Opacity mystery solved!

Nowadays, it can be noticed that the undercoat color selection in renovation refinishing is becoming more and more important. This is due to the need to faithfully reproduce the factory coating. There are several reasons behind this phenomenon.

From the composition of automotive paints, the environmental and health harmful chromium and lead have been removed. Thing is, that this compound used to be responsible for paint opacity.

Another factor is the increasing share of pearlescent pigments and xirallics. They help to form the original type of coating, but at the same time they reduce the degree of opacity.

The last factor responsible for the greater effect of the undercoat on the vehicle's final color is the thinner factory coating of the paint, which is based on the savings of car manufacturers. Following the trail set by car manufacturers, refinish lacquers are forced to include in the paint formulas the undercoat.

Information about the need to use the appropriate color of the substrate is included in the recipe itself. For example, in the case of the Kar-Bon system, the corresponding tag informs the painter that he should apply the undercoat in order to get the faithfully recreated original color and thereby increase the coating's opacity. Red tag with undercoat number indicates that corresponding undercoat is necessary.

As a primer layer we usually use the same type of lacquer that serves us as the topcoat. In most cases, the color is still gray, but that is not the rule. It is worth to check color before painting, because the wrong selection can contribute to the wrong end result much different from the original.

Appropriate substrate color can be obtained by using fillers with drying and grinding by polishing or by wet-on-wet method.