OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2012. Mat surfaces have been adding a special touch to cars for a number of years. Glasurit developed a new clear coat system for the refinish repair and can now offer an enlarged range of gloss levels. With the new Mat Clear System, Glasurit offers bodyshops a reliable and easy way of achieving any desired gloss level for mat coatings.

Gloss levels are measured in gloss units. To start with, bodyshops could rely on 22 or 53 gloss units for refinishing, but meanwhile, each vehicle manufacturer has their own gloss levels, ranging from 12 to 65 units. Previously, bodyshops could use Glasurit 923-55 MS Clear extra mat and 923-57 MS Clear mat elastified to reproduce two gloss levels, 22 units +/- 2 and 53 units +/- 2.

To make matters even more difficult, the OEM coating of a vehicle often shows different gloss levels on horizontal and vertical surfaces. The fact that the gloss level of the refinish coating can also vary considerably due to the influence of the substrate, film thickness and flash-off times adds to the complications involved for bodyshops.

By mixing the two mat Glasurit MS Clears in different, defined mixing ratios, bodyshops can achieve gloss units of between 12 and 65, measured at a 60° angle. This enables them to match any conventional mat gloss level using only two clears and a specific hardener.

In addition, Glasurit has revised the process and defined the individual painting steps even more precisely. This gives bodyshops a greater degree of reliability, because now they can reduce to a minimum any undesired influences such as different film thicknesses, flash-off times and the hardeners used.