How to Spray Base Coat

Spraying base coat is probably the hardest and most important part of doing automotive refinishing. The color and consistency of the color is a crucial component to the overall look and professional appearance of a car's finish. Spraying the base coat color on a car is unlike spraying primer, sealer, or clear coat. Base coat must be sprayed with finesse and in a certainly specific manner. In this article I will highlight certain details and tips for spraying base coat.

**Always use a paint prep degreaser such as Scat with a linen free towel before beginning the process of sealing the car before base coat is to be applied.

**Always use a sealer before spraying base coat in order to prevent from having reacted paint. When base coat is applied over a substrate surface where pre-existing base coat is exposed the solvents in the base coat will react with the existing basecoat and will begin to lift or make outlining halo effects that can only be seen a couple hours after the clear coat has been sprayed on the car. If a car has a tremendous amount of body work it is cheap insurance to apply two coats of sealer and wait until the sealer is completely dry to the touch. *Note: Don't touch the car, only touch where overspray is on paper or tape.

**After spraying sealer make sure to use a tack rag and go back lightly over the car. Leave the tack rag out of the package and in the open air approximately 45 minutes before doing this.

**Use a 1.2mm or a 1.3mm gun tip when spraying reduced base coat.

**When mixing up the base coat use fast reducer if it's a cold day or slow reducer if it's overly hot. Medium reducer is typically used when the weather is just right in the spring to early summer time. Refer to the instructions on your container of reducer for temperature spraying guidelines.

**When spraying solid colors it's a good idea to only reduce the base coat half the amount recommended, this way you can get a good solid color foundation before applying the rest of your base coats.

**Always apply at least three coats of base coat, you may sometimes need four. Use a small fluorescent light to walk around the car and look for any transparency or anywhere the sealer may be exposed.

**Use grey sealer on dark colored cars and you can opt for white sealer on cars that you are choosing to have a brighter color tone.

**Spraying metallic's is the hardest chore of spraying base coat. When spraying metallic base coat the most important thing we want to avoid is what is called zebra striping, this is where the gun was held to close to the surface of the car and the metallic particles tend to accumulate from the heaviest portion of the spray pattern. To avoid this you want to hold your gun back another 2-4 inches from the surface that you typically would and turn up your air pressure slightly. It should look as though your dry spraying the car which is okay with metallic's, another trick is to go ahead and make your first coating of base coat wet and then instead of waiting your flash time with the gun held approximately 22-24 inches from the car create a spray pattern in the opposite direction you did before. If you went left to right, now you need to go up and down. Always change the direction in which you spray each base coat so that you have a good balance of metallic throughout all the surfaces of the car. The last coat of metallic base coat that is sprayed is known as a flash coat in which, using the hood for example: Spray from the front bumper of the car towards the windshield moving left to right with you gun two feet away from the surface creating a dry spray effect then go back over that using your gun in a diagonal pattern such as an x shape. You want to use as many different angles as you can in your spray pattern on your last coat; if I was spraying a door I would do it horizontally (keeping it two feet back) then vertically (by adjusting the nozzle of the gun) and finally diagonally from the upper right corner to the bottom left and so on.

**Contrary to what people say, do not tack rag the car after the base coat flash time is over, it will only screw it up and cause streaking and disturb the metallic