Painting With Pearl and Metal Flake – Day 7 Boot Camp

How Cool Pearl and Flake is

In this post let’s briefly touch on automotive pearl painting, pearls, flakes and micro sequence flake.

The most popular automotive pearls come in 2 forms.

The first is your powder pearls, then your liquid pearls. The difference is nothing much. One is just mixed in a sappy liquid which you scoop out and add to your clear coat or intercoat.

We talk more about intercoats and how you can use them to paint pearl or flake much easier if you’re a beginner in the vip area of this site.

Cons of liquid pearl: As time goes on, you’ll have a problem opening your jar because of the pearl mixture getting in between the can cap and jar. With dry pearl, you won’t have this problem, plus it’s pretty easy to open and mix into your clear coat or an intercoat if you decide to use one.

automotive pearl jars

I’ve also noticed that you can get some colors in liquid pearl that you can’t get with the dry pearls. Here is a picture of what the dry cans of flake and pearl look like by House of Kolor paints.

Adding pearls to clear coat: Pearls are added in your clear coat during your base/clear paint job. The most common question is… is there a certain recommended amount that you should add into your clear coat?

The answer is no. It’s all user preference. Your best bet is to test a panel of your base color choice followed by a mixture of desired pearl in your clear.

A safe pearl/clear mixture would be about a teaspoon full of pearl per quart of clear coat. Just like painting candies, the more coats you lay on the darker and more visible your pearl coat will become over your base coat.

Example: One teaspoon of granulated white sugar is equal to about 4.2 grams. There are approximately 4-8 grams of sugar in a teaspoon of sugar, depending on its granularity.

Mixing units
It’s important to note that a teaspoon (tsp.) is a unit of volume, whereas a gram is a unit of weight. Example: If you’re buying a bottle of Cola with 44 grams of sugar, you would divide 44 by 4.2 which is equal to about 10 teaspoons of sugar.

Source: https://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_grams_are_in_a_teaspoon_of_sugar#ixzz1iPbLsSIX

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Metal Flake: You basically have two kinds of flake, Jumbo and Micro sequence flake, and some sizes in between…

Here are a few pictures of both:

Automotive Jumbo Flake

As you can see these flakes are commonly painted on lowrider classics. There is a trick when painting with jumbo flake which we explain and show you in step-by-step detail within the VIP Club and Trainings.

A lot of times when painting with these jumbo flake, you need to lay a few extra layers of clear to burry your flake.

Most times you even have to let your initial flake coat dry for a day or two, then color sand followed by another few layers of clear coat.

5-8 Coats of clear are the norm for these custom flake paint jobs that use jumbo flakes.

Your final result will be a DEEP, GLOSSY & beautiful finish if color sanded and buffed properly of course.

If you want to learn more about auto body and painting, repairing dents, rust, installing body kits and custom painting, then check out our VIP Club. You’ll get instant access to top notch trainings, VIP forum plus so much more.

The club consists a library full of easy to follow training videos as well as bonus materials and is currently home to thousands of VIP members from across the world with varying ages between 16-75 years, male and female, and learning from our step-by-step training videos everyday.

Are you ready to take your knowledge to the next level and flaunt your new skills to friends and family
Join The Exclusive VIP Club Here, don’t let our current special offers slip away.

I really hope you got something from this free training.

So What is LABAP VIP?

I know that everybody has a unique project and certain questions that pertain to their current situation. That’s why I’ve created the LABAP VIP area. With VIP, you’re basically not left out in the cold anymore.

Your apart of a community of like minded members, connected with people who actually care, access to step-by-step training videos on all areas of auto body and paint. And it doesn’t matter what level you are. Beginner or advanced, we have something for you.

It’s your perfect start into the field as a hobby or even if you want to open up shop (like some of our members did) after going through our course.

You get access to private forums, and if you’re a Facebook fan, we hook you up with a private Facebook group so you can connect with advanced members or even people like you who share similar projects.. You get to upload real-time photos or video and get instant support and feedback!

Click Here To See What all The VIP Fuss is About…

I’de be happy to see you ‘inside!’

Talk soon!

-Tony

10 thoughts on “Painting With Pearl and Metal Flake – Day 7 Boot Camp”

  1. Tony;
    Your really doing a GREAT service to both the up comming pro and the do it at home person. I do enjoy each of your video presentations. I’ve a question I would like answered, if you would. What respirator mask do you use? I’ve never seen you use a”Full Face, supplied air” setup, or do you always use a 1/2 face filtered set up? Being new to air brush painting, and wanting to paint “Real Flames” on my ’77 Vette, with many practice runs first, I am unsure as to what type of respirator to use without investing thousands. I have a 3M 7500 series 1/2 mask with correct filters recomended for auto painting.

    Reply
  2. Hi Tony.
    I have my mustang painted with a metal flake in my clear coat and it looks great, I didn’t paint that car but I was the helper. Since joining your site I have learned that what the guy was doing was not the best. He is great at making metal straight and flat but he has problems with his painting. Maybe I can teach him a thing or 2. I’m enjoying being a VIP member and can’t wait to get started painting my own things. I have a 641/2 mustang that’s going to be a huge project and am hoping to get my garage built so I can work on it over the winter. Thanks again and keep it coming

    Reply
  3. Hi Tony I’ve messaged you a couple of times and asked a question and you never seem to answer me.I do watch all your videos and have downloaded the 85 page book have i got to be a VIP member for a response
    Kind regards Paul Wallace

    Reply
  4. Hello Tony, i’m New to your system and starting to spay my 1964 Ranchero.My first attempt at spraying poly primer came out orange peely.Should I take it down and start over or let it cure and fill over it.
    Thanks

    Reply
  5. Hey Tony
    I’m going to paint my hood with TCP’s hot rod black urethane now I’m using a DTM 2k primer tank god I seal if not just spray the black over it? I’ a VIP member & you are a terrific teacher & I’d learnt so .such in a short time I’ve been member so keep up the excellent work..the video’ are also great too.

    Thanks bud
    Wes

    Reply

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