I am hoping to get my camaro painted before it gets too cold, and I want to do it like the car below with the "motion" paint job. I will be using BC/CC..I plan on jamming the car and then painting it complete. Should I either paint the red base and then clear the car, then paint the white base and clear again, or should I paint the red base, lay out the stripes on the red base and spray the white base, and then clear? Because the stripes may take me a while to lay out and my fear of damaging the red base I was thinking I should clear the whole car and then do the stripes. If I do it this way, how long should the clear dry before wetsanding it for the stripes and what grit should I use? I would be wetsanding the whole car, doing the stripes, and then reclearing the whole car. Any lift issues spraying the white base over the clear or spraying another clear coat on the first coats of cured clear? Or should I just be doing the clear after all base is done? Can you tell I am used to SS paints and have never shot BC/CC? :D :D
http://members.aol.com/drptop70ss/71.jpg

When I painted the wifes car, I painted the stripes first, then masked them and sprayed the maroon. Pulled the mask off the stripes then cleared the whole car. Here's a link to pics of the process. Some may find it back asswards, but hey it works.
http://hobbystage.net/camaro/69lemansii/

I totally agree with ex67owner, that is my preferred way of doing stripes and flames on a complete. Much easier masking that way, IMO. I would spray down your stripe color and mask the stripes off, then apply the main body color and unmask, tack rag the whole car taking care not to fingerprint or soil the basecoat (have clean hands) then apply three coats of clear, colorsand and buff. If you want a really nice job wetsand the clear with 600 or 800 grit and apply two more flow coats of clear followed by colorsanding and buffing. Increase the amount of reducer on the last two flowcoats so they can be applied thin and flat. It'll look a mile deep.

Thanks for the link, that may be even better since I wont have to rush when laying out the stripes.

Just becarful NOT to cut throu the existing clearcoat. If the clear is somewhat new you run the risk of lifting.
Just re-read your post if you clear wait atleast a day before you sand. A good idea would be just run over it real quick with just to open up the clear and let it breathe for a day. This will allow the solvents to escape out of the clear.
Let it sit for a day then resand the car.

Just remember all you need to do is scuff or rough up the surface dont sand like a mad man thinking you need to remove material.
I myself would be nervous with 600 grit paper, I would use something around 1000 grit.

I'd paint the white first, mask them off, then spray red. Demask, THEN spray clear over all of it at once.

When you sand and buff, you will end up with no edge, just a smooth surface. If you do it at 2 different times, you'll end up with a sharp paint line that will trap wax. It could also be difficult to sand and buff. You could go through the white when you're trying to sand the red, then you'd have a mess and have to repaint.

If I paint the white first, should I just shoot some white paint on the car where the stripes will be and then mask out the stripe layout, which would leave white "overspray" around the striped areas which would have to be covered by the red, or should I lay out all the striping on the car while in primer, paint the white, then mask over the stripes and shoot the red? If I do it the first way would I be concerned with the red covering ok?

Shoot the white on the areas that will recieve the whitte stripes. Dont worry about any overspray. Paint the white allow it to dry for around 1hr.
Then come back and apply your stripe masking.

If you apply the stripe masking shoot white then mask the white you will be making a double tape line

Red is a darn good color to apply most cover in about 2 coats 3 to be sure.

Generally with a basecoat system the overspray isn't much texturewise as the color is very thin. What system are you using? After the stripes are masked off you will usually just need to tack rag the car prior to applying the main color. If there are any texture problems on the overspray edge I would be very surprised and it is usually very light and can be knocked down relatively quickly with 600 wet. Most solid reds cover well but you may want to spray a simple test panel just to verify there won't be any coverage problems over the white. If you're familiar with spraying single stage paint you will love the way bc/cc works. Remember to keep your hands clean when masking the white as it is very suseptable to soiling, fingerprints, etc. Even if it takes an extra coat of red due to coverage issues I would still go this route vs. painting the whole car and masking for stripes. Once the red is on all that's needed is to unmask the stripes, tack the complete car and apply the clear. It is much easier to mask the stripes than to mask for the stripe application, easier to keep everything clean before clear as well. I'll try to post a picture of a GTO I flamed a few months ago, the first color applied was the flame outline color, exact opposite to what most people do, sure works nice.

Thanks guys,
I am going to try the NAPA line of BC/CC which is made by martin senoir. Prices are very reasonable and I want to give it a try before going back to the PPG prices smile.gif