# Lightest shade of silver paint



## LindenH (Oct 25, 2011)

Really struggling matching my touch-up paint for stonechips on my titanium silver BMW .... I know silver is tricky, but the paints I've tried all turn dark.

I've tried the following

mixing paint 50/50 with lacquer
applying really thin coats of base coat and letting it dry/cure for varying lengths of time before lacquer
applying by fine brush, thin card and airbrush

All with official BMW paint as well as other BMW 354 touch-ups from different manufacturers.

None of my usual methods work so I thought I'd see if a very light silver would match better.

Any ideas which silver is the lightest?


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

You'll never match a silver touching in.
'Dabbing' in a chip produces a thick coat compared with spraying - the metallics sink in the thick coat and don't lay properly giving it a dark appearance.


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## LindenH (Oct 25, 2011)

squiggs said:


> You'll never match a silver touching in.
> 'Dabbing' in a chip produces a thick coat compared with spraying - the metallics sink in the thick coat and don't lay properly giving it a dark appearance.


I realise that the metallic flakes settle at different rates, dependent upon the thickness of application and resulting cure time, but I've used a fine airbrush at low pressure and get a fairly close match. However, as soon as the lacquer is applied (also by airbrush and blended across the chip) the base coat darkens.

I figured that if I could start with a very light shade of silver, the darkening would result in a closer match.

Is it possible for the darker metallic flakes to be omitted from a custom mix by a local, friendly body shop?


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## squiggs (Oct 19, 2009)

Not really mate ... even if the metallics aren't sinking in the paint then you're probably 'washing' the metallics flat as you're applying lacquer with a brush ... it is how it is using the method you're using.
If painting a car was that easy spray shops would be using brushes and then flatting back  ... and painters will tell you silver is one of the most problematic colours to respray.
If it was a flat colour (no metallics) or a coloured metallic you can get away with it - but not on a silver where it's just metallic - it's almost impossible.

Depending on how small the chips are I've heard of people getting small pots of black and white Humbrol(?) - model makers paint - and mixing a bespoke grey that exactly matches the grey hue of the silver.
I once touched in some small chips on a Merc. Having explained the problems to the customer I mixed a light grey and did them while while he watched - he seemed happy with the results ... as long as it's the right shade then missing out a tiny bit of sparkle in a chip doesn't really show :thumb:


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