I,am getting ready to paint my 63 corvette soon, and I,am getting mix feeling about the paint I,am going to be using ,the paint in 63 they used lacquor paint I,am getting stories that if I paint my 63 in lacquor paint it will start cracking very soon, I,am worry about spending good money on a lacquor paint job and it will start cracking all over, will it be better to paint it acrylic base coat clear coat and hoping to last longer without cracking, or should I stick with lacquor paint job. danny
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Re: body paint
If you want to have the car judged, lacquer is probably the prefered paint. However, if you just want the car to look nice a bc/cc or urethane is probably a much more durable finish. Base/clears can have the clear coat tinted to produce "color" when rubbed with compound which is a test sometimes used in judging. -
Re: body paint
I just painted my 63. I had similar concerns. I chose urethane because of durability. It came out expectional. Just don't let anyone shoot your car. Find someone that knows fiberglass.Comment
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Re: body paint
Danny,
I agree with Ed that a good bc/cc or urethane paint job is more durable for a 'driver'; but don't believe the notion that lacquer will 'start cracking all over'. A properly prepared surface (essential, no matter what kind of paint you use if you want it to look good and last), the right combination of primers, sealers and finish coatings, will result in an excellent paint job. I have a 15 year old lacquer finish on my '65 (driver), and though it would never meet NCRS judging standards, it has stood up well (absolutely NO cracks, but the odd stone chip). The reason I chose lacquer was for its ease of use (we painted my car in a suburban garage) and its ease of repair/touch-up (lacquer HAS to be colour-sanded/rubbed-out in order to bring up the gloss. In so doing, it's more easily 'blended' into adjoining paint on a repair. Other systems necessitate re-painting entire panels). You should note that lacquer is getting hard to find here in Canada (but can still be purchased in many states, New York and New Jersey, for instance) and I suspect that painters willing/experienced in shooting it are also a diminishing species. This might rule in favour of one of the newer systems. Good luck!
grantComment
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Re: body paint
Several of my cars have been painted since the mid 80's in laquer and dont have any crows footing or cracking. They are kept indoors except for the occasional drive, cruise, or carshow though. There are several considerations depending on your intended use. The drawbacks to the more modern paint are cost, requirement of professional application and originality in case of judgeing. The drawbacks to laquer are lack of durability, EXTREME ease of chipping, and the fact that thanks to the good ole' EPA, laquers ain't what they used to be. I suspect that they fell off the quality train when the lead came out. One thing for sure, in addition to durabiltiy issues, they don't maintain the shine as well as the old materials when exposed to sunlight on a continuing basis. Since there are compromises in either, I guess I'd go with the bc/cc on most anything that I wasn't trying to absolutely maximize originality and value on. For a car that's going to see a lot of outside time and street use, there's no question the bc/cc is far, far superior.Comment
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