1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

[Bryan M.]

I know this is a long shot.
Does anybody have the perfect BC/CC paint formula for the Elkhart Green paint code 946 that stands up to the NCRS judging process?
The right metallic flake mixture?
The correct shade?
What to do to the clear coat to make it appear like lacquer?

[Alan S.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Hi Bryan,
I'm surprised you've had no replies since this subject is on many folks minds. This will bring it back to the first page.
Do you know about www.AutoColorLibrary.com and www.Restorationshop.com ? I hear and read that some people have used them. Their ad in Hemmings says "FIND, VIEW, & ORDER YOUR ORIGINAL COLOR. Boy, if that's true......
I used lacquer, so I can't really help with your last question either.
Regards,
Alan

[Bryan M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Thanks for the bump Alan. I did get a very informative email response.

I hope this isn't too long winded but, here it goes..

I've got this ac'd 72 LT-1 that appears to me, to still have most of the original lacquer paint with the exception of the hood. From what I've read, the hood paint on these cars seems to be the first area that starts showing their age. The prior owner tried to repaint the problem areas while trying to save the original LT-1 stripes. That didn't work out so well. The hood's interior area of the stripe is original paint and the outside area of the stripe is a repaint. Yep, you guessed it, it doesn't match.
I have shopped around here locally to see if if I could get someone willing to repaint the whole hood to match the patina of the rest of the car but I can't get any takers. I'm told it'll never match so you might as well paint the whole car, which, is something that I really hate to do.
I'm seriously considering trying to paint the hood myself. If I do that, I'll probably go the lacquer route and keep mixing and spraying sample panels until I get close. The worse that can happen is that I wind up having to get the whole car painted anyway.

I am open to any and all suggestions.

[Alan S.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Hi Bryan,
I'm a strong believer in lacquer being a good choice for some owners and some cars. If you think the majority of the car has the original paint on it, I'd sure try to do the hood repair in lacquer. It sounds like you have some experience and could play with the 'mix' to get the result you want and the car deserves.
My 71 has 3 year old lacquer on it.
Regards,
Alan

[Bryan M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Alan
I believe I can do the paint work and I'll try the lacquer route do to it (from what I have read) being more forgiving for us amateurs.
The car is garaged when I'm not enjoying the fever so the lacquer should hold up for the long run as long as I take care of it. The rest of the paint has it's minor warts but it still looks decent enough to try to maintain what's left of its originality. The cars not perfect but it has aged gracefully. I would like to take it to Kissimmee one day just to see where it stands and to give me a guideline for the future.

[Mike M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Hello Bryan
Since no one has actually answered your four initial questions, here goes...No, No, No, and Nothing.
Firstly, BC/CC will receive some deduction. I won't go into the how's and why's since this was covered in great extensive detail in a thread a couple of weeks ago. (Will not open that can of worms again!)
Secondly, the original metallic sizes and shapes have been discontinued. They may be out there somewhere, but, as yet, no one has presented with them on the Judging Field.
#3, same as #2. Tints have changed over the years making the shade matching very difficult, but, possible with some colors.
Fourthly, nothing can be done, mainly due to the particles in the original lacquer were suspended in the material and with varying amounts of clear in the mixture, allow the reflective properties of the particles to show their brilliance.
Finally, the particles appear to lie flat in the Base Coat, becoming even more apparent through the Clear Coat.
Including the metallics into the Clear becomes equally as obvious.
I agree that you are on the right track in doing the job yourself.
Patience, patience and even more patience in using the currently available lacquer formulae in a trial and error process to achieve a "reasonable match. Results; enjoy and take pride in the fact that the remainder of the car still has it's original paint.
I would look forward to seeing the '72 in Kissimmee.
HaND

[Al S.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Bryan,
I have an all original paint '72 which (fortunately for me) is in excellent condition for being 37 years old.
The car was and is always covered and stored in a dark garage.
I always pay particular attention to other 72 & 73's when I see them at events and even try to park as close to them as possible and compare paint.
I must truthfully say I have yet to see any repaint close to my original color.
Like Mike mentioned in the previous post the size and quantity of the flake is different, the tint is off, the shine is different.
If the flake is wrong the entire color will be off.
I'm no body guy, but this has to be one of the most difficult colors ever to match, especially after 37 years of exposure to light.
I am also lucky enough to have about an 1/8 of a pint of Dupont lacquer left from the 70's that was given to me by the original owner when I purchased the car 6 yrs ago. He had a buddy in the body business who had to do a touch up repair on his customers Corvette of the same color, and gave him the remainder of the can for touching up nicks and scratches.
If I can get you any info from the can let me know.
I opened the can once and it's like the consistancy of pancake syrup...but still in the liquid state.

[Bryan M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Sounds like I'm going to need a time machine to get the right paint. I'll just have to try the trial and error thing to see if can get a close match.

Thanks for all the great advice and I'll be sure to ask for more when I get started. Right now I'm going to start with removing the hood and start taking the paint off.

[Christopher R.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Do you have to take the paint off?? Is it checked/cracked badly?? The reason I ask is because it will be even harder to match if you take it down to bare fibreglass and prime it. If the only issue is the mismatched color and you can keep the existing paint it will only take a few light coats to cover (as you will already have the correct green base) and that means that you will need to find less lacquer to do the job. A few weeks ago there was some old lacquer for a mid year advertised on e-bay, so the old dated paint that you need is still out there you just need to find it. I would try to locate the paint before I rushed out and stripped the hood. Just my 2 cents.

[Bryan M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Christopher,
I don't see any cracking or checking. Just a poor re-paint. Another thing that bugs me is the tape line at the stripe. The surrounding paint on the outside area of the stripe is higher than the stripe. You can feel it with your finger nail. The inside area of the stripe is like it should be from the factory with the stripe painted on after hood paint. I'll will go slow with the paint removal process. Thanks for the suggestion. As for running across original paint, I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled. Maybe I'll run a "wanted" ad in the drive-line to see what turns up.

[Dick W.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

The most obvious thing to do, since you have original paint, is to take it to a paint jobber and have it scanned. If you are getting paint from Auto Color Library, take your car to a PPG jobber, give him a few buck, have him scan it, and then send the scan results to ACL. The paint will probably not be a perfect match, but should be close enough to easily tint to match.

[Bryan M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Will do Dick, Thanks!

[Bryan M.]

Re: 1972 Elkhart Green Paint Formula

Good morning to all,
Well, I started removing the paint from the hood and discovered the reason it was repainted around the outside perimeter of the LT-1 strip. The original paint appears to have a lot of small pits along the the front and down side of the hood. It looks like a sealer was was sprayed on over the original lacquer to fill the pits, then primer and paint. I counted 7 layers of paint. I spent about 6 hours to remove about a 1/3 of the paint from this hood. I'm using my 5" Milwaukee orbital sander with 100 grit to get through each paint layer and stopping at the factory primer.