Question to the painters...

[BaltimoreGS]

Hey,

Seen some cool paint jobs on here and getting ready to try my hand at it.  All the parts are primed and sanded so if the weather is good this weekend I will be painting.  I'm using a urethane base coat/clear coat from Sherwin Williams and I have a question that the guys at the store didn't know the answer to and the can doesn't specify.  It says the flash time between wet coats is about 15 minutes (when the paint is tacky but not stringey).  How long do a have to wait for the color coat to dry before I clear coat over it?  Is that the same as the flash time between coats?  Thanks

-Jessie

[BaltimoreGS]

:Bump:

Trying to get this project done before it gets too cold.  The tentative plan is to spray the base coat Sunday evening, let it dry over night, then spray the clear Monday evening.  That sound like a good plan? 

-Jessie

[noiseguy]

As I recall it's the same for urethane; i.e. you coat the clear the same as a color coat in terms of timing.

That said, you should have a paint system document that specifies how the paints work together, which talks about all the parts of the system. This info will be in a technical doc and not on the back of the can. You can look these up online; they're a snore to read but have a lot of good info inside, esp. on adjusting mix to temp. It's good to have this to balance what the paint guy tells you. Most are pretty knowledgable... the fact that he didn't know this off the top of his head seems odd.

I'm assuming you've bought a complete system (color + clear) that works together. I remember the 80's clear coats that weren't meant to work together and would flake off after a few years. What a mess.