Results/Thoughts: Applying Opti-Seal/Opti-Coat with an Air Brush

Shiny Lil Detlr said:
All of their MSDS sheets are here:



http://optimumforums.org/index.php?...key=file_submitted&num=10&filter_key=all&st=0
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Just what I was looking for, thanks!



Accumulator said:
Superbee364- I'm late to this party, but I did want to post that I found this interesting.



But I gotta ask...why strip it off the Charger?!? I'd just do the next try on another car :think:
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Remember that I used Opti-SEAL for the initial spraying, I haven't done the Opti-COAT yet. :) I'm going to stick with spraying my car with Opti-Seal until I can get the total amount used down to less than 20 cc's, as that's how much Opti-Coat there is in one syringe. Until I can do a complete coverage of Opti-Seal in less than 20 cc's (I'm hoping for more like 10 cc's, but that's probably going to be pushing it) with a great outcome, the Opti-Coat stays on the shelf. :D I need to make absolutely certain that one syringe of OC is going to cover my entire car.



Dan said:
Yeah, I agree, there is a fine line to walk with regard to OC. A dedicated spray version would be nice for those of us with spray guns but I would prefer to see a layerable version (though that's probably impossible). My goal would really be increased thickness as I feel ok with the application process, but I did apply to a white car, next up is a dark blue Audi, I may be eating some crow.
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Yeah, there's got to be *some* benefit to a thicker coating, for sure.... as long as it doesn't start to show some tendency toward going opaque. There's a lot of experimenting left to be done, and questions to be answered still. A couple of possible advantages a thicker coat would give is the possibility of: 1. Jeweling the Opti-Coat for a better finish. 2. Possibly attempting minor surface repair (claying and polishing) once the surface gets a bit marred/swirled with age. It would sure be nice to only have to polish away some opti-coat rather than further thinning the clear once you get a bit of marring, yet still have a viable layer of opti-coat left after the polishing.



wascallyrabbit said:
opti coat can be layered, you just have to do it with in a few hours of the first coat. this spraying thing seems pretty interesting. maybe i'll have to get out my air brush and try it myself.



for the second attempt why not try a different car instead of stripping it off or maybe just adding a second coat.
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Interesting! I had no idea it could be layered. It makes sense, as long as the second coat is added before the first has cured. Definitely something I'll be playing with at a later date.



I wonder if Anthony Orosco or any of the other guys that have sprayed on Opti-Coat have ever messed around with spraying on multiple layers...



Edit: In the video Anthony recently posted, he actually did do two layers. One hand applied, and one sprayed on. I don't know if that was just for the video, or if it was left that way though.
 
SuperBee364 said:
According to the Opti-Seal MSDS at http://optimumforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=12, I'm not seeing amorphous siliceous mineral-silicate as an ingredient in Opti-Seal. :nixweiss
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i thought amorphous siliceous mineral-silicate was in the opti coat.



if memory serves me right opti guard comes with 40cc in a syringe. the consumer syringe is 20cc. so i think you'll be good if you get down to around/just under 20cc per application.
 
For those that are thinking about buying an air brush to give this a try...



There are a ton of air brushes out there to choose from. If you're a total air brush noob, like I am, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to figure out what's gonna work. My Paasche Talon does work well, no doubt. But it does have a few drawbacks. Primarily, it is a gravity feed model, with a *tiny* product cup. I would much rather have a suction feed model with a larger cup that uses plastic bottles to feed from. The Talon does include the fan air cap to give a much more HVLP mini-gun like spray pattern, but I'm not convinced yet that it's a must-have accessory.



I would definitely stick to a dual action air brush, though. Here's why...



You can't really see it well from my poor picture, but the button on the top has two different functions. Pressing it down causes air to flow through the gun, and out the tip. Just pressing the button down does not release any product from the tip, just air. After you press the button down, you can then slide the button toward the back of the gun. Sliding the button toward the back of the gun will start to release product in to the air stream from the tip. It's a proportionate thing; the more you slide it back, the more product is released into the air stream. You can go from just a tiny, tiny bit of product being released all the way to emptying your product cup in a very short amount of time. This is a great feature. You are in direct control of how densely the air pattern coming out of the tip will be saturated with product.



When using an air brush, the distance you hold the gun from the surface being "painted" determines how wide the spray pattern will be. The closer you hold it to the surface, the smaller the pattern will be (duh ;) ). The great part about the dual action feature is that you can hold the gun mere fractions of an inch away from the surface (in order to get a pencil thin application pattern). Since you are in direct control of how much product is being released (by how far back you're pulling the button toward the rear of the gun), you can apply a whisper thin coating, and have it only be as wide as a pencil mark! If you're using a gun where you have no control over the product flow rate, holding the gun tip this close to the surface being painted would result in paint running down the surface. Not so with the dual action. *You* control the flow rate, so pencil thin application patterns are incredibly easy to do.



Get whatever air brush looks good to you, but you'll probably be best off if you stick with a dual action model.
 
Gave it a shot this weekend Brandt. Gun was still acting up so I only used it for the front and rear grills. Worked great for that application though! ;)



20111016-_MG_5835.jpg








As far as layering....I wouldn't push it much more that 30-45 minutes or it can turn cloudy on you.
 
Very cool, Rasky! Were you spraying OC or OS? How did the finish look compared to the hand applied areas?



Good to know about the layering. If you were going to air brush on a second coat, how long would you wait before laying down the second coat?
 
Opti-Guard. I only used it on the black plastic grill so I can't really compare the methods. I may have to spring for a better gun though if I can't figure this one out.



I'll post the write up on the Mini tomorrow. The coating made the grill look better and now it will stay that way and be a snap to clean. ;)





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Man, I need to get tapatalk on my iPhone. I accidentally posted before I was done writing. Went back, added the text, posted it and you had already replied. :)



My gun took a bit of adjustment to get it to spray correctly, too. It wouldn't release the product evenly. It would spray a bit, then just shoot out air, then spray a bit more. Pretty hard to get an even coating if the gun is only spraying half the time. I removed the needle and reseated it very firmly, then re-tightened the tip and air cap. Has worked perfectly since.
 
Worked on spraying OS again today.



The Asset Resource Manager denied my submitted claim to spend money on a bigger air compressor, so I went with the .25 mm tip using the air brush compressor. This produced *extremely* small droplet sizes. The compressor was able to keep up, as well, holding a perfect 40 psi while the gun was in use.



I was able to completely cover the car in a very nice, thin, even coating (except the glass) with 14 ml of OS. There was still a bit left in the air brush cup when I was done, so the front bumper got an extra coat.



It was *much* easier to control the application rate with the .25 mm tip, and not nearly as much product was needed to get complete surface coverage due to the microscopic droplet size.



Time to clear out the schedule for the next two days so I can do a complete polishing of the car followed by an air brushed layer of Opti-Coat 2.0.



Hey Rasky, if you happen to read this.. quick question for you. I'm getting great results on my car's vinyl accent stripes/hood & trunk black outs with OS. In your opinion, would you do the stripes with OC 2.0, or should I mask them off?
 
Shiny Lil Detlr said:
$3? It was free back when I downloaded it....
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Maybe it's no longer :( :nixweiss. I downloaded it a few months ago for iPhone. It's still alright with me.
 
Fantastic post SuperBee. This is the first time I've looked into applying products via an Airbrush, and what I noticed is you are not using a spraygun, like an HVLP model, but an Airbrush. For someone like me, does the Air Brush just provide a much smoother delivery and use much less product? Again, I have not researched this much until reading this thread, which is a wealth of information on its own.
 
Leadfootluke said:
Fantastic post SuperBee. This is the first time I've looked into applying products via an Airbrush, and what I noticed is you are not using a spraygun, like an HVLP model, but an Airbrush. For someone like me, does the Air Brush just provide a much smoother delivery and use much less product? Again, I have not researched this much until reading this thread, which is a wealth of information on its own.
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Yeah, that's pretty much it.



Using the smallest needle/cap tip combination my air brush has (.25 mm) results in extremely small droplet sizes, which in turn results in not much product needed to get complete, even coverage.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Worked on spraying OS again today.







Hey Rasky, if you happen to read this.. quick question for you. I'm getting great results on my car's vinyl accent stripes/hood & trunk black outs with OS. In your opinion, would you do the stripes with OC 2.0, or should I mask them off?
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It will add a slight gloss to the stripes so as long as you are ok with that it should be fine. I did the stripes on the Mini and they look great after I was done. Just know that once it's on there it's NOT coming off unless you polish the stripes, which is not something you typically want to do with flat black. ;)
 
RaskyR1 said:
It will add a slight gloss to the stripes so as long as you are ok with that it should be fine. I did the stripes on the Mini and they look great after I was done. Just know that once it's on there it's NOT coming off unless you polish the stripes, which is not something you typically want to do with flat black. ;)
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Thanks, Rasky, I'll plan on spraying the stripes, too. OS makes the stripes look very good: deep black, nice satin finish.



I'll take a bit of shine rather than the bleached out look the desert sun gives them. They are a maintenance nightmare out here, requiring love on a monthly basis to keep looking good.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Thanks, Rasky, I'll plan on spraying the stripes, too. OS makes the stripes look very good: deep black, nice satin finish.



I'll take a bit of shine rather than the bleached out look the desert sun gives them. They are a maintenance nightmare out here, requiring love on a monthly basis to keep looking good.
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I think that's a good choice. Just wanted to be sure you understood there was no going back after you do it. I love how the trim on my car has maintained that new look and it's been on my trim for 15 months now! :)
 
Just getting ready to go out and strip the OS off the car, clay, polish, then spray on the OC.



After spraying on the first coat of OS last week, the car sat in the St. George/Las Vegas sun for a week, as well as being driven 300 miles. Never saw a garage the whole week. Temps were in the upper 80's to lower 90's during the day. Many bugs hit the windshield and front bumper the day after the OS was applied. These bugs then sat, baking on to the windshield for a week.



During yesterday's wash, the bugs on the bumper and windshield came off completely after a HP rinse, foam cannon layer, HP rinse. The majority of the road grime came off, as well. OS gave up the bugs and dirt easily. I wish it would've rained during the week to really put OS's ease of cleaning up to the test, but I was very happy to see how well it stood up to baked on bugs. The car was completely clean after following up the rinse/foam/rinse with a gentle BHB application. The car was then blown dry, and OS was sprayed on afterward.



If I wasn't switching over to OC, I think OS (using the air brush application) would have been a welcome addition to my "Don't touch the bloody paint!" philosophy... (mostly) Touchless washes followed up by touchless LSP application.
 
Car is prepped, and ready to be sprayed. OMG, the prep was a PITA. Due to time constraints, I didn't have time to do a conventional wash after polishing, as there's no way the car would be completely dry in time to spray it today. So I removed every bit of 105/205 dust and residue with IPA and MF's. Every bit of paint, plastic, trim, glass was sprayed, wiped, resprayed, rewiped and then sprayed and wiped one more time. I'm going to go over the entire car one more time with IPA and a WW MF (lint free), then it gets sprayed.



Pics and results to come soon (I hope).
 
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