"Ghost Chrome"

"Ghost Chrome® contains the smallest particle makeup of any metallic coating available. These extra small particles allow for a perfect orientation on the surface giving you the truest metal looks of any paint available today." From the company web site.

Ghost Chrome is a mid coat; in other words apply your base coat and then Ghost Chrome. It seems to work best over light to dark gray or even black. In the case of the helmet pictured below I used a medium gray by mixing a touch of House of Kolor BC 25 Black and BC26 white together. For helmet prep for those that do not know I removed the trim, taped off the trim I could not remove, scuffed the helmet, cleaned it with House of Kolor KC20 post sanding cleaner at which point it was ready to apply my base color. For more detailed information on custom painting helmets your best resource is AIRBRUSH ARTIST MAGAZINE.

With my gray base color given time to flash we can now apply the Ghost Chrome. I used a SATA Minjet HVLP for this; on a surface this big an airbrush will not give you the kind of coverage you need and mini HVLP works much better. I choked the material flow way down but kept the air flow fairly high. I had to keep checking my progress often from different angle's to ensure I was getting a nice even coat down. Very easy stuff to apply but as with any finish of this type care should be taken as care this stuff is highly flammable.

With a nice even coat of Ghost Chrome applied it's time to clear coat the helmet to protect our nice metallic looking base color while adding graphics. You can use any good quality clear coat; I used House of Kolor UC 35.

Give the clear coat 24 to 36 hours to dry and we are ready to add our design, art work or graphic's. I will beading graphic's to this helmet you can read a detailed account in AIRBRUSH ARTIST MAGAZINE soon on the steps taken to add the graphic's.

Ghost Chrome gives you a very cool base color to add your art work over and the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. It is a bit pricey at $211.00 a quart; a quart doing just helmets and small surfaces will get you a long way as over gray you get very good coverage with not much material used. I give it a thumb up and it will add some spice to your art work so give it a try; post your results on the forum at AIRBRUSH TECHNIQUE I'd love to see what you come up with.
*One word of warning make sure your base color has no flaws (scratches, pin holes) as the Ghost Chrome will really make them stand out. Take your time and make sure you get your base color down flawlessly.

From ALSA's web site:

How to Apply Ghost Chrome Step
1.- Prepare and basecoat the part as you would for any normal paint job using a base color of you choice depending on the desired effect.
Step 2.- Using any normal paint gun begin applying Ghost Chrome using very low volume of material with a high atomization of air (fluid control almost closed).
Step 3.- Be sure to find a good angle of light and check for even surface coverage. Continue applying Ghost Chrome until an even coverage is achieved.
Step 4.- Top coat with a high quality clear coat such as Alsa's AC138 or any other preferred poly-urethane topcoat.
• For even more color options try topcoating Ghost Chrome with our Brilliant Candy Concentrate.
• Ghost Chrome itself can also be tinted with our Candy Concentrate to produce exact anodizing looks.