Tone difference. Miss match the tone.

From this paint defect, which is not related to only one point, you can see the extent of the range of how many parameters can influence a color tone. Some play together and others are solely responsible for an error. Here you need to check parameters and consider what might have been the reason in your particular case.

• Sources of error:
  • Color variant incorrectly selected
  • Incorrect nozzle size selected in the basic gun
    • Particularly in spot repair, minor damage is painted with a „mini“. These often have a 0.8 or 1.0 nozzle installed. The recommendation here is a 1.2mm nozzle. Of course, more material comes out – but the tone should also fit. For clearcoat, the nozzle can be smaller. The painter must decide this for himself
  • The spraying distance is in connection with the speed too close, or far away from the object. (light/dark shift due to drier or wetter spray pattern).
  • The spray pressure is set incorrectly. If painted with less pressure, the color tone will be darker, with higher pressure the color tone will be lighter.
  • The setting additive or thinner is set too short. The metallic and pigment parts of the paint have less time to „sort“. Pigment parts do not need to sort in solid colors, these should always look the same in the color tone.
  • Painting too thin. Coating thickness also brings opacity. The (wrong) base color can also cause the color to „drift“.
  • Shadow formation due to improperly applied paint-spraying technique. More on this in the technique for spraying.
  • Painting without spray pattern (mandatory for 3- and 4-layer buildups!) Instructions for spray pattern HERE.
  • Difficult metallic, pearl, or xirallic tones painted on impact. In general, it is very difficult today to match a color exactly on „butt“. So many parameters play into the color shift, it is much easier to paint into adjacent surfaces.
  • Color shift due to the magnifying effect of the clear coat
• Error prevention:
  • Perform material processing according to technical information. These are the guidelines for a good result. Color shades with special properties require experience in how to influence color shades
  • Check the color shade before painting. If the selected shade is too far off, you can use it to pre-paint the color shade and do not have to remove everything.
  • If possible, apply metallic paints with a 1.2/1.3 atomizer.
  • Carry out the fogging or effect pass evenly.
  • Paint difficult color shades into adjacent components.
• Repair method:
  • If a clear coat has not yet been applied, apply material with different spraying. If necessary and if the metallics are in a high position, the dry material can be „decapitated“ briefly with soft sandpaper.
  • If color difference is only visible after clear coat application, then sand and repaint. Here, it is often underestimated that a bump coat
• Examples of the defect pattern:
• • Metallic particles are almost „shot“ onto the object if the atomization is too small. Due to the build-up of the particles, a too low paint application results in an unwanted false reflection and thus „shifts“ the color tone.
  • A vehicle is painted from „left to right“. Just like the robot in the factory (I am not going into the different types of nozzles of the robots, such as the angular or rotating nozzles). If you paint colors from top to bottom, the metallics get a different twist than the existing ones on the surface. Thus the color tone changes visually by the light reflection angle.

If the overall color tone is too fine and too light, even though the color pattern from the selected card matched (as seen in the picture of the spray pattern card), you are working with too small an atomization. The left side was painted with a normal base gun 1.3 HVLP. The right side was painted with a Spot-Repair HVLP Mini with a 0.8mm nozzle. The color drifts far away from the desired color due to the atomization alone.