Any one have recommendations on clear coats, wet or gloss?


What About going over carbon fiber layups?

 

Wet or gloss ? What do you mean? I have sprayed CF , I used to have a Formula Atlantic made of the stuff. Get it super clean, scuff and spray. Start with a dust coat.
Tamco has a sale on clear right now.

 

Hi gloss
Candy
Wet look

a hot rod forum from ten years back suggested stick with top five major manufacturers

I’ll have to dig out those they did not recommend

 

A LOT has changed in 10 yrs. I have been using Transtar for about that. Sprays nice, looks great and holds up.

 

2010 these were on the list:
1.Spi euro
2.2k super flow polyurethane clear
3.POLYURETHANE FLO-KLEAR (UFC35)
4.Transtar Fini****ec Euro Kwik Clearcoat - 7211
5.Glasurit 923-109 HS UV Clear
6.ChromaPremier 72200S Premium Clear w/Activator & Reducer Gallon

Another from custom car shop

For special projects I use Ultra Clear by Kirker. It's a high solids, mixes 4:1, and when reduced by 10 to 20 % if flows out like glass. I hate cutting and buffing, and if I can keep the dirt nibs out I would rather shoot and let it flow out with no buffing envolved.

 

I guess it would be helpful to know what you're spraying. Doing the whole car, or just a new hood or panel? Do you plan to wetsand and buff it?

Southern Polyurethane's (SPI) gets a lot of praise from even experienced painters. So I'd probably consider that first and foremost, for price per quality. Polyurethane is a newer technology too. You're buying direct from the company so you save the middle-man, on costs conpared to mainline paints. I've personally never used it but one of these projects I plan to give it a try. But I have no doubt from internet feedback, it's good stuff. Plus they have a good paint forum on their products.

Nason 497 clear which "IS" clear (not yellow), which is the tier-II product of Axalta (formerly DuPont). The 497 is a 3-1 reduction product so it's going to be a bit thicker than their 4:1 clears. It's thinner than the 2.1's ...and sprays out real nice with a 1.3mm tip. You'd need 3 coats. Let the 2nd coat go hand-slick till you put on the final coat and get a good gloss. It's essentially the old DuPont clear. I've been using Nason for almost 20 yrs. There's cheaper products out there though, probably about as good ...but I can get Nason from my local paint and body shop and that's real convenient. Although I know I'm paying a lot more than I have to.

US Chemicals Clearcoat, either #10 or 30 is good. I've used plenty of US Chemical & Plastics clear, some from way back in like yr 2000 and it's held up well. US Chemicals & Plastics has been a body shop supplier of all kinds of paint and bosyshop products for decades. They're not a fly-by-night-er.

There are a lot of decent and budget clears on Amazon. Every major paint company has budget clears out now. Many of those are really good. Acme Finish 1 seems to be a popular clear and real cheap. They actually have 4:1 clears and 2.1 high glamour clears. They're one of the many Sherwin Williams paint companies. Sherwin Williams is a massive paint company with many paint names/products ranging from high to economy and they own a lot of the paint companies you see at home centers too. Transtar (mentioned above) I wouldn't be afraid to try. I've used several Transtar products, but not their clears. UPol is a Akso Nobel tier-II product which I'm sure would also be good. They're a huge global paint company and make Sikkens. All of those paint companies listed above have multiple types of clears (4:1 and Euro-style).

If you really want to go premium, PPG or Chroma (Axalta) products are top of the line. But I don't know that you're goiing to see much improved appearance...depending what you're spraying and plan to put it on. If it's a frame-off rotisserie restoration of a straight-axle car, I'd probably go closer to TOTL than if I were doing a quickie spray job on an 84 high-mile'er I paid $4k for.

Spray Gun. Get a decent spray gun like a Back Widow from H/F so your clear lays out nice. Look for H/F deals, or you can buy a Black Widow with a 1.3mm tip, for under $120 off ebay all day long. HTE or HVLP like THIS. Even if a seller is asking $130, see if they'll take $115 (I've had guys message me 'offers' for $115). Or just buy one at HF. You'll need to buy a cup too. The aluminum cup is probably the way to go. I have the PPS system...and overall it's a lot of messing around, more to clean and messier (stickier) fingers ...than a regular cup. HF stocks Aluminum cups for them. But yeah, the B/W gives a really nice professional-level wide fan spray and finer mist. That helps lay out metallics well, and reduces chances of runs. Runs suck b/c you can't really buff out runs so they can't be seen. So invest in a decent spray gun.

If you plan to buff the car anyway, you could probably get by with a cheap spray gun then, but make sure it has a 1.3mm tip. But then you need to be careful you don't get stripes or motling if you shoot metallics.

A cheapie HF $20 with a 1.8mm tip works fine for primer.

Not sure what you mean about 'wet' or 'gloss'?? I assume you want a glossy-looking paint job, right?

 

Thanks for these added details

In my first post I put it there
Clear coat for carbon fiber lay up… Meaning the surface is epoxy resin with the carbon buried

I think you hit one key element clear not yellow

my experience is urethanes yellow, they did when invented, nothing chemically has changed that

 

What I was getting at is some clears are slightly yellow out of the jug, others are clear as gin. Some DO yellow in the can...as they age (like 15 year!! ha ha). Others don't. IDK if they yellow much over time anymore. That might have been a 90's thing. If they did, we'd call that 'Patina' ..lol. But I get your point. You might choose a top end clear or Southern Polyurethanes Inc (SPI), or a mainline tier-1 product/clear. The way polyurethane molecules lock up after they catalyze is completely different than urethanes. Which makes them tougher and more durable.

You're never going to regret buying the best.... esp after putting a ton of work/time/money/energy into getting a car ready to paint. It would almost be foolish to cover it with an el-cheapo Kirker $90 clear.

Speaking of Kirker...a guy I know spent several hot sweaty summer days sandblasting his car trailer, and rebuilding the suspension. Those who've never sandblasted a trailer...there's a lot of angles and work there! He asked me what I would recommend spraying it with..since he was going to go with red. I said PPG S/S Urethane. Cause I know it holds up well, and some red's, fleet reds, aren't as expensive as others. Of course he went online and bought Kirker SS red. It looked "ok" for like a couple yrs and now it's a crazy ugly-ish orange-pink color...ha ha. When I redid mine I went with metallic blue, base-clear using US Chemicals 2.1 clear on it. That was many yrs ago it still looks great.

 

I sprayed a 68 and 72 with Euro Clear and cut and buffed great! Highly recommend. According to SPI, Euro is harder and more resistant to road dings. Universal is said to have a slightly higher solids content and a little higher finished gloss but not as much road ding resistance (softer maybe?) . Call SPI, great people!

 

I'm not an expert doing carbon fiber. I suppose it's like doing other fiberglass jobs but. ..I'll leave that advice to some of the others here. Perhaps also do some interweb searches ...see what others are doing.

Let us know how it turns out

Cheers!

 

The cross web searches resulted in nada
people companies selling and doing it say use your favorite clear

not a one will specify

That alone is a red flag to have deeper dive before spraying

 

I suggest you contact or post your question on the SPI forum as I believe you will get a good answer.

 

I have seen the SPI forum, that is for SPI products - urethanes that in the chemistry world ar eyellow and yellow over time.

 

I've read through the SPI forum (not an active member). They discuss a variety of paints as well.

Also...just do a google search with your search question, and put 'Forums' (no quotes), after your question. Then you can tap into all the forums in the google search. I bet there's ton's of posts and recommendations what do to.

 

Good advice above.