EYE KANDY
House of Kolor Special Effects Overlay

Story courtesy of Street Fords Magazine
Words by JR
Pics by JR, Dietrich & Dean Summers

When it comes to award-winning show cars, the maxim is that you get what you pay for. But for new cars and those with paint in good condition, House of Kolor can give you a million-dollar finish for a fraction of the cost

James Kingdom was previously the owner of the wild BA GT that was on the cover of our first issue and became widely known on the show circuit as the ‘House of Kolor GT’. So when he chose a black FPV BA Super Pursuit as the basis for his next project, it was only natural that HOK would be involved again. This time, the finish used is one of HOK’s wild new Special Effect Overlays that look out of this world, but are actually a relative bargain in the arena of show car painting. As you can see from these pages, there’s a bit more work involved in this sort of paintjob than your average touch-up (it’s not something you’d do in your garage with a Little Beaver and that dodgy air compressor from the local auto store), but HOK’s Special Effects Overlay system can give your street car a unique, show-quality finish without breaking the budget. By utilising the existing paintjob as the base for a new colour scheme, you avoid one of the biggest costs of such a job – stripping down and painting the engine bay, boot, door jambs and other bits not seen from outside. While the requirement of a good base to work on means that this is more an option for guys with newer cars or those whose cars have paint in good condition the dollars saved can be substancial.

PART 1: PREP

Even before you start work, it’s best to have a plan. Giving yourself an idea of what you want can be as easy as this home-drawn concept sketch.	Start sanding – Andrew starts sanding down the new black paint on the car in preparation for the for the spray booth.	With the trim mostly removed and the sanding all but complete, it’s time to move into the spray booth.
When it comes time to mask, laying out the dividing stripe down the centre of the car is the first step.	Then the rest of the car is masked off so only the stripe is exposed.

PART 2: DIVIDING STRIPE

HOK Pale Gold Metallic is mixed up to use as the base coat of the divider stripe.	Two coats are layered on to give the right metallic coverage.	This is followed by two coats of the transparent HOK Violette Kandy.
Giving you a look like this.

PART 3: TOP OVERLAY

Once the dividing stripe is dry, this is then masked up and the paper is removed from the top half of the car.	HOK's KC-20 water-based cleaner is used to give the top half of the car a final wipe down. This is a trick product that cleans off all the dust and garbage without lifting any paint.	5% Pale Gold Metallic (the gold base from the divider stripe) is added to the Tangerine Kandy Base Coat and mixed up for application.
Andrew writes down the exact paint formulation he used just in case there’s any need for a touch-up in the future.	Andrew first sticks some paper to the wall of the booth so he can test the flow and coverage of the gun away from the car.	The first coat goes on smoothly and is left for 20 minutes to dry.
The second coat lays down easily. The job is going smoothly and quickly so far.	At the end of the third and last coat, the paint looks like this.

PART 4: PINSTRIPING

Once that’s all dry, the paper around the divider strip is peeled back and masking on the pinstripes begins.	Careful trimming around join lines is essential.	The latest lot of masking is done and the car is ready for pinstiping.
The bright green pinstripe is created by mixing 75% HOK Lemon Yellow with 25% HOK Green enamel pinstriping paint.	A quick base coat of black is laid down so none of the other metallic colours bleed through to the non-metallic green.	Two coats of green are laid down to finish off the dividing stripe effect.
Once that’s dry, all the different layers of paper and tape can be removed in preparation for the clear coat.

PART 5: CLEAR COAT

Andrew switches into the full protective suit and mask with external air supply as the clear coat is pretty toxic if breathed in.	The first coat goes down and you can finally start to see what the finished product is going to look like.	The second coat goes down and the paint starts to take on some depth.
The third and last coat leaves the gun. Now it’s just a matter of leaving it to bake in the booth and then give it a final buff and polish to bring on that glassy smooth finish.

PART 6: FINAL ASSEMBLY

Once it was buffed, Andrew put the car back together, reinstalling the door handles, wing mirrors, tail-lights and other essential items.	Then we quickly ducked out to take a couple of happy snaps of the Ute before the canopy was refitted.	It’s a heavy bugger, so it took four guys to carefully slide the canopy back into position.
Once this was done, then it was the simple task of bolting it all down and making sure all the connections were tight.	The canopy copped the same Tangerine Kandy treatment as the Ute once it had left the booth, and all the aerials, spoilers and wiring for lights and such subsequently had to be reinstalled.

COSTING IT OUT

For James’s Ute, the work was carried out by Andrew Ash at AA Panel Craft in Bowral, NSW, and took about a week to complete.
It consisted of the following:

MBC-01 Pale Gold Metallic (divider stripe base – two coats)
UK-17 Violette Kandy (divider stripe top – two coats)
U-06 Lemon Yellow 75%
U-13 Green 25% (pinstripe – two coats)
KBC-08 Tangerine Kandy Base Coat + 5% MBC-01 Pale Gold Metallic (top half of car – three coats)
UFC-01 Flo-Klear (all-over clear coat – three coats)

Paint and labour for this job came to $5500, and depending on the colours and exact type of finish you want, you could expect to pay between $5000–$6000 for a similar job yourself. So is it worth it? At its first show outing after completion, and competing against a number of past and present Motorex and Autosalon competitors, James’s ute took out Best Paint with judges praising both the quality of the work and the overall design presentation.

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