Laquer paint shrink question.

[Jerry A.]

I had my 67' painted LAQUER approximately 2 years ago. It's Sunfire Yellow. I am now finishing up it's restoration and several "sanding prep" lines/circles are now showing thru all over the body due to the laquer shrinking. I'm not sure if this is normal or due to bad prep. The job cost over $11,000.00 and the painter not avail to finish. Car has several coats of paint on it. It needs to be wet sanded to finish it. Could you please advise the tools, materials and the procedure to do the job myself. I have restored the entire car myself minus paint and want to get it judged as soon as possible.
All information deeply appreciated as always!!
Jerry

[Joe C.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

I had my 67' painted LAQUER approximately 2 years ago. It's Sunfire Yellow. I am now finishing up it's restoration and several "sanding prep" lines/circles are now showing thru all over the body due to the laquer shrinking. I'm not sure if this is normal or due to bad prep. The job cost over $11,000.00 and the painter not avail to finish. Car has several coats of paint on it. It needs to be wet sanded to finish it. Could you please advise the tools, materials and the procedure to do the job myself. I have restored the entire car myself minus paint and want to get it judged as soon as possible.
All information deeply appreciated as always!!
Jerry

Normal.
Lacquer paint will continue to flash-off volatile compounds throughout its lifetime, and normally requires buffing to remove "dead" surface paint. The more exposure to sunlight, the faster the dessication process becomes.
I would not recommend wet sanding.
I would purchase a good quality VARIABLE SPEED buffer, such as a Milwaukee 5540. I have limited experience with lacquer, but I hear that lambs wool bonnets are preferred for lacquer polishing.
You might be able to use foam pads, such as those made by 3M which are called "Perfect It". They sell both beige colored compounding pads, and black colored polishing pads. Use 3M Perfect It Polishing Compound, and Perfect It Polishing Glaze after compounding. These are both whitish-beige liquids which come in quart plastic squeeze bottles. I would NOT advise using coarse, red, rubbing compound with a buffing wheel.
If you ABSOLUTELY MUST wet sand before compounding, I would start with 2000 grit, but go NO coarser than 1500 grit, before compounding/polishing.
Have you looked into the possibility of having your painter buff your paint job?

[Ridge K.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

I had my 67' painted LAQUER approximately 2 years ago. It's Sunfire Yellow. I am now finishing up it's restoration and several "sanding prep" lines/circles are now showing thru all over the body due to the laquer shrinking. I'm not sure if this is normal or due to bad prep. The job cost over $11,000.00 and the painter not avail to finish. Car has several coats of paint on it. It needs to be wet sanded to finish it. Could you please advise the tools, materials and the procedure to do the job myself. I have restored the entire car myself minus paint and want to get it judged as soon as possible.
All information deeply appreciated as always!!
Jerry

Working at a dealership as a "detailer", back around 1971, I started buffing out lacquer repaints. Even though I was very young at the time, I had a very good work ethic, and tried to do a very good job every work day.
Here's the point I am trying to make:
It takes many, many cars under your belt before you can correctly buff acrylic lacquer, without burning edges. By "edges", I mean the tops (corner edge) of fenders, rear quarters, front nose lip on a C2, etc. I probably burned the first five or six cars I did, and for the era, we had state of the art equipment, and polishing compounds. The time-tested techniques take a tremendous amount of forearm strength, as well as a gentle touch.
In short,....unless you have experience with buffing lacquer, you are most likely going to be disappointed in the outcome.
I fully understand that a lot of people enjoy doing things themselves, and get a feeling of satisfaction for doing the job themselves, but,...buffing lacquer is not a job for anyone who lacks experience.
Just my 2 cents. Ridge

[Steven G.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

Using 1500-2000 grit sand paper after painted laquer is quite the job. I suggest using 600 grit and finish in steps until getting to 2500 grit, a flatter, smoother finish will be achived and faster. Be prepared to repaint panels if a rub thru occurs which is not a problem using paintable compounds that is if you have extra paint to work with. Try a panel and you will have a better idea of what must be done. Steve

[Ken A.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

I agree with Ridge in that if you have no experience with paint finish then you can really screw up a laquer paint finish. Also, if you spent $11,000, then you should have a "showcar perfect" paint job. Make you you hire a pro to finish the work as it sounds like you were taken to the cleaners by the first painter-get references. There should be no "bleed thru" if a pro did the job with today's primers & sealers.

[Mike G.]

Tagging onto Joe's advice

Since you have lines showing, you need to flatten the surface before going to polish. Wet sand with 1500, then 2000 and then go to 2500 (Meguiar's).

Use a firm block, not a soft one that will just follow the uneven contour that you're trying to true up.

3M's Perfect It II white polishing material, with a wool bonnet is the way to go. The foam pads just didn't work for me on PPG DDL acrylic lacquer.
The wool works great. Perfect It can be used by hand in tight areas. Or you can use a CP mini air buff (3" pads - fantastic for many oddball surfaces on the car).

Where you use a buffing machine, protect panel edges/peaks with 1/4" masking tape or fineline tape. There a some good videos out there on cut/polish techniques, such as the one with Kevin Tetz.

If you've got 5 or 6 coats to work with, you should be fine.

[Alan S.]

Re: Lacquer paint shrink question.

Hi Jerry,
I agree that you should find someone that's very experienced buffing lacquer to take care of finishing up your paint job.
I have lacquer on my 71 and it needed the kind of attention you're describing after it had been painted for a couple of years. Now that it's older it's able to hold it's shine very well.
I understand your point about wanting to do it yourself. I did everything on my car except powder coating the frame, spraying the paint and the chrome plating. But I believe spraying and buffing is an 'art' not quickly learned
Regards,
Alan

[Stan E.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

Listen to Ridge and Ken! Your 67 is no place to learn how.

[Stewart A.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

If the paint needs de nibbing then you can use 2000 but you should get someone to show you how to do it first. Even on a fender so you get the idea. mask up any points or edges on the paint otherwise you will loose the top coat use good quality masking tape or the glue on the edges goes all over the paintwork. If your getting the car judged you should not use to heavy coarse wet and dry paper because you will totally flatten the paint and it will loose points ( no orange peel ) I personally use 1500 -2000 never 1200 or lower you will spend all day getting the scratches you left in the paint out. Use a 5 stage orbital buff with different coarses of polish. I now don't do it any more because it takes a million hours to do it but the finish is like a diamond. It really is only noticeable from 2 - 3 feet.
If it was my car I would use 2000 if there was muck in the paint and only in spots, then use very good foam pads there are 5 pads you will need, orange , red, blue, green and black, black is the final finish. This will take you one month after work and do panel by panel. Spend at least one hour on each panel with each pad, it takes forever but the finish is awesome.
You will need to go and buy a dozen large microfibres to wipe off the polish. Each time you wipe off the polish turn the micro and never re use the same area until washed. Go to the luandry mat to wash them, I find the microfibres leave polish in the washing machine. This method is what we use on 15 million dollar cars (GTO ferraris) etc. It would be great to see if you can find someone to show you. Maybe see if your chapter has an ace at it and can show you to get started.
We sometimes start backwards try a coarse buff with the orange pad and see how it comes up. If we are not happy then we go to the sand paper. If I lived close-by I would show you personally myself. Oh and make sure you have perfect light Fluorescence lights show up everything that's good so get good light.
Shrinkage is typical of non modern products, Fibre glass has a strange hot and cold shrink point. I recently spent 200 hours on a bare modern Corvette hood with all the polyesters and two pak methods and I still got shrinkage ? So I give up on the perfect Corvette body. Steel properties must have a better expansion rate than glass.
Stewy

[Ian G.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

When I was ten, my stepdad decided he was going to buff out my grandfather's hood. He worked as a detailer, from odd job to odd job. He ruined my grandfather's hood. It went from dullish looking paint, to primer showing through in places. My grandfather did not much like my stepdad after that.

[Doug F.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

all good advice, but the real problem here is the undercoat / body work moved, i had this problem all the time when we used non catalyzed primer surfacers, the bottom line is that if there is enough paint to wet sand and buff you are good to go, the best advice is to go with a professional detailer, these guys know there stuff, good luck

[Jerry A.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

Much thanks for the replies!!!!
Jerry

[Steven B.]

Re: Laquer paint shrink question.

Jerry, when I had my '57 shot with lacquer I stripped all trim myself at home, then took the car to the shop and worked along side the glass man to carefully remove paint, they primed and shot it, and the paint man tought me how to buff on a number of junk body panels. After two weeks of practicing I was allowed to work alongside the paint man for the initial buffing. He taught me alot and if I would have done it without their guidance and working alongside I would have burned through paint and it would not have been evenly buffed.

Good Luck!

Steve