and how long between coats?
thanks.

Read the tech sheet for your particular Clear.
Flash times are dependent on temperature, activator speed and coat thickness. Also, if you use a reducer (fast, medium, slow or very slow) it can affect the flash time.
Take the longest time on your tech sheet and treat it as the minimum time to be on the safe side.

Thanks. What is average flash time? How many coats?

There is no real average flash time since clears come in different quality and make up. Higher solids clears will build more than budget clears and make take more time to flash.
You NEED to read the tech sheet for your clear.

If you are spraying light to medium coats you should figure 4 if you plan to cut and buff.
I generally spray three coats but I use high solids clear and don't add reducer until the very last coat. Plus I have enough experience to lay down nice looking clear right from the gun.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:There is no real average flash time since clears come in different quality and make up. Higher solids clears will build more than budget clears and make take more time to flash.
You NEED to read the tech sheet for your clear.

If you are spraying light to medium coats you should figure 4 if you plan to cut and buff.
I generally spray three coats but I use high solids clear and don't add reducer until the very last coat. Plus I have enough experience to lay down nice looking clear right from the gun.

Just me personally but I thought your first post said it all.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:There is no real average flash time since clears come in different quality and make up. Higher solids clears will build more than budget clears and make take more time to flash.
You NEED to read the tech sheet for your clear.

If you are spraying light to medium coats you should figure 4 if you plan to cut and buff.
I generally spray three coats but I use high solids clear and don't add reducer until the very last coat. Plus I have enough experience to lay down nice looking clear right from the gun.

Could you explain what you mean by not adding reducer until the very last coat and what effect does this have? Thanks and always appreciate your posts Coronet.

Avanti wrote:Could you explain what you mean by not adding reducer until the very last coat and what effect does this have?

Some painters overthin a final coat of clear which usually goes on after the previous coats have been blocked back to flat. It's a technique called flowcoating that, while very effective in giving a lovely finish, is fraught with danger for the inexperienced since the clear can run very easily. I wouldn't recommend it.

The earlier advice, to read the TDS and follow it to the letter is, IMHO, a much better thing to do.