It’s really a bigger issue when trying to mask over a metallic fade. A solid field of metallic isn’t as bad, but you can still get adhesion issues painting directly over the chunkier metallics. If I’m doing metallic or pearl, I like to bake it really well or let it sit a while longer before masking over it. The tape can also sometimes pull on the metallic and clump and wrinkle the finish, so I like to get the tape off the metallic as soon as I can; never let it sit overnight with tape on it if I can help it. A nice medium coat of intercoat at the end of the day can help protect and keep those issues from happening.
That’s the toughest part of painting. You can do everything exactly the way you have always done it and have it all of a sudden be a problem. It’s chemistry in the end, so if you have a slightly different humidity or temp or sprayed the paint a little heavier or lighter or the color was mixed slightly differently, you can cause issues and not know why. I’ve done hundreds and still will have something happen pretty commonly and go “wtf… that’s new.”
Got all of the painting done finally. Not really happy with it and at one point I almost started over. The stars and stripes area is where most of the issues are. Also I didn’t do enough hotrod sparkle over the white which is annoying. My son has some very small decals with his name on that will go in the chin bar area. I would have done more of a magenta where the purple is personally but it’s not my helmet When I asked him about the design initially he said Lewis Hamiltons helmet so I told him I’m not copying so this is the compromise I came up with. We have his union logo on the top.
Hopefully I can do the clear next week and it should look a lot better!
I’m still having fun doing it but it can be frustrating, good thing I’m not getting paid so no one can complain
I need to aquire some old helmets to practice on so if anyone has a helmet that is old and out of date I’d be willing to take it off of your hands
Those are some wicked colors! I like the top half of the one on the left. I assume the color changes depending on how the light hits it. My wifes mountain bike is a very similar color to that and it gets lots of compliments.
I think one detail that makes a paint job look way more professional is reducing the paint edges, so I (and most customer painters) load it up with clear and then flow coat the helmet at the end.
Most of my jobs end up with about 9 layers of clear, unless weight is a concern.
Actually the opposite. So I lay down 3 layers of clear normally, light → medium → wet. Let it dry, sand it flat with 800-1000 grit to eliminate scratch marks, then the flow coat refers to the final coats which are thinned a bit more than normal to help it flow better. But you have to be more careful here while spraying to avoid runs or sags.
1000 is fine enough to fill in with more clear. Anything less and you’ll see faint sanding marks in the final clear. I actually wet sand with 2000 before final clear because I like to be a little extra.
Well I decided to sand before re clear coating. Looks nasty to be honest, kind of patchy I guess we will see what happens when the clear goes on! It definitely took out most of the orange peel and the rough edges between colors.
So I take my hat off to TJ, sanding after the first round of clear makes a huge difference. Honestly after sanding it looked terrible, all patchy and nasty. I wasn’t expecting the result that came after the next round of clear!
I am going to break down and start mixing my own clear and buy a dedicated clear gun instead of using the Spraymax 2k spray cans.
When I asked him about the design initially he said Lewis Hamiltons helmet so I told him I’m not copying so this is the compromise I came up with. We have his union logo on the top.
I aim to improve but it is one step forward and two steps back sometimes 
