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Tried a new clear coat blend on a 2015 Civic's quarter panel and it actually worked

I mixed a bit of the factory base coat into the final clear coat layer, something my old boss in Dayton always called a 'hack'. The color match on that silver metallic is nearly perfect now, no hard line at all. Has anyone else tried this trick on newer factory paints?

3 comments

3 Comments

parkerkim2mo ago

Mixing base into the clear is such a solid trick. My shop does that as a standard step on metallic resprays now. We even do a light dust coat of the base OVER the final clear before it fully flashes, then blend it out. It makes that color transition just melt away, especially on those tricky silver and gray metallics. It's all about getting the metallic flakes to lay the same way as the factory panel.

danieltaylor2mo ago

That's way smarter than my old method of just squinting really hard and hoping for the best.

faith_thomas1mo ago

Done that exact trick on a buddy's 2015 Civic actually. He brought it in after some parking lot ding and the silver metallic was just impossible. Normally I'd just blend the clear but this time I tried mixing a tiny bit of the base into the clear like your boss said. That silver metallic is a nightmare because the flakes just lay down differently and you get that dreaded stripe. I even had to sand it back twice because I was too heavy handed on the first try. But yeah after I figured out the right mix ratio it matched up so good you could barely see where the repair ended.