Video Transcript:
Got a pretty quick video, hopefully, for you today and, we're covering a pretty basic topic but, it's something that does get overlooked quite a bit, and that is mil thickness, and really how mil thickness changes, or can change the appearance of the finish.
So, we are using super chrome as a sample in this test and we've got three samples sprayed out here at different mil thicknesses. You've got one that's definitely got some orange peel visible here. You've got one here that actually looks pretty darn good, and one here that's got some orange peel but it's a little bit tighter pattern. We're going to go through and just double-check it against this mil thickness gauge. Let's see here, we've got, on this first one yeah we're in the kind of four mill range, a little over four mils. That's a little bit heavy and no wonder you're starting to see some orange peel being visible there. So let's check this one out, okay we're just under, we're right around three mils there. This one actually looks the best, the one in the middle. Let's check this one here, finally, and we are under two mils.
So, normally for most powders about two to three mils is that target range where you want to be. Too thin and you start developing a tighter orange peel pattern if you're under two mils, but you also can have the potential for being too thin where you don't have as much protection. Start going over three mils and that's when, hey you're getting decent protection there, but the finish may start to suffer a little bit, that's where you start seeing orange peel. Now some powder colors, or gloss levels, will conceal the orange peel better than others, so really, to sum this up is if you don't have a mil thickness gauge you really should get one. It's a great way to troubleshoot anomalies that happen within a finish, the first thing you should do is go through and check your mil thickness to see if you're in that range. Second thing is, it really helps develop your technique. So you've got a combination of things going on when your spring: you've got gun settings, you've got the number of passes that you make, and then also your hand speed. All those things combined are going to determine what the mil thickness is. If you don't know what the mil thickness is and there's really no way for you to know how to alter your technique to get the best finish. These are pretty decent units - these are the ones that I use pretty much every day. For what we're doing here, these make a really great option.
See "Calibrating the Prismatic Powders Mil Thickness Coating Gauge" to learn how to calibrate your Prismatic Powders Mil Gauge.
