Painting in Flat Black

[CarDriver]

Has anyone painted a car in flat black?

I have decided to paint my Sedan in Flat Black with a flat clear coat. I have been researching the different ways to do it and have come across some really good ideas on how to get the effect I am looking for..

Has any one on this forum tried this?

Thanks for reading.

[SchnellerE34]

I haven't tried it. They also have full vinyl wraps for cars that do the same. I ahve considered doing this myself. Looks Great IMO.

[CarDriver]

What is a Vynyl Wrap? I will try to google it...

[SchnellerE34]

It's basically a big sticker that you put all over your car, in sections. The advantage to this is that it costs less than paint, and if you have a key scratch or anything else, instead of having to repaint the fender or door, etc, you just print off another sticker, and replace the scratched one. Also if you decide you don't like it anymore, you just tear off the sticker and your back to square one. In Germany they applied black vinyl to an M3 to make it white. It looked very clean and if you didn't know it was a sticker, you'd think it was paint.

[BigRedE39]

Flat black would be sick, i have always wanted to do that to my benz but im still waiting a while until the 540 is done, that would fucking awesome though.

[CarDriver]

Thanks, for the feed back. I may look into that, It does seem to have it's advantages.

BigRed, thanks man, I think so too. I wanted a different look to stand it uot and I think thats just the look that will do it.

[Kyldare]

I'm not exactly too familiar with the concept of flat paint, but wouldn't putting clear on the paint make it not flat technically? Maybe somebody could explain.

[CarDriver]

OK, Thats an easy one to explain. Just like base coat paints come in Flat, Matt, Satin, Semi gloss and gloss, so do clear coat paints. Just don't buff it after painting. LOL... If it needed smoothing it would need to be done gently by hand with a 1500 to 2000 grit.

There are also paint additives that can be used that inhibit the paint from shining at the molecule level giving you the same effect as if you used flat paint. this can be added to a clear or base in a two stage painting system depending on the effect you want to achiev.

There are also single stage paints that are available in Flat and are an acrylic urethane (Very durable) that can be used instead of a two stage lacquer or enamel.

[charrin3]

Ask bkbimmer on mye28.com he painted an e28 flat black and it looked really good.