Clear color over solid color to correct/enhance?

[cdlynch]

With my zero free time, I got it in my head to mod a very cheap bass, but it only comes in cyan. Has anyone ever tried "color correcting" with a clear color with successful or interesting results? This assumes a chemically compatible finish can be determined for a cheap production bass.

My first thought was using a complimentary color over it. Mixing complimentary pigments makes greys, but a clear color coat wouldn't mix, but filter the color beneath, and I have no idea what to expect, and no skill to test it myself. Would clear red over cyan make the base color appear grey-ish or darker, and depending on lighting, you might see glints of the red coating? I'd prefer murky and "interesting" to cyan!

Smart money is just sanding and repainting, but that's extra steps, time, and expense. So the relevant questions are:

1. Is the feasible on any level? (for a professional, not me)
2. Could this be done with a single coat to minimize project time and expense?

 

[Beej]

The colour questions notwithstanding, I'll just say that when I spray a new colour over an existing colour, it always requires at least scuff-sanding. I guess my point is that your colour explorations may work out the way you like but there's no shortcut around sanding and respraying a new finish. Most sprayed finishes require multiple coats over a few days, so it's unlikely you'd be satisfied with the finish at just a single coat.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

With my zero free time, I got it in my head to mod a very cheap bass, but it only comes in cyan. Has anyone ever tried "color correcting" with a clear color with successful or interesting results? This assumes a chemically compatible finish can be determined for a cheap production bass.

My first thought was using a complimentary color over it. Mixing complimentary pigments makes greys, but a clear color coat wouldn't mix, but filter the color beneath, and I have no idea what to expect, and no skill to test it myself. Would clear red over cyan make the base color appear grey-ish or darker, and depending on lighting, you might see glints of the red coating? I'd prefer murky and "interesting" to cyan!

Smart money is just sanding and repainting, but that's extra steps, time, and expense. So the relevant questions are:

1. Is the feasible on any level? (for a professional, not me)
2. Could this be done with a single coat to minimize project time and expense?

Well, it depends what you are looking for. If you just want to change from cyan to red, spray it with a finish that has enough pigment in it to be opaque red. Then it will become red.

If you only put in enough pigment to be transparent red, and you spray that over cyan, you'll get a mixed color. Dull and greyish, somewhere between cyan and red. Depending on how heavy you put on the transparent red.

If you want the final result to be transparent red, the usual process is to spray it white, then spray transparent red until you get the depth of color that you want.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

You can preview the effect of non-mixed transparent colors using sheets of transparent colored plastic (such as theatrical lighting gels) but for this application you'd want to preview them laying on a surface, not having light shined through them and out the other side. Or given a solid-color basecoat in place, just lay transparent red plastic (one side of old 3D glasses?) on a cyan surface.

Silver (with or without flakes) is another undercoat option for a transparent topcoat.

 

[KidAmnesia]

Mixing complimentary colors gives browns, not grays. And translucent red over a cyan base will end up looking purpleish.

I'd rather paint it with a solid color of your choice. It won't likely be more work to spray a solid color than a translucent one and the results are a lot more predictable.

 

[ardgedee]

What kind of spray are you thinking of? Most canned spray paints are opaque (or opaque enough for the sake of argument), and insufficient coats will look speckly and uneven rather than translucent.

If you shoot a tinted clear coat, you can build up layers for an even tint over the base coat, but like the previous posters said, you have to plan ahead -- if you have a paint program on a computer that includes layering (Photoshop, obviously, but there are a lot of cheaper options too), experiment by putting the base color on a lower layer and experiment with tinting the second layer. You'll get a sense of whether the thing you were hoping would look purple is going to turn out grey or brown instead. But it won't be a perfect illustration of what you'll get because different pigments behave differently and will result in different amounts of show-through of underlying layers.

tbh it's probably going to be easier to mix up your intended color and spray it on until it's opaque. Color mixing tends to be a lot harder than it looks, especially when you're trying to incorporate an existing color you have no control over and you also have a specific result in mind.

 

[cdlynch]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies! This would be something I’d pay someone else to do. I hate finishing, and know far too little about it. Lots of good points here, shortcuts sound like a bad idea. To do it correctly might cost as much as the target instrument, so the plan is, buy, do the mod, and if successful, hire a pro to finish.

I wouldn’t want to cut corners on a paint job, but if I *have* to cut corners, silver glitter star stickers over cyan might make the whole thing make some kind of sense.

 

[hbarcat]

As a professional painter I'm keenly aware of how much more complicated and unpredictable it is to match the results you get when mixing colors in an ideal computer imaging system, and actually adding paint pigments together in physical, (tinted, transparent) layers sprayed on a surface.

The only way to know what the results will be is to actually do the mixing and spraying. Ideally, I'd want to practice on some scrap material first.

 

[ardgedee]

As a professional painter I'm keenly aware of how much more complicated and unpredictable it is to match the results you get when mixing colors in an ideal computer imaging system, and actually adding paint pigments together in physical layers sprayed on a surface.

The only way to know what the results will be is to actually do the mixing and spraying. Ideally, I'd want to practice on some scrap material first.

Absolutely agree. I used to work in prepress

For people without experience in color mixing, though, it's a way to get into the ballpark of seeing what they have in mind.