Matte colors are becoming more popular these days – notice anything different on football helmets? Cars too, especially custom vehicles, are taking the plunge beyond just flat black to lo-sheen colors.
Most often they were painted in single stage, so the protection of a clearcoat was not available, unless you experiment with flatting agent in standard clear and do it yourself. Sometimes mixing ratios could get mixed up and disastrous results occurred. PPG has now made the process simpler by developing two new pre-packaged clears: D8115 Matte Clear and D8117 Semi-gloss Clear. So that gives us two more choices, right? Wrong. Both clears can be mixed with each other prior to catalyzation and reduction to produce multiple degrees of gloss in order to match OEM finishes or just get that perfect finish you have been looking for. In fact a new color card has been developed to display several possibilities for combined gloss choices. Want one? E-mail Bob at bstahmann@bensps.com. Check out this January press release.