Quick Painting/ Clearcoat Question...

[justanuthercap]

Well, I have all the solid colors blocked out on my CQB helmet and all layers have been dry for at least 3 days now. I know I need to wetsand with at least 1000 grit prior to spraying my clear as my base paint is VERY smooth.

My questions is should I wetsand before I add the dirt and battle damage or after? I'm leaning towards after and here's my reasoning (as twisted as it may be)...

Using Adams method of the closely sprayed primer and wiping it off quickly, I think it would be much better and easier to wipe the majority off of the very smooth base coats.

As I'm wetsanding primarily to promote adhesion of the clear coats, I would think if I wetsanded before doing the dirt and damage it would cause a LOT more of the primer to stick and make it harder to remove as much as I would like. And I think I can control the amount of dirt/damage that is removed by wetsanding anyway.

Hopefully everyone can follow my logic, I'm just wondering if I'm looking at this the right way.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[CPU64]

Well, I have all the solid colors blocked out on my CQB helmet and all layers have been dry for at least 3 days now. I know I need to wetsand with at least 1000 grit prior to spraying my clear as my base paint is VERY smooth.

My questions is should I wetsand before I add the dirt and battle damage or after? I'm leaning towards after and here's my reasoning (as twisted as it may be)...

Using Adams method of the closely sprayed primer and wiping it off quickly, I think it would be much better and easier to wipe the majority off of the very smooth base coats.

As I'm wetsanding primarily to promote adhesion of the clear coats, I would think if I wetsanded before doing the dirt and damage it would cause a LOT more of the primer to stick and make it harder to remove as much as I would like. And I think I can control the amount of dirt/damage that is removed by wetsanding anyway.

Hopefully everyone can follow my logic, I'm just wondering if I'm looking at this the right way.

Thanks in advance for any help.

The reason why you want to wet sand the base coat is because you probably waited a bit too long to clear coat.
When I paint, I wait about 20 minutes after the last coat of paint is applied, and 10 minutes between each base coat.

Normally, you don't need to wet sand before clear unless you have any dirt stuck to it that mill mess up the clear finish. But since you're adding damage effects like paint chips and what not, I see no real reason for wet sanding a base coat. Thats usually done for high quality automotive paint jobs..

Just lightly wipe your surface with a degreaser to get remove hand oils, and you're good to go with the clear.

Now if you're mainly concerned with the "dirt" part, you could try some airbrushing. That's what I did on my suit.

 

[Skullcandy Girl]

YOU know If you layer your paints, you can weather your armor with that. IT's how I did my handplates and Helmet. You just have to make sure the paints are the same brand and matte finish. I used 400 to smooth out my paints and weather the helmet and handplates.

 

[falcon NL]

Its not really a answer to you question but there is a better/realistic way to create battle damage.

You could do a couple of layers of metallic paint before the final color and the dirt. Paint your final color over the metallic one, and let it dry over night. After the paint is completely dry, you start sanding wet with a grin of 1000 on the places where you want battle damage.This way you are really are weathering it, and the battle damage looks great.

For the question on sanding you base: Its not really necessary. The whole idea of smearing paint on the costume is that is fills the corners and the scratches and dents, like real dirt would do. You could however do a clear/glossy coat of paint on the base color wet sand that, so that the color bright and alive before you are "messing" stuff up.

 

[Spartan HJD]

Here's how I would do it:

1. Wetsand after you put on spot putty.

2. Prime it.

3. Paint it the color you want it.

4. Add the weathering.

 

[justanuthercap]

Thanks for the help and ideas.

After reading them all last night I went ahead and went for broke. Dirtied and battle damaged the crap out of it. Turns out I didn't need to wetsand as I did use the dark grey primer and removed the overspray and excess amounts with a very well used 320 grit sponge. Which really helped with the weathering as well. It also took the shininess of the base down to an acceptable level. Also used very small amounts of brown primer in corners and anywhere I needed dirt. Now has 3 or 4 layers of clear on it as well.

I'll update my CQB thread shortly as soon as I get the visors in.

Wish I'd had the foresight to do the metallic base in layers like Skullcandy Girl and Falcon recommended. I will definately do that with the rest of the armor. It will be interesting to compare the pieces.

Thanks again.