Thick Paint
 

A guy in the local club had a 1990's Bianchi Volpe painted in Celeste Green. It was not powdercaot, but an Imron type paint, which I thought was an automotive type finish. He had a claercoat applies.

The bike looks great, but the paint looks very thick. The lugs are not well defined, like the paint is smothing out the step between the lugs and the tube.

The bike looks nice except for the smotthing out of the lug thickness.

What are the likely causes??

John Hawrylak
Woodstown NJ

I think they used way too many coats of clear. My paint jobs are usually 6 coats of paint this includes the base primers, color and clear coats. I sand every coat with 800-1000 grit paper. I don't think my paint jobs look thick.

The modern urethane paints are plastic, and that's why they look it. The old enamels had a very thin viscosity, comparatively.

A paint's film thickness decreases as they dry and give up their solvents by evaporation. Lacquer shrinks a lot, enamels a bit less, urethane enamels less, and Imron shrinks very little. Imron is epoxy based and hardens by chemical curing, not by evaporation. Powder coating is a plastic film that goes on as a dry dust and is fused by heat, shrinking very little to none. The art of spray painting includes knowing when to stop applying paint, when enough is enough.

Imron can be sprayed thin but if mixed by the book will come out thick. Add a primer/sealer under and an overcoat of clear and things build up fast. If done well the finish will be durable.

I like DuPont Chromabase as it really shrinks down, so well in fact it will not let you skimp on the prep below. This paint needs a clear over it which can be reduced to get a very thin film thickness overall while still covering the graphics with a clear.