Mr. Color - Transparentní červená

A paint that is not meant to cover

Transparent shades work differently from ordinary covering paints. They contain no covering pigment, so once dry everything lying underneath them shows through. That is exactly where their value lies. Applied over a polished or silver base they create the impression of glass lit from within, something that is hard to imitate by any other technique.

Lights and signals

The commonest use is on tail and navigation lights. On aircraft, red belongs on the left wing and green on the right, and every reviewer will be careful to tell that pair apart. On vehicles and ships, red is the color of tail lamps, brake lights and some signals. Silver is painted underneath, or the clear part itself is used, so that the light has something to reflect off.

Layering decides the shade

The saturation is governed by the number of passes, not by mixing. One thin coat gives a light pink cast, three or four coats a deep ruby. Always let them dry between coats, or the layers will merge and the surface will stay tacky. Over aluminum shades it creates what is known as a candy coat, popular on sports cars and motorcycles.

Working with the material

10 ml, a lacquer binder, thinned with thinner from the same range. It is applied with an airbrush, and on small lights a pointed brush will serve too, because the paint levels the strokes into a smooth surface by itself. The base has to be perfectly smooth, as every scratch shows up even more strongly under a transparent coat. If you need just a small drop on a lit lens, apply it with the point of a toothpick and let it spread into the shape of a lens by itself. The rest of the surface then stays untouched and the edge of the light comes out sharp.