We have a couple hvlp guns we use… turns out my new compressor was taking a dump on me. We rebuilt a spray gun from all the spares and it works great now. I also got a loaner air compressor courtesy of our painter.
The issue i have now is since my old gun was sputtering some areas of the overlay panel are milky greyish while much of the panel is still black, what it should all be like.
I used just clear gel coat to burry the weave and it wasn’t working out so great as i noticed cloudy areas on the part surface like splotchy-ness. I stopped and put everything away for the day. Now i am left with splotchy (milky) areas. We are sanding those down because those are areas with too much gel coat… about half of the cloudiness is going away via hand sanding. I want to sand it down some more until i reach raw carbon fiber… I do this often so i understand when to stop sanding so as not to damage the carbon. I’m still thinking i won’t have most of the milky look gone.
So in my appraisal of the situation i decided to ask my composite supplier if Duratec clear addative would help with clear gel coat. I did not fully explain the way I did here about the problem. Mainly i wanted the Duratec addative so it would “dilute” the clear gel coat and make it have clarity when on the panel part. When i opened the new can of duratec addative i noticed it is amber in color. I was thinking wtf…isn’t this “clear addative?” I tested the use of the addative because we had to spray some color gel coat on something else… duratec sure does make gel coat lay down nice and we thinned it with 25% acetone. I know… you’re thinking that is WAY too much acetone. Not… it sprays very nice and even, flows out so you don’t get bumps in the finish. Many areas of the world/country probably could not spray it with so much acetone in the mix. In Arizona acetone evaporates in seconds especially when atomized thru a spray gun. Then what does flow out onto the panel evaporates on it’s own… no fisheyes, no problems, just a smooth surface that cures perfectly. AZ is hot as hell so this is probably the only reason we can get away with using so much acetone.
In AZ summer you never mix up more than 6 - 8 ounces of gel coat at a time. In the winter… sure you can get away with mixing up a little more than that.
So I am here to ask for help again… tomorrow we are spraying clear gel coat with duratec clear addative. Is my “clear” surface over the carbon going to be milky or amber with a 15 mil thickness?
My painter said not to use urethane clear paint over the cf because the thick build up will crack in Arizona from thermal expansion/contraction. I have never tried it, but I tend to trust what he says. Do you think i will have any issues with cloudy or amber gel coat with this final layer of clear gel/duratec?
We will be PPG urethane clear painting the panel after it is finish sanded and 100% smooth and free of any texture or sandpaper scratches. This is just to give the finish UV protection.
and as a note… Duratec clear addative will not give you UV protection at all.
