Candy paint
At Paint With Pearl, we pride ourselves on the quality of our custom paint pigments. These are quality custom pigments that have a good deal of their own irridescence built right in. The mixture, however, of our candy pigments will never be truly transparent, due to the fact that they are solid particles of mica and iron. This does not mean that you can't acheive a good degree of transparency from the candy paint pigments, it's just that you will acheive total coverage after several coats, being unable to see whatever is underneath. We suggest using about 1/2 of one of our bags to one full bag per quart of base clear or intercoat clear. Our custom candy paint pearls can also be used to make your own chameleon paint pigments, by mixing them with different ghost pearl paint pigments. This is usually done by a 3 to 1 ghost to candy paint ratio, sprayed in about 5 coats. This is not something for the apprentice to try, (unless you are spraying test panels), but more for a skilled pro with the common sense to spray out test panels before attempting to custom paint an entire project. As we have said in other articles on this site, there are literally millions of possibilities of what you can acheive in the custom paint realm by mixing and matching our products.
If you must have a completely transparent candy paint job, there are other methods to doing it. Candy paints have typically been a dye-based paint. Solvent-based dyes can be added to clear coats to create the identical candy paints that you will see being sold by the major manufacturers. The typical problem with true candies is that dyes will never hold up as long as pigments, and are very fragile to UV degradation. If you must have a true candy paint, go and get a small bottle of solvent based dye from a local reseller of dyes and make your own candy paint.
Remember, if you want your paint to take on the actual color of the candy pearl, we suggest painting it over a black base coat. If you already have a black car, then it can be scuffed up to make a good surface to paint on.
We have seen our candy paint pigment used in many industries, including powder coating, plastic manufacturing, custom airbrush art, and gel coating. They work just as well for beginners as they do for professionals. One common mistake that beginners make is that they buy our candy pearls when they want to create a paint that changes in the sun, or as we call it, a "ghost" pearl paint job. These candies will change the overall color of your project, so please keep that in mind! Remember to visit our tips pages for other useful information.
If you are still confused over which products would look good over your existing paint, or want to discuss your options, contact us! As always, we will try to answer any of your questions and hope to serve our customers in any way that we can! We thank you for your business.
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Pearl paint
As we all know, Custom Painting on any surface can seem like a challenge whether one is a seasoned professional or a novice. Creating pearl paint is as easy as doing any other type of paint, with the exception of adding a few steps to the process. When we describe Ghost Pearls on our site, we are speaking of the type of pearlescent pigments that can be used to create ghost flames, entire irridescent pearl paint jobs, or other ghost effects. Our ghost pearls are what custom painters use to create those beautiful pearlescent effects that people see on many custom paint and even factory paint jobs. Newer cars and motorcycles can be seen with ghost pearl effects done in the factory, such as the Lamborghini orange paint with the beautiful gold pearl that we see at the auto shows, or simpler pearlescent white paints that we see on new Cadillacs or Infiniti cars, which can be acheived with a simple silver ghost pearl or gold ghost pearl applied over a white base coat. Turning a two-stage paint job into a three-stage paint job is the basic step in creating a quality pearl paint.
With this thought in mind, anyone can make an ordinary paint job into a pearl paint job. Instead of doing a base-coat clear-coat paint job, we add the pearl paint into the middle of the mix. Base-coat, ghost pearl paint, clear-coat. We always recommend that people make their own mixes and spray a test panel before doing the entire project, and it is always wise to use a base clear, or a binder to mix the pearls with before adding the final clears. The final clear step is only recommended for custom paint, and not for powder coating, gel coating, or faux finish. If you are looking to do a project using these beautiful ghost pearls, we have a few suggestions on which colors look good over which base coats...
White base coat: Use any of the ghost pearls, but keep in mind that the red ghost pearl will give you a irridescent pink look in the sun. Blue, violet, orange, gold and silver are the most popular colors for white base coats.
Black base coat: You also may use any of the ghost pearls, but keep in mind that using too much will make the project take on the color of the pearl and overwhelm the black. To get a cool midnight color change effect, keep the ratio of pearl down to about a teaspoon per quart in the clear base or binder. In powder coating, keep the ratio down to a tablespoon per pound and add onto that as needed.
Red, Burgandy, or Orange base coat: We highly recommend any of our Gold ghost pearls, including the shimmer gold or the satin gold. Also, Blue pearl red pearl, and violet pearls can make for great effects over the darker shades of red.
Blue base coats: For very light blues (like cornflower blue), we have seen excellent results using gold ghost pearl, but for a cool color shift on any shades of blue, a violet ghost pearl will give you a cool purple color shift in the sun. Silver ghost pearl paint can also give a nice subtle effect to the darker blues. Green can give an awsome pearl effect over most blue bases as well.
Yellow base coat: We highly recommend that you try using green ghost pearl for the lemony yellow flip flop custom paint, and gold ghost pearl for the darker racing yellows.
Green base coat: Gold ghost pearl looks great on green base coats. We have also seen good results with orange and red ghost pearls.
Pink base coat: Believe it or not, you will find that silver ghost pearl looks awesome over pink, as does the red ghost pearl.
Purple base coat: Try our Red Ghost Pearl, Green Ghost Pearl, or Silver Ghost pearl.
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Metal Flake
Classically, metal flake paint is a staple in the custom paint world. The problem has always been the tons of extra work involved when painting with standard sized flakes. In most of the older flake jobs, the amount of extra knockdown and sanding involved with doing the overall paint job makes metal flake the lesser desirable option when using custom paint. We have seen some metal flake paint jobs that were such a disaster because the flakes were too large to go around the edges of doors, hoods, etc. The fact of the matter is that painters can still get big sparkle out of small flakes, so we choose to sell mainly the smallest metal flake, although we can get larger flake sizes for those who insist upon larger flakes. See our user's pictures for a good idea of what these beautiful flakes can do for your custom paint job. Our flakes are so small, they give perfect coverage to even the smallest edges you can find in any applications. We order flakes in the .004" size (that's 4 thousandths of an inch).
Creating a great metal flake paint job is super simple with our flakes. Just choose your base coat (black is good if you want the paint to take on the color of the flakes), and add a heaping tablespoon of our flake to any clear coat (although we recommend a base clear for mixing the flake into, like PPG's DBC-500, or HOK's intercoat clear). Knockdown isn't even an issue with our flake. We have seen full coverage with just 3 coats of clear on these flakes, and your door and hood edges will be as smooth as if you just rolled the car off the showroom floor. Keep in mind, that even though they are called "metal flake", most of our flakes are made from special solvent-resistant polyesters that can withstand the chemicals in the clear coat. See our tips pages for more information, our download our instructional PDF. Remember, unlike some flakes that people dust onto wet clear-coat dry and spend about 400 bucks for 20 jars of flake to paint a single auto, our system is much more efficient. As we say around here, "One jar paints a car."We also sell an variety of chameleon flakes, which are doing great things in the color-changing and chameleon paint world. These flakes, when painted over a black surface, add an incredible overall color-chaging effect to your project. Speaking of color-changing, we sell a full variety of hologram and prismatic flakes. These little beauties add holographic rainbow effects to any paint job, whether it be candy paint or pearl paint. Powder coaters have also had great success with our products. Even mixing the flakes at 1/40 ratio with any color of powder coatings can give you an excellent flake effect. All of our flakes (except for the chameleons) have a 400 degree temperature threshold, so they can be used easily in powder coatings as well as paint and gel coat.In addition to paint and powder coat, boat builders and fiberglass fabrictors have used our products in both the restoration of old fiberglass and the creation of new fiberglass products. We have had great success with people in the world of interior decor and faux finish as well. Whether creating an underwater look using our peacock flake or just adding some glitz and glam to a storefront, our flakes have been doing great things in the world of faux finish and interior design. For tips on using flakes with faux finish, see our faux tips page.
We have seen our metal flake used in other applications as well, from custom toy builders to custom helicopter paint jobs, so the possibilities are endless! You can mix any of our pearl pigments and candies in with our flakes. Our metal flake has quickly gained popularity and notariety in the paint world, and a look at our user's pictures can show you what your possibilites are. The fact is, we have discovered that our Metal flake, pearl paint, chameleon paint, and candy paint come from literally the same manufacturers as flakes you will pay 5 times as much for at your local paint shop with a fancy name on them. In today's economy it's time to be smart. Creating a custom paint that saves you money will equal more money in your pocket in the end, and gives your project a look like it cost a fortune.
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A Word about Custom Paint
Custom paint can be defined in many ways. In the simplest, most easily definable way, it is one-of-a-kind paint that is different than anyone else's paint. That can be the same for cars, buildings, interiors, or toys and knick-knacks. It is a way of expression that defines regular, normal color as no longer good enough to be pleasing to the eye, unless of course you are looking at a tree or the sky. Custom paint adds new dimension and depth to paint, and the more you look at it, the more it reveals to you. We have seen this in so many different forms, not just cars and motorcycles, but in faux-finish, powder coating, pottery glaze, and in basic arts and crafts. It is limited only by the imagination. Literally millions of combinations of colors can be made.
The products we sell here at Paint With Pearl will make millions of colors, becase any of them can be mixed with each other, or in multiple colors. It is all up to the painter to decide. Like any smart custom paint sprayer, it is always wise to have some small test panels to spray out so that you know what you are trying to acheive. We beleive that we sell a true custom paint. Not one that is pumped out in thousands of gallons from a huge manufacturer. That is not how one-of-a-kind colors are made.
Custom paint should also be available for everyone. That means that we should not be forced into spending thousands of dollars on a paint job when the paint companies themselves are buying the same pigment that we are and marking them up by thousands of percentage points. How does we afford to sell the pearl paint, candy paint, flakes, and especially chameleon paint at much lower prices? Have you seen the marketing behind those places? They have massive amounts of overhead, and the price get passed on to you, the consumer. Custom paint has been a passion of ours for quite a while, and the fact of the matter is that we are a small business run by Matt and Lyndi Donley, with get this, zero employees. Almost no marketing goes into this company, so we can keep our prices low, because we only need to make enough money to feed our kids and put them through school, like so many of our customers, we are getting by day to day. Our customer service feedback is incredible, and we have thousands of positive feedbacks on Ebay.
Remember, the dry pearl paint pigment, candy paint pigment, and the metal flake we sell can be used in any type of medium, not just paint. We have many clients involved in concrete finishing, plastics, interior decorating, and powder coating industries. We have resellers all over the world (Australia, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, and right here in the United States), and we pride ourselves on our abilty to help our resellers in any way that we can to make more money. See our reseller's page for more details.
We are always available to help those in need, either by email or by phone. We can also process orders over the phone if we need to, so don't hesitate to contact us! We do not mind giving some advise on custom paint, but please refrain from calling us if you need painting lessons! We get a lot of calls from people not knowing how to prep a car for painting! There are hundreds of newsgroups and forums out there that can teach you what you need to know about custom painting. Check out our user's pages for ideas on what you can do to create your custom paint job!
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