Thread: Metalflake era?

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HOTRODPAINT - You and I are about the same age and from the same general region of the U.S. I am just a few months past my 60th birthday and I was born and raised in central Indiana. The first 'flake job I ever saw was a green '63 Pontiac convertible at a custom car show in Indianapolis in 1963... I started learning body and paint work in '65 working in my cousin's body shop. He did a couple of 'flake jobs while I was working for him (I got to do a lot of the sanding ) and I used to dabble with the leftovers. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was painting cars at home in my dad's garage (just simple stuff; no custom paint yet). As I recall, when the all-over 'flake jobs started to lose popularity in the late 1960's, I started seeing it more and more on custom bikes. My wife and I bought our first house in 1973 and, since I finally had my own garage, I started doing some custom painting. 'Flake was still being used quite a bit on custom cars in panel paint, flames, and scallops (I even did a few of those flame and scallop jobs myself.); it was still used in all-over jobs, too, just not as much. I seem to remember a silver 'flake Roadrunner and a green 'flake Corvette roaming the south side of Indy in the early '70's. I guess my point is, as far as I can remember, it's been in use continuously ever since its introduction, but like most things, the popularity ebbs and flows.

I haven't done any 'flake in over 20 years. We were still using lacquer in those days. It went something like this: Put on a base coat color that matches the 'flake; mix the 'flake with clear & spray two or more wet coats to achieve hiding & let dry; cover with 3 wet coats of clear; let dry & sand, careful not to hit the flakes; apply 2 or 3 more coats of clear; let dry & sand again; repeat as necessary to get smooth; buff and polish.

How do you do it with the modern urethanes? I think I would like to try it again sometime...

I dont know much about when its heyday was, but my first experience was with lowriders. in the early 80`s my uncle was still doing paint and stripes on hotrods and lowriders in the high desert of socal, and i got to see some of them. The gassers stand out from pics, but i was way too young to see that period. And now flake and astro supremes are making a huge comeback.

Originally Posted by J. Robinson

HOTRODPAINT - You and I are about the same age and from the same general region of the U.S. I am just a few months past my 60th birthday and I was born and raised in central Indiana...

I remember you! I'm the guy who stepped on your foot at the Murat Shrine Temple Car Show in '64! (Just kidding)

I grew up in the Danville, Illinois, and ventured to the nationals every year from '62 to '74.

The few urethane jobs I've done included about 10 coats of clear, with plenty of dry-time between coats, then sand and buff.

Here is a lowrider lacquer job I did in the late '70s.

I spent a couple of summers around 73-74 at my grandparents house in Carmi, (sp) Ill!! And grew up in N.W. Indy (born in 66 though...). At US 30 Dragstrip (Gary, Ind... "RIP" ) in the early 70's was when I learned what flake was. I remember a few funnycars at the Nats in 72 or 73 running flake jobs, of course I was only like 9 years old, but I LOVED cars at that age and picked up on alot of the details. I've been getting more and more requests for flake jobs, but most are scared of the big stuff and end up going with the "mini" flake...

Wondering how it would work with Urethene to lay down a dark base with a bit of metallic, a translucent mid-coat with the flake, then enough clear to bury the flake.....??????? Maybe even a bit of color tinted clear for the first couple passes with the clear.....??????

Sounds like it should work okay. Only one way to find out!.......maybe on a helmet or something?

The issue was complicated by the appearance of fiberglass dune buggy bodies that had metalflake embeded in the fiberglass for a very deep reflecting surface. This has survived mainly in large flake coatings on fiberglass boats. I don't see what the issue is now since you can get paint with a wide range of particle size under clearcoat so if you want to get large or small flakes it is just a matter of selecting the size of the metal powder. I had a gold metal flake dune buggy in 1970 and a rear end collision produced a large crack in the back edge over the top of the rear-engine VW setup. Insurance paid a body shop for repairs that made a nearly invisible matched "patch" in the crack that was buffed out in the clear resin coating but since I knew where the crack had been I could just visualize the repair due to a slight difference in the size of the reflecting particles. To the casual observer the repair was perfect but basically the coating was a layer of random-oriented metal particles covered by a fairly thick layer of clear resin that gave a "deep" look. So whether it is clearcoat or fiberglass resin the principle is the same with a layer of color with reflecting particles (you chose the size) and then a layer of some clear material to give "depth". Of course this gets into individual tastes and it could range from an outrageous pink-violet-fushia with large flakes to a sedate fine grain maroon on a Cadillac. I kind of favor the outrageous big flake gaudy psychedelic but the paint shop I used said "no, no that is only for motorboats" so I settled for a fine grain metallic with clearcoat over it. I think there is a cultural element here with large flakes saying "wild and crazy" with fine flakes saying "conservative and subdued" but that is just my impression as reinforced by the folks at my paint shop. Over the years I think the best treatments were on Cadillacs and the Caddy colors managed to have bright color schemes while remaining tasteful so I think there is something to selecting the right combinations for a "good" look but I do not know how the folks at Caddilac know what gives the good taste look. For instance the '54 Caddy Aztec Red is outrageous but the Caddy folks added trim to make it look "good", although when you campare stock Cadillacs 20 years apart you definitely see that they got away with some wild schemes in the '50s and early 60s' but at the time they did look "classy". Trends, trends, trends!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I was pokin' around in one of the cabinets in my garage last night and found an old jar that had about half a bag of blue flake in it! I've had this stuff since about 1976 or '77. I may have to try it again on something...