Candy paint isn’t the hardest paint to lay down; it is difficult, but more time consuming than anything. The reason candy paint is so time consuming is because of the amount of coats that you have to put on a car. Candy paint also doesn’t come very cheap; especially because of the amount of candy that is needed for say a full size car, there is definitely little room for error when performing a candy paint job. The first thing that a person should know and recognize about a candy paint job is that it is a tri-stage paint job; meaning that there is a basecoat, the actual candy coats, and clear coat applied over the top.
When spraying a candy paint job it all starts with your choice of sealer and base coat. Grey, black, or white sealer will be your first coat. Depending on how light or dark you want your candy paint job, this will be your first decision; ultimately black sealer will be the darkest, grey is a middle tone, and white for a lighter more brilliant candy color. The next step is choosing your base coat color you can be creative by choosing a black, blue, green or whatever you choose, but the standard for a candy paint job is silver or gold base coat.
It’s important to remember that all candy paint is a translucent tinted low viscosity clear coat. Before ever attempting to spray a candy paint job one should spray a test panel first. Make sure to seal the test panel in the color sealer you’re using. After sealing the test panel you will apply three wet coats of base coat. Then it’s time to spray the candy paint. Typically candy paint is applied in 3 to 5 coats. Depending on how dark you want the candy paint job is entirely up to you, obviously the more coats the darker and deeper it will be; this also goes back to your choice of a dark or light base coat color also. Make sure that you write down exactly how many coats of candy you paint on the test panel, this is so that you will get the desired color tone when you paint the car. Seal off the test panel with three coats of clear and you will have a very good idea of how your candy paint job will turn out.
When spraying the car after you lay down your sealer, base coat, candy coat, and clear coat you won’t be done yet. Because of the amount of material that you have lain down on the car when you paint it you will most likely have excessive orange peel. This is where candy paint jobs get labor intensive and more costly, you are going to need to wet sand down your candy paint job with 600 grit on a soft sanding block in order to remove most of the orange peel while making sure not to break through to the candy coat. After you have done this and degreased and tacked off the car it is time to put two more flowing coats of clear on the car so that you ultimately have a deeper finish and very minimal orange peel if any before you cut and buff. In this final stage of your candy paint job it’s a good idea to slightly reduce your clear to have the best flowing coats, perhaps reducing the clear coat about 20%. That’s all there is to a candy paint job. For more information on prepping for a candy paint job see my other articles.
