Film thickness

[Murderface]

So I've been having a hard time figuring out just how thick to coat stuff. I'm primarily trying to get good results with xtreme chrome and clear.

I initially did a small drill bit which came out pretty evenly. I think since I was using a low power compressor, it didn't coat it very much. Next, I did an arbitrary piece of pipe on a powerful compressor, which came out pretty orange peely, both after just chrome and after clearcoat.

I did a valve cover yesterday, which I layered on REAL thick. It came out kinda orange peely too, but the orange peely effect was larger/less dense.





I've heard mixed input about this. Some say thicker coats make orange peel, some say thinner do. Is there a happy medium? I'm going to expirement on my own I suppose, but I wanted your input. It seems that very thin coats seem to do better.

I did read the sticky here about chrome. It's pretty vaguely written, but I figured it breaks down to: coat chrome, cure chrome, let it cool, reheat it to 150 deg, coat clear, cure clear. Came out reasonable when I tried it, the clear really dulled the chrome though.

[nuttyman]

in my brief 7 years of experience I have found that thicker coats will orange-peel on you. I have had best experience with spraying parts around 2-4 mils.

[mikmj]

Originally Posted by Murderface

So I've been having a hard time figuring out just how thick to coat stuff. I'm primarily trying to get good results with xtreme chrome and clear.

I initially did a small drill bit which came out pretty evenly. I think since I was using a low power compressor, it didn't coat it very much. Next, I did an arbitrary piece of pipe on a powerful compressor, which came out pretty orange peely, both after just chrome and after clearcoat.

I did a valve cover yesterday, which I layered on REAL thick. It came out kinda orange peely too, but the orange peely effect was larger/less dense.





I've heard mixed input about this. Some say thicker coats make orange peel, some say thinner do. Is there a happy medium? I'm going to expirement on my own I suppose, but I wanted your input. It seems that very thin coats seem to do better.

I did read the sticky here about chrome. It's pretty vaguely written, but I figured it breaks down to: coat chrome, cure chrome, let it cool, reheat it to 150 deg, coat clear, cure clear. Came out reasonable when I tried it, the clear really dulled the chrome though.

To much powder big op too little powder small tight op........

When you spray powder make it look like frost on a window....... not too thick not too thin..........