Noticed a huge difference after switching to waterborne paint on a silver Accord

I did a silver 2015 Honda Accord about two months ago. Before I always used solvent based paint and I fought with metallic flake orientation every time. This time I tried waterborne basecoat from the same brand. The flake laid down flat in two coats no striping at all. The color match was way closer to the factory finish than my old method. Cut my buffing time by almost half. Has anyone else seen a similar jump in quality with waterborne on tricky colors like silver or pearl?

3 comments

3 Comments

wadem8928d ago

Did you have to change your gun setup or air pressure at all? I tried waterborne on a metallic blue once and it came out blotchy, took me longer to fix than solvent ever did.

sean78228d ago

Waterborne metallics are definitely trickier than solvent, but the blotchiness you ran into is usually from spraying too wet or not getting the right dry time between coats. Your gun setup and air pressure matter, but the real culprit is often the reducer or the activator - if you use a slow reducer in cool weather, it stays wet too long and the metallic flakes float around uneven. Try a medium or fast reducer depending on the temp, and keep your fluid tip around 1.3 to 1.4mm. You also gotta make sure your first coat is a light tack coat, just enough to get the metallic to lay down flat, then wait for it to flash completely before the second coat. What brand of waterborne were you using?

shane_fisher376d ago

Yo for real, that tack coat advice is straight gold. Too many guys skip that and just blast a full wet coat thinking it'll lay down perfect, then spend hours sanding and buffing to fix the mess. I'll add that your gun distance matters just as much as the tip size. If you're too close with waterborne metallics you're basically pushing the flakes around with the air pressure, causing that tiger striping. Back off to like 6-8 inches and move at a steady pace. And dont even get me started on the temp issue, if your shop is under 70 degrees and you're using a slow reducer you're asking for trouble. The brand matters too, some of those cheap single stage waterbornes are just harder to control no matter what you do.