Painting metal flake

I’ve bought a used BMX for my 7 year old and am keen to restore/modify it for her. It’s currently stripped down and most of the steel parts have already been stripped ready for paint, just have to finish up the Alu frame and brake mounts.

When looking at paint we found some fantastic holographic metal flake and thought we’d have a go at that.

Plan is to primer, base coat, flake in clear (mist coat last to get the flake to stand up) and then 4 or so coats of clear. Sand back orange peel from flake and apply another wet coat of clear.

My experience is with 2k polyurethane paint for my kitchen, so most of this is new to me, but I’m keen to have a go with auto paints anyway to see how it goes.

My questions are about the base colour. My daughter wants purple and because we’re not laying a purple flake (where I could paint a black base) my thoughts were to lay the purple she wants as a base coat, applying the holo flake over the top.

What do people think?

Also would I use a purple base or would a purple metallic be a better base?

It’s a $100 bike so I’m also trying to find a reasonably economical way to lay the paint too.


Read the full thread at metalworkforums.com...