Going to be tinting the taillights off of my '08 and another friend's set on his '97 GMC and will be doing so with black basecoat and clear mixed with my gun. I'm wanting to do a light tint and think my friend wants a darker tint (no problem since I can give his a couple more coats). Question is, whats the ratio for doing this? I know I've heard 1:1, what about 2:1? Two clear, one black right?

 

Anyone know?

 

I've done alot of tailights and a few headlights. Make sure and clean them up real well and use a good adhesion promoter before u go laying the base down. As for mixing the clear and base together, you will be better off taking your black base and reducing it until it's pretty transperant. Say 30-40% black. You want to gradually build up the layers untill you acheive the desired darkness. Remember it is easier to add color than remove it once its sprayed on the light. When you get the look you want then lay down they clear.

 

Thanks, never heard of over-reducing the base before for tinting. The paint I use is 1:1, so maybe 4:1 with the reducer?

 

i believe 3 parts clear to 1 part base black, as many coats as necessary for your desired darkness

 

To a cup full of ready to shoot clear I added maybe 2-3 ounces black. Darkness is controlled more by how many coats than mix ratio. Your gonna do a minimum of 3 coats, 1 light tack coat and 2 normal, more if desired tint level is not achieved.

Ready to shoot black, in my case a 1:1 ratio with reducer for the paint I was using (sherwin Williams).

 

You can over reduce one of two ways. One being if you take a normal 1:1 ratio which is 50/50 black reducer. You can mix it 1:1 and add additional reducer say another 30-40 percent. The other is to take straight black and add additional binder to make it transperant before reducing. I use PPG' global line of paint and they make a clear base #bc895. U can use it with any color including black to make a transparent candy effect. if your set on using the base mixed with clearcoat method. Buy a black single stage, which is essentially color and clear in one, cut it 50/50 with full clear and spray away. Then put a full straight coat of clear on for really smooth finish and it will make it easier to color sand and polish if you choose to do so. That's a little old school trick I've used on complete black paint jobs which adds a little depth to the black for a better wet look that everyone loves.