Two Stage Candy Colors

We get requests quite frequently for candy colors. Candy colors are a multi stage powder that require a base coat, a candy color coat (or two), and a clear coat on top to really make everything pop. Candies are a bit tricky to shoot and I'll explain why. The base coat is easy on most projects you simply lay down a chrome or very shiny silver powder so that the color has something to reflect off of and really give it depth.

Where the process gets tricky is when you get to the second stage and have to lay down the color. The color, in essence, works like a highlighter. Meaning, the more coats you put on the darker it gets. This also means its very easy to have imperfections in it. All it takes to make a job go from great to not, is to have one spot where the color powder was a little thicker then the rest of the piece. What happens is in the light it then has a dark spot compared to the rest and results in either a complete second coat of color or stripping and re-coating the part. For this reason we usually shoot most parts with two coats of color whenever we do candies here and TLR Coatings. This gives us much more consistent results on our projects and helps keep our turn around times fast because we don't have to waste more time stripping and starting over.

The final step to doing a candy color is the clear coat. On most colors, most customers want a nice shine to their finished parts so we lay down a nice layer of high gloss clear and it makes the parts really pop. However if you are looking for something different from anyone else we offer a few different clear options from matte, to flat, and even one called ghost.

Travis Ridenour

Owner

TLR Coatings

TLRCoatings.com

Kalamazoo, Mi