Sealer

[Len]

There's recently been some discussion about sealer so I thought I'd put my $.02 in.

When I use Glasurit materials I rarely use a sealer but once in a while it's needed. I recently sprayed a DuPont Chroma Base job and found that, unlike Glasurit, that DuPont top coat needed sealer in order to cover the substrate properly.

Below is a different car that we are now painting and this is a picture of a condition where sealer is recommended. You see body filler without primer and if sealer wasn't applied the top coat would be absorbed by the filler and a dull spot would result. This is a quick and cheap job or I would have primed and blocked this spot (as well as others) and skipped the sealer but the sealer cut out a lot of prep time. The car's owner did most of the prep and body work so the sealer also helped fill a lot of deep scratches that would have shown through the top coat.

Not how the Glasurit sealer make the entire surface smooth so that the top coat looks like it was painted on glass instead of being absorbed into the different substraights differently. I rarely use sealer but it's an important coating when it's needed.

sealedBMW.jpg

I'll post some finished pictures of spot later.

[JCCLARK]

I've gotten in the habit of spraying a thinned coat of epoxy as a sealer
before basecoat on all of my small collision repairs.
The sealer coat helps the basecoat to lay better,hides small scratches,
and aids in coverage. It also increases adhesion, makes it more durable.
My epoxy comes in white, gray, and black, so I can use a color that
makes covering a lot easier. Sometimes I mix for a compatible color.
It's a good thing to do, and like the car above, a quick coat of black
will really help in coverage and smoothness.:cool:

[88GT]

Chroma base covers quite well if the proper shade of sealer is used. (black covers fast even over 2K) The label on the can tells you the shade for that color. I doubt you will stick with chroma base, but if you do, just get 1-4-7 (white, med gray and dark gray) and you can mix all the shades from those.
Sometimes the recommended sealer shade would seem to be wrong, but but it isnt. Its a system. One that works very well if you dont cheat.

[dave_demented]

i recently used the white value shade sealer while painting the bottom of my hood, its was amazing. if i couldve gotten away with spraying one coat, i would have(chromaone white). but in another aspect, the color of the sealer is so close to the color of my car that it was hard to tell where i had and hadnt sprayed.

[88GT]

i recently used the white value shade sealer while painting the bottom of my hood, its was amazing. if i couldve gotten away with spraying one coat, i would have(chromaone white). but in another aspect, the color of the sealer is so close to the color of my car that it was hard to tell where i had and hadnt sprayed.

you probably could get one coat coverage with white. If you spray a bit on the wet side, you can see where you are with the base before it flashes, but I just overlap by 50%. Not all colors are 2 coat with the sealer. Some problematic colors take me 4 coats before I get the motling and striping under control.