CLEAR ORANGE

A paint you can see through

This shade contains no opaque pigment, only a dye dissolved in a clear binder. The coat applied therefore does not cover the surface underneath but colors it, much as when you look through colored glass. You control the resulting tone by the number of passes: the first is barely noticeable, after the third the surface takes on an amber depth and after the fifth it begins to darken almost into brown.

Where it suits best

The classic use is the lenses of marker and position lights. A silver or chrome surface is laid underneath so that the light reflects back through the colored layer, and the lens then looks lit even with no electronics. By the same logic the indicators of cars, the beacons of service vehicles and the landing lights of aircraft are tinted. The second big field is the layered gloss finishes of car bodies, where a clear layer is laid over a metallic base and the color shifts with the angle of view.

Careful on clear plastic

The binder is a lacquer and the solvent in it can etch clear polystyrene into a milky haze. On transparent parts, therefore, spray from a greater distance, at first only a dusting, and lay the full coat down only over a dry base. Stir the contents thoroughly before work and thin with the company thinner of this range. The shade is less suitable for a brush, because every overlap of a stroke deepens the tone and the boundary between the strokes stays visible. On small lenses that need not matter, though, if you lay a drop of paint in the middle and let it flow out to the edges by itself.