painting metalic

Wrong, you must WAIT for metallic to dry before applying lacquer, otherwise the wet areas of metallic (which will be darker than the dry areas) will be seen through the lacquer as dark patches called blemishes or blotches etc.

Steve.

understood. makes more sense.

The only metallic I've used was Halford's for the door handle which I had to replace. The instructions said to leave the base coat for at least 24 hours - then flat it right back before applying the lacquer. Got an excellent result - although the lacquer has flaked off in about a year...;-)

I hope my spraying doesn't go the same way. I did get around to respraying the silver metallic n/s door mirror cover last week, using a Halfords aerosol. Finished it off with 2 good coats of lacquer. Looks good, and matches the rest of the car perfectly. As you suggested. The mirror is fairly easily removed after tilting it up as far as possible. Clips on to the motorised ring with 4 clips at 45 degrees. Mike.

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Thats why the lacquer flaked off, because the basecoat was left too long so the lacquer didn't bond properly, irrespective of what it said on the tin to leave it for 24 hours?

Lacquer should be applied to dry basecoat but there is a time limit as to when it is too late to apply lacquer over the top but this varies slightly with different paint materials, usualy applying lacquer is done within minutes certainly not days.

Steve.

Problem is Halfords reckon the base coat has to be flatted first so would need to be dry?

I would have thought that "flatting" a metallic finish would ruin it.

No - the results were good when first done.

In the absence of any instructions, I didn't flat the last thin base coat. Being a thin coat, it was touch dry within minutes, and 2 light coats of laquer were sprayed on within the following 10 minutes. An earlier attempt had shown that anything more than thin coats of laquer, caused the base coat to run. :-( Mike.

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But their advice didn't work, the lacquer flaked off.

Steve.

It normally would but with Halfords paint who knows.

Steve.

Of course, the bst thing you can do is not use halford's cans in the first place.

Where else do you get matching small quantities of metallic in aerosols?

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Your supposed to apply the first coat lightly anyway and allow a little time for it to "flash off" this applies to all paints when spraying, by allowing the initial flashing off period leaves the basecoat or first coat sticky to you can then apply a thicker coat on top without runs.

Steve.

In fairness, 365 days for it doesn't make it a bad product, or bad advice on the can.

About £10 for an aerosol can. Apart from matching colours for cars, they'll mix specific colours, chosen from colour books giving hundreds of different shades of each colour. Took me ages looking through the books last week to find the right shade of grey to touch up a machine. Narrowed it down to 4 which were all very close. Then it took me a further few minutes to decide which one was right. A couple of days later, an aerosol of the chosen colour was ready. It was a perfect match on the m/c BTW, so the effort was worth it.

Apart from the aerosols, they only supply 2 pack paints. They pointed out to me that the min quantity they could supply was 250 ml, and that including the cost of the activator, wouldn't give much change out of £40. So I agree with you. For small jobs, a Halfords aerosol or similar is the only sensible choice. Mike.

I'd be very dissappointed if my bit of spraying deteriorated in less than 5 years at least. Mike.

Remember it was a door handle he sprayed.

Plastic, too.