Been a while since I've been here but I need some help. Im painting a silver metallic Honda Civic, the drivers side front and rear doors and quarter panel and Im having trouble with the paint coming out really metallic, almost flake like lol. Paint brand is Pro Spray reduced 1:1 with slow hardener. Didn't get any tiger stripes but I did see a little bit of blotchiness. Ive gotta admit that this is the hardest color to paint for me so far. I used my Sharpe FX3000 but I do have a FLG5 and a Pro Lite at my disposal. I also have some extra slow reducer that I may try next time. Temps were high 70's outside but inside my canopy prolly closer to low 80's. I shot that silver at low pressure, 20 psi at the gun and 3.5 turns out on the fluid. Any ideas?

Isn't that particular gun supposed to be shooting at about 29/30 psi? Also, it consumes about 10 cfm I think. Insufficient pressure or not enough cfm (or both) could account for what you are getting.....check your gun manual or look up the operating manual pdf online to check spec.s

Thanks for responding. I have a Champion 5hp air compressor, that isn't the issue. I shot it at lower pressure to hopefully keep the metallics down, usually throw a dust coat at the end with higher pressure if one wants to have the metallics come out, right?

your right silver metallic is one of the hard ones. there's a ton of things that can cause your problem. drying to fast drying to slow, slow will usually darken it a little. to wet or not wet enough, wet will usually darken it a little. gun pressure and spray technique all have an effect.
Jay D.

The reason I mentioned that low pressure thing is that you said that the metallic was coming out "flake like." That sounds like you don't have enough fluid coming out with the flake to keep it in suspension until it hits the surface. Do I fiddle with my guns settings somewhat when doing a metallic versus solids?, yeah, a little. You've got your pressure there down by more than 30%. I'd try cranking my pressure up and opening the gun fluid control some, do a test hit or two on something else.

I have shot ProSpray gunmetal gray metallic and number of their other metallic colors. Never had a problem but I use the same settings as for any base coat. I don't shoot a drop coat either UNLESS the paint manufacturer recommends it.
Darrell is right, you don't have the gun set up properly or your compressor isn't putting out enough CFM to run the gun.

Ok so I should shoot it with 28psi at the gun? I do up the pressure when clear coating but sometimes drop the pressure a bit for bc. I do have some spray out cards, I will make sure to use them the next time. I was thinking that with the metallics somewhat standing up I needed to use a slower reducer to let them settle, is this correct?

I always use slow activators and reducers. Mainly because I am not real fast when spraying and still use 50% overlap and want to keep things wet while spraying.
Today's metallics aren't like the flakes of the olden days. They are designed to lay out more evenly with a normal application.
This is ProSpray gun metal gray base coat applied like any other base coat:

Cleared:

That truck looks great. I was able to get a much better finish by going back to a medium reducer, opening up th fluid knob a bit and slightly increasing air pressure. The counter guy at the paint store said to make sure to us a high quality reducer as the cheaper ones will give it that overly metallic appearance, any truth to this?

Yes, you should be using high quality paints and reducers. Why go through all this effort and then use the bargain basement products of the big name paint lines when spraying?

The big names offer their best products for very high prices and then to reach the various budgets of people they offer steps down in quality (i.e. lower lines, economy lines, Shopline, Omni, etc.) at significant price breaks.

The reason smaller companies like ********** and Tamco are successful is because they produce high quality products at reasonable prices. They know that in order to compete their products must be as good or better than the name brand lines but at affordable prices that will entice customers to try their products.

Visiting different automotive sites like this one and checking product reviews helps.