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B-maniac 02-11-2013 09:17:52 97.92.55.9 Report to Moderator	Clear coating does a few different things. You have to be the judge of whether any of them apply to what you are trying to accomplish. A "quallity" clear coat will be loaed up with ultraviolet screeners which will make the color under it more colorfast and less fade from sun. A "quallity" clear coat will seal over the more porous pigmented or metalic paints and make it less penetrable by moisture/contaminants. Third thing a "quallity" clear will do is build up a desired film build so as to let one wet sand it back to a perfectly smooth surface and then buff out to a perfect show car shine without depleating the UV protection and/or getting down into the base paint. Also lets you get rid of dirt/runs/mosquitoes etc by sanding out and buffing back. The reason I elude to the word "quallity clear" is they are not all going to do what I said they would equally. Spray bombs especially probably have very little UV screeners and very little film build and zero catylist to harden up. (some expensive bombs have a puncturable bag of hardner inside for a one time use catylized paint) [Reply]   [No Email]
B-maniac 02-11-2013 12:26:21 97.92.55.9 Report to Moderator	Re: Acrylic top coat over alkyd tractor paint? in reply to B-maniac, 02-11-2013 09:17:52   Almost forgot , one other thing clear lets you do is "feather blend" into the next panel on a car with high metalic or pearl or any of the other glamor type finishes that will never perfectly match panel to panel. After blending the color and it leaves a dry spray halo then you clear the whole panel. Clear is a painters best friend. Back in early '70,s before base clear was official , I used to have my supplier make up clear Centari and with the high gloss 793 hardner (in unlabeled can for liability reasons) and would put it over the high metalic acrylic laquer base cote and had my own base clear system. Worked like a charm. Few yrs later they came out with their "regulation" stuff and didn't have to cheat anymore. [Reply]  [No Email]