[tomnt]

My son painted a hood. You can see the spray strokes in the metalic. We call it ghost zebra stripes. What did he do wrong?
Thank Tom.

[sstripes96]

I am in no way an accomplished painter (painted 2 cars over the years) but I have painted metallic before. Ive been told (and it did happen to me) that if you get the paint gun too close to the car, the metallic in the paint will group together. You may not be seeing actual stripes, just the areas where the gun was too close to the car. I dont think there is anything you can do about it other than re sand and reshoot. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

[PetesPonies]

first, I bet you used single stage paint? Metallic is the hardest to spray and single stage makes it worse. The metallic gets "mottled" when it is put on too wet. If on a vertical surface, 'ole gravity will make the metallic run. You have to put on the metallic dry enough that it doesn't bunch up, but wet enough to get a smooth surface and shine. This is with single stage paint. It is very difficult to do this...that is why it takes experience to spray metallic well. You can do some hiding if the striping is not too bad, as your last coat can go on drier which will leave the metallic higher on the paint. It will mask or hide the mottling below. But, again...you can't put it on too dry and you have to do it right after the last full coat to get adhesion and a smooth surface. For these reasons...you should spray metallics as BC/CC. That way the metallic is sprayed as a base. You do not have to be concerned at all with getting a shine. You are only spraying for coverage and even metallic ditribution. Then when you spray the clear you are going for shine, but you have no metallic worries at all. Plus with single stage, if you get a run, you are stuck. If you sand the paint, it will look bad as you will hit the metallic and cause it to change its appearance. But with BC/CC, you can sand and buff the clear, not effecting the base at all unless you sand too far. See metallic is tricky and not for the unexperienced.

[sixt8bird]

I will chime in also. Although I havent sprayed single stage, I sprayed BC/CC on my car. I had never sprayed before but listened to these guys that build $250,000 and up street rods. Make sure you overlap 50%, Go different directions with each coat, on last coat dont wait for the flash time but about 5 minutes + and fog in the last coat on the last surface that is semi wet. This method will let the metalic from the last coat sort of melt into the coat before and help keep everything even. Then spray clear.

[carcollector]

Its been awhile, but I recall this is much easier with a quality paint and gun. Also must have good lighting. Make sure you have a wide pattern. Increase pressure 5-10#. Also, as stated above "X"ing might help. Keep swishing paint to keep well mixed. I'm sure there is more than what I've stated above but I hope this can assist you.

[tomnt]

Thanks, what I needed to know. Was first time spraying metallic and was single stage.

[carcollector]

By the way sixt8bird, VERY nice. I love that color.

Chris

[sixt8bird]

I sprayed mine with a cheap Pawn shop/harbor freight gun and then after the clear went on it sucked!! Bad gun for clear. I used a copy of a Sata and it was unreal, hard to get a run and layed on like glass. If you are concerned about your paint, I would buy it in a BC-CC so you can wet sand the clear for a smooth finish. This was my first paint job and body work. Never sprayed before. I was lucky that I knew people that told me some tricks. I also watched all the Paintucation videos.

[carcollector]

Listen to sixt8bird. When painting met. use bc/cc. A lesson I learned the hard way.