Finishing up all the body work on my 70 W-31 post clone, going with the original code 28 twilight blue and will be doing the factory style W-31 stripes. My question is should I paint the black first, lay down the stencil and then spray the blue and finish with clear over both? Or spray the blue, tape the whole car off, stencil and spray the black followed with clear?

 

Good question I would like to know also.

 

I have done stripes both ways. I would paint the stripe areas first, lay the stripes down, spray the blue, then clear. This will give the wrong "edge overlap" but stripes would not be under clear from the factory either way. If you do paint the blue first, be careful what you use to mask the rest of the car. One time, I used plastic over most of the car with paper near the stripe areas. The problem is, paint flakes off plastic so when unmasking the car before clear there were small flakes of white all over the orange base coat. It was a real pain to get all the white flakes off before clear. When painting metallic, I prefer to paint the jams in base, assemble the car and spray it all in base to get consistent coverage/ blending between the panels. Finally, take the hood, fenders, and trunk back off and spray the clear. This gives access to all the jams without tape lines. You can hang the trunk to clear the top and bottom at once. If you have a good set up and know how to get paint to lay out, you can paint everything in pieces base to clear, but I see a lot of cars around with metallic panels that do not match each other. The last metallic car I painted stripes on was together and apart many times just during the paint. 1: stripe areas painted white across jams (1/8" - 1/4" of stripe in the jam) and panels with car apart. 2: fenders and doors assembled, stripes masked off. 3: car apart, jams done in base. 4: Car assembled base painted on entire car for even coverage. 5: car apart for clear. 6: final color sanding & buffing. 7: final assembly. It is a lot of work but produces a very nice final product.

 

Great informative reply. Thumbs up.

 

That's my plan.
I've seen it done on other w30s turned out nice.

depending how fast your gonna be painting.
Base needs to be cleared usually with in 6-8 hours.
Some bases can be pushed 24 hours.
But your pushing it.
Me I'm a bit slow at getting things ready.
You spray your base for your stripes and put a thin layer of clear over them. Let dry. When you put your mask over the stripes you do need to sand the area where the stripes are. Tape off. Paint your base for the whole car. Pull the tape or mask from the stripes. Clear whole car stripes and all. Hopefully you put enough clearn on after cutting and buffing you won't see any tape lines or have an edge along the stripes.
Nice smooth transition!

 

Thanks loaded68w34, thats kind of the idea I was going with, 20+ years ago when we sprayed my 70 442, we sprayed the green base, took almost a day to stencil off the stripes, masked the car, sprayed the white stripes, then unmasked and remasked and cleared. Just too many chances for something to go wrong! After I spray the black base and after I unmask from spraying the blue, think I should scuff the black with a fine white scuff pad?

 

Scuffing to remove any nubs or fine scratches before your top base coats should not be a problem. You should not scuff the top base coat (blue or black) to be cleared. If you scuff you could do it with the stripes still masked I would just try to be careful that you don't get any dirt under the edges of the tape. Also, are you laying out your own graphics or buying a stencil kit. If laying out your own, I assume you will be using fine line tape. Another thing to check is that you are getting good coverage on your metallic base so you cannot see the black overlap. It would be a good idea to spray a test panel. Paint part of the panel black and then paint the whole panel blue. Take it out in the sun and make sure you can't see where the black ends. Paint suppliers have test cards with a variety of black and gray shades to test the paint coverage as well.

 

Of course i am oversimplifying here
Basecoat first then two coats of clear over the whole car. Cut(sand out the clear)Only no buffing, Lay down the graphics. Then lay down 4 coats of clear over the whole car ,cut/buff wallah show car paint job. The two coats of clear seal/set the base to give an infinite window to take your time with the stripes as well as prevent a reaction between colors, for example if you were painting white over red. By painting the stripe "AREA" first you are introducing a dry edge at some point along the car that could/will present a possible reaction among other issues. Work smarter not harder

 

Good point. This is how I am doing the stripe on one of my current projects. White stripe on the hood and a black car. While painting the vista last summer, did the white area on the hood along with a couple coats of clear. I am hoping to paint rest of the car this summer, but if not the stripe area is sealed under the clear so it will be fine until the car is painted.