DIY Metal Flake Paint - Custom Metalflake Paint

Santini usually uses a silver basecoat under a silver flake regardless of what the final color is going to be. The neutral silver base allows for any candy topcoat without affecting the final color. Whatever the color, the topcoat has to be translucent or you won't see the flake. Duh! The tape stripes are for the nekkid ladies Santini will add later, but this is a family magazine.

The new gun came with a newfangled mixing/gravity-feed cup with a small port on the top to ventilate the system. We thought it was cool because, in theory, the system uses one less cup and you can screw it directly to the top of the gun. Just don't forget to close the vent.

The metalflake is added to the clear- or topcoat of a base/clear system. Santini prefers to use a slow-drying urethane clear so that the flakes sink into it. The more the flake sinks, the smoother the finish. He tells us that a good rule of thumb is 24 ounces of clear mixed with 2 ounces of flake, but we watched him just pour a bunch in and mix it up.

Santini mixed three different sizes of flake together in the clear to get the desired effect. The small flake fills the gaps, and the large flake adds the drama. Each coat should be allowed to get tacky before another is applied. A good way to test readiness is to dab the paint on a taped area with your finger. If it is sticky but does not create a string when you pull your hand away, it is ready. Keep adding coats until everything is covered evenly, usually about three to four coats.

The same general painting techniques apply to spraying flake as other paint. Use a crosshatch pattern to avoid striping, don't add so much paint that it sags, and make sure you overlap on each pass. In this photo you can see the difference between the flake and the base. Also notice that the flake looks more uniform on the silver than it does on the green paper, proving that a matching base color is a good idea.

Since the flakes tumble through the air and onto the surface of the car, the next step is to prepare some clearcoat to bury the flakes' sharp edges and add depth.

Burying the flake can take as few as five or as many as 10 coats of clear. Santini recommends four to five coats maximum in one session and then waiting a few days for them to dry. If you add too many coats at one time, the bottom layers will dry slower than the top ones, causing cracking or bubbling. After the paint is totally dry, you can wet-sand it with 500-grit paper and add some more coats. Be careful not to break through to the flake when you are sanding or you will have to start again. If it feels and looks flat, it's good. This job took eight coats and two sandings to complete.

Now that the flake is down, Santini can add any color of candy paint he wants. When he is done, it will look like the base, the flake, and the clear are all one color and 10 feet deep.