I have an old truck and its nothing special, so just wanted to add a new coat of paint to one of the fenders. After painting, there are a few lines of tiger stripes in the paint. Would clear coating hide the tiger stripes? Thanks.

No sir. Clear will not hide anything but probably make it look more pronounced.

What paint are you spraying? How are you spraying it? What are you spraying it with?

Clear is like base, not only won't it hide anything it will actually draw your eye directly to whatever isn't perfect. You can't hide bad bodywork with paint and you can't hide bad bodywork or paint covering bad bodywork with clear.

Anyway tiger striping in the paint is common, you can avoid this by using a tighter overlap. Its possible you were moving the gun too fast or had too little fluid or too much air pressure or were too far from the panel. Or some combination of the above.

Methyl Mike wrote:tiger striping in the paint is common, you can avoid this by using a tighter overlap.

Nope.

Overlap wont help if the gun is set up incorrectly or not being held correctly, perpendicular to the panel. This is the most common cause of this problem. Set up the gun correctly first, paying particular attention to the top and bottom of the spray pattern. Practice spraying, making sure that the gun is not tilted forward or back. Work with a 50% overlap and then do a drop coat immediately after the final wet coat.

NFT5 wrote:

Methyl Mike wrote:tiger striping in the paint is common, you can avoid this by using a tighter overlap.

Nope.

Overlap wont help if the gun is set up incorrectly or not being held correctly, perpendicular to the panel. This is the most common cause of this problem. Set up the gun correctly first, paying particular attention to the top and bottom of the spray pattern. Practice spraying, making sure that the gun is not tilted forward or back. Work with a 50% overlap and then do a drop coat immediately after the final wet coat.

^ Forget what I said and do this. Let us know how it goes and if you have questions.

craigg wrote:I After painting, there are a few lines of tiger stripes in the paint. Thanks.

The most common cause of this is applying the base to wet.
Even if your gun is set up right.

I agree, although there are several other things that will cause the problem.
Jay D.

Yep, I missed that most obvious one.