers.

Everything used in this project is auto body stuff. Sandpaper is 'no-fil' aluminum oxide. I DO NOT wet sand until all finishing is done.

Here's my big discovery to get a smooth finish:

Guide Coat. It shows all imperfections in a sanding job. It's usually used over paint but it works just as well on plain wood to show problems in primary sanding. IMO the most important step for a great, QUICK, paint job is perfect wood prep.

First, sand up to 120 with a block or quality sander. Then apply the guide coat with the powder puff supplied. It's basically lamp black. This shows the top panel completed, sanded to 180 and ready for primer.

Center panel done and bottom panel lightly sanded revealing low spots

Sanded to 180.

Back side sanded to 120 and guide coated.

Sanding with 180 shows low spots that need to be filled with lacquer putty.

Done, entire body is sanded with 240, edges broken, etc. Time for primer coat.

This gives an idea how small micro flake is:

 

[wraub]

Definitely watching this one...

 

[bholder]

Definitely watching this one...

Me too - after that headstock teaser pic in the other thread, can't wait to see how the whole thing turns out. I'm generally more a natural or transparent finishes kinda guy, but that's looking sweet.

 

[Dadagoboi]

Me too - after that headstock teaser pic in the other thread, can't wait to see how the whole thing turns out. I'm generally more a natural or transparent finishes kinda guy, but that's looking sweet.

Thanks! Primer is thinned 1:1 with acetone. Gun pressure is around 30 psi at the gun. I decided to use the same gun (#2) on this entire job. Fan pattern is full. 2 double coats of acrylic lacquer hot rod black primer.

The light area above the 6 tailpiece holes is an extra shot of primer to fill a tiny defect that I missed in prep

Scuff sanded with 320 aluminum oxide paper and ready for flake.

...unfortunately I forgot to shoot a picture of just the flaked body but here's the flaked headstock.

The flake requires constant agitation to stay in suspension, it helps to have it in a clear jar to keep an eye on that. I used full strength clear, thinned 1:1.5 with lacquer thinner per manufacturers instructions but I think I'll thin it 1:2 or more next time. It took a full pint of flaked clear (1/2 of the pkg of 25 grams gold) to completely cover the headstock, body and a small sample board.

The primer, flake, candy and first 4 clear coats were done in one 4 hour work day.

 

[bholder]

I like that gold on black almost even better than with the CARover - tough choice! This paintin' stuff is all dark magic to me.

 

[Hopkins]

I like that gold on black almost even better than with the CARover - tough choice! This paintin' stuff is all dark magic to me.

Gold with a black base coat can look really good. But I can also have a tendency to look a little brown or green in certain light.

This one turned out really good, but next time I shoot a gold flake, especially a holographic flake like used on this bass, I will use a gold base coat. Under a red candy it should look spectacular though.

 

[Dadagoboi]

Gold with a black base coat can look really good. But I can also have a tendency to look a little brown or green in certain light.
This one turned out really good, but next time I shoot a gold flake, especially a holographic flake like used on this bass, I will use a gold base coat. Under a red candy it should look spectacular though.

That holo is really sharp, Hopkins. Jump in anytime, I know you have much flake experience. The gold micro has a slight bit of silver flake in it but not really a holo. I'm using gold because that's what the early Fender CAR has under it, like this Duck Dunn tribute I built with a Japanese Fender body. Silver base gives a redder red.

 

[Hopkins]

That holo is really sharp, Hopkins. Jump in anytime, I know you have much flake experience. The gold micro has a slight bit of silver flake in it but not really a holo. I'm using gold because that's what the early Fender CAR has under it, like this Duck Dunn tribute I built with a Japanese Fender body. Silver base gives a redder red.

Gold and Silver both work under a red candy, but I much prefer a gold base. It gives it a darker and richer color with more depth. The flake should give it an added quality over a standard gold base, the black base may leave you with more of a wine red than your typical candy, but I think it will look outstanding.

My comment was more toward @bholder's post about a gold flake without a red candy tint.

 

[Dadagoboi]

Gold and Silver both work under a red candy, but I much prefer a gold base. It gives it a darker and richer color with more depth. The flake should give it an added quality over a standard gold base, the black base may leave you with more of a wine red than your typical candy, but I think it will look outstanding.

It's extremely difficult to photograph but in person it's a knockout. Definitely darker...I almost switched to a silver base after I did the headstock but I think it will be OK. I may try a 50/50 gold/silver base next time. The color sample on the Ebay listing shows it with a metallic silver base, it really lives up to the 'bloodshot' name with that.

So far it's been fun. The first thing I had to do was figure out how many quarter teaspoons of powder were in a 5 gram bag so I could calculate how much to use per ounce of clear. It came out to 1/4 teaspoon per 3 ounces.

My comment was more toward @bholder's post about a gold flake without a red candy tint.

That's what I thought. No worries!

 

[Dadagoboi]

Candy coated with bloodshot toner, about 6 ounces. Gun at 30 PSI

You can see how much redder it is over the white masking tape in the control cavity.

Eight ounces of clear.

Masking tape still there

Eight more ounces of clear

Masking tape removed showing black base with clear

Then I let it sit overnight. Starting to get some depth!

 

[Hopkins]

Don't start level sanding until you get a good 4 wet coats of clear on it. Its easy to sand through the clear into the flake, in your case the color coat. You have to have a lot of finish built up to be able to sand it level without doing so.

 

[Dadagoboi]

Don't start level sanding until you get a good 4 wet coats of clear on it. Its easy to sand through the clear into the flake, in your case the color coat. You have to have a lot of finish built up to be able to sand it level without doing so.

Thanks for the reminder! I studied one of your flake job threads and took note of how much clear you used before sanding. 16 ounces of 1:1.5 Hi-Performance clear acrylic lacquer is around six double coats. The body still looked very rough the next morning.

I follow modern body work technique. No wet sanding until all paint/clear is applied. If sanding is necessary on any finish job I always hand block after primer, color, clear, etc. If I have to use a machine something has gone wrong in prep or application.

I started with 320 adalox (aluminum oxide) and quickly realized that was going to take a lot of labor and material. Moved down to 240...nope, still would take too long. So back to 180 adalox, dry, with a lot of caution. I knew that one sand through and it would probably be back to square one. It fllattened out OK with only one near mishap. Then back up to 320 for final clear coat. Here's what it looked like after 180.

Black area is a shadow. A little to the left of the top of the belly cut the color got a little thin. I thought I'd see if it would be OK once it was cleared again.

So, another 12 ounces of clear later...

As they say in China, "mei wenti". No Problem. This time it's the truth.

After detaping, cleaning up the neck pocket, and installing the neck for a progress pic.

Set aside to cure for a week before color sanding and buffing.

 

[Hopkins]

Oh yeah, that red is sexy. How accurate is the color in the picture vs seeing it in person?

 

[Beej]

That looks fantastic, well done!

 

[Rano Bass]

It looks really good!
The flakes look bigger now that they are sprayed on the body.