Metal flake

Ordered some small containers of flake to check color and size match for my Hydrostream project.

This is the only place I've found who sells square flake like the boat had originally. https://www.vintagepaint.biz/metalflake.html I thought this would be good for future reference.

The "Western Blue" looks like a dead match to the blue used by Hydrostream. I figure silver, is silver. I tried .015" and .025" as it looks like there's a few sizes in the original gel. Those sizes seem to be a good match.

I've been told that 4oz by volume to 1 quart of gel is a good mix ratio for spraying flake. Can one of the experts here confirm this, also could you give an idea of how much flake I should order to respray the entire boat? Its a Viking. Thanks!

If you use a matching color under the flake it will cover much better and look better. How much? Good question. I would venture that 3qts of blue and 1 qts silver mix would be close for a deck. Really varies by the gun and person spraying it on, how thinned it is etc.

Thanks!
I picked up 5gal of a light grey gel to use for under the floor, inside the hull, and as a base coat.

On your boat that would be reversed. Forgot it is mostly silver.

You should be mixing 20 to 30 % per volume flake to gel and i would suggest using a dump gun with straight gel and at 2 to 2.5 % mekp .
Heres my 21 foot jet boat , there is almost 5 pounds of flake on it .
https://i.postimg.cc/SK0MGhcs/DSC-0042.jpg

Very nice.

Rock

Thats a lot of work! looks great, your formula for the flake is right on the money.

Generally flake is sprayed over a black substrate

I just checked my notes and I used 6 oz of sky blue .025 Sky Blue flake from Meadow Brook to 20 oz of clear gel sprayed over a light blue back round color. Sprayed it with a dump gun. Like Gil ...I used 5 lbs of flake to do my 16' Hustler. If your spraying paint that's a whole different ball game.

Interesting thread, good info. I’d like to do some tune-ups on a black gel Checkmate that has only a bit of flake in it - kind of like a “dusting” if that makes any sense. Any suggestion on the ratio for that ?
And how much wet sanding was there after the dump gun ?

Matt

Looking for Someone in Florida that can help me with Flake . I want to get the transom done in my 1984 Ventura and dont want to loose the splashwell . Does anybody in Florida do good flake gel work ?Thanks in advance Ron Fielding

Here's how it went. Thanks for the guidance!
https://youtu.be/-ItcjItGsgI

Looks great Tnelsmn...what size flake did you use and what tip on your gun? I used a dump gun for my flake and the HVLP w/2.5 tip for the clear. Using the dump gun there was a lot of orange peel and I ended up spraying 9 medium coats of clear on the deck to bury the flake enough to not sand thru and I still stopped a little earlier than I wanted to just to make sure I didn't go thru. I wondered how different it would have come out if I tried to use the HVLP instead of the dump but I am happy overall with the way mine turned out...it was just a whole lot of sanding...sanded thru many of my fingertips on mine.

Flake was .025" .015" .008" mixed together. 80% was .025" Everything was shot through a 2.5 tip. For the clear after laying down 3 wet passes, I held the gun almost twice as far back and opened up the fan pattern and did a few fog passes. Automotive painter recommended that trick to me. Seemed really help reduce the orange peel. I did this on the flake layer as well. I have a close up shot of the orange peel in my rebuild thread.