Thursday 7 January 2010

Flake.

I got a paint sample in the mail today from the guy who is going to paint the tank and seat unit. It turns out that flake paint is not like ordinary paint in the sense that you can mix in some other colour in order to change the shade – like add a bit of white to turn a blue colour into light blue. Instead, it's the small flakes themselves that are coloured. So in order to change the hue of the finished paint, you have to use different background colours "behind" the flakes. The left part of the paint sample was painted red before the flakes were applied, and the right part was painted black. As a result the right part of the sample looks darker from some angles, but not all (you cant really see the black base paint). From straight on it's hard to tell the difference, but from a more oblique angle the difference is clear. I really like the "red flake on black background"-colour. It looks a bit like the old Husqvarna "Ruby red" paint (image here). I think I'm going for that as the base colour.

3 comments:

  1. Marcus_of_MarcusMotoDesign8 January 2010 at 04:06

    Cool to see, D! There are other ways to apply flake just as reference. My tank is done with silver flake as base and then the mandarin pearl on top. Then the darkness of the mandarin decides the overall impression. But you already got good samples to choose from! Hope to see it assembled soon! Cheers, M

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  2. Yeah, now that you mention it, the painter talked about that method as well.

    Assembled? Yeah, me too:-)! I have another project lined up, but I've vowed not to start that before this is finished.

    /D

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  3. Marcus_of_MarcusMotoDesign9 January 2010 at 04:34

    Hmm, send me an e-mail about the new project! /M

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