On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 23:52:16 -0400, "Ross Litscher"
<lit### [at] osuedu> wrote:

>i would assume that its the same reason why in artistic painting, blue paint
>looks different when you paint it over red paint that has already dried, in
>comparison to blue paint painted over white paint that has dried. not all
>light gets reflected or absorbed on the first layer of blue and it travels
>to the second layer of white or red, where the same thing happens again. so
>the properties of what is underneath effect what you end up seeing.

Well that's a nice guess, but the paint used on automobiles is applied
over a primer base, which itself has been applied over a
rust-resistant coating. Even if the car is painted with a transparent
or translucent paint, you will still not be able to see the metal
underneath, not even  in any subtle way. In fact, in the case of
transparent colors, there is an additional solid-pigmented base coat
applied first. Trust me, all you see when you look at a painted
automobile finish is the paint itself.

Automobile makers have made vehicle bodies out of a number of
different materials. Steel is the most common, but aluminum,
fiberglass, carbon-fiber, and a variety of exotic materials are also
used. Once these are painted, it is no longer possible to tell what
material is underneath the paint by casual observation.

For example, if no one had ever told you that Corvette bodies were not
made of metal, would you have been able to tell simply by looking at
one from a distance? I seriously doubt it.


take care,
Glen Berry

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