Acrylic Lacquer Brand

[Steven S.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

I looked at all the postings on this issue. I am not the member that worked for Dupont for 30 years but I have worked for both paint manufactures and a raw material supplier. My customers were Dupont, SW and PPG among others. 1 lacquer is and was a thermo plastic. That means if you apply heat, it will reflow. Reflow ovens ran no higher than 250 f at most, any higher and paint would fail as would the fiberglass.
2 The lead everyone seems worried about was in the pigments - reds orange yellows and blues. Laquer today is lead free. What this means is that color match could be a challange. Weathering is also possibly not as good.
3 Lacquer will shrink with age and become brittle with time.

[John N.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

If you make the informed decision to use lacquer, I would like to recommend a great gentleman in the hobby as a source. He has both a restoration shop and a PPG paint store. The toughest part is getting a correct match. You must supply a sample of the exact color you want. The formulas seldom are correct.
Marty Fowler (E) mfowler@we.rr.com

Personally I have had great success with lacquer on original type restorations, and will continue to use it. If I was restoring a non original car or a car to be a all weather driver, I would consider other paint systems.
Regards

[Rich P.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

"The only question I have now is weather to use clear or not"

Robert a few more hints. You definitly don't want to use straight clear on the paint what you need to do is "cocktail" paint and clear in the top coats. What ths does is help the paint flow, aid in UV protection and give a closer to factory look than straight color. You need to know the correct ratio to still get color on the rag when polishing so it will pass flight judging.

Rich

[Patrick H.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

"You need to know the correct ratio to still get color on the rag when polishing so it will pass flight judging.

Rich

Note that having the owner rub the paint to "get color" is no longer allowed in judging and has not been for a few years. It has to "look like" original material. The onus is now on the judge to identify it, not on the owner to prove it.

Patrick

[Robert S.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Richard-
You no longer have to prove to the judges by rubbing off paint so clear over lacquer will not mean any point deductions. It is up to the judge to determine by sight the originality of the finish. I'm undecided on whether to clear. It will give extra gloss and protection I suppose but concerned about yellowing and cracking...

PPG has an acrylic lacquer formula for code 976 millie miglia red. It is #2349 prime. They said it was last updated in 1993 and is correct. (Urethane enamel however has an alternate formula and might not be an exact match)

With this PPG lacquer prime code, can I count on it being a factory correct color match? or does it still have to be researched and tested? Thanks, Bob

[Dick W.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Richard-
You no longer have to prove to the judges by rubbing off paint so clear over lacquer will not mean any point deductions. It is up to the judge to determine by sight the originality of the finish. I'm undecided on whether to clear. It will give extra gloss and protection I suppose but concerned about yellowing and cracking...

PPG has an acrylic lacquer formula for code 976 millie miglia red. It is #2349 prime. They said it was last updated in 1993 and is correct. (Urethane enamel however has an alternate formula and might not be an exact match)

With this PPG lacquer prime code, can I count on it being a factory correct color match? or does it still have to be researched and tested? Thanks, Bob

Bob, I do not believe that any of the mixing colors that are used in that formula are still available. You would end up using an off-set color

[Robert S.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

The PPG formula was updated in 1993 and there is no alternate. TCP dist. said if formula was updated no problem...and you say?

[Pat M.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

I had my Marlboro Maroon 70 painted in PPG lacquer in 2007 and have absolutely NO complaints, at all, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. And it judged very well, up to the National level.

[Rich P.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Robert,

The PPG # is a good place to "START" but that would be it. I remember getting what the old timers will remember as "Factory Packs" of lacquer back in the very early 80's and RM's would be different from Ditzler as well as Duponts. Next time you go to a show and look at how many variations there aer of just one color it's mind boggeling.
My first step in this process woud be to get a pint of the latest formula for your 73 from as many of the different brand lacquer suppliers you can. Do a spray out for each one and then compare them to and original paint car. Anything else is a guess.

Rich

[Robert S.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

I'm not happy about all this. The 976 red was used 71-75 (on Corvettes only) I don't know if there are any originals to see.. about 10,000 were made (2,000+ per year) Do you know of any? Any other way to check this formula for accuracy? PPG said its a prime formula with no alternate and dated 1993...mean anything?

I have two GM "color master standard" steel plates for my two Vegas (from Dupont) sent to GM. They're quite large color plates 6"x4" (they have gm paint#, fisher #, laquer#, dupont codes) they're dated 4 months before color intros. the bright orange one dated 1-22-73 (color intro May 73) envelope says Lucite Dispersion Lacquer??? this was a special edition color. what is Dispersion Lacquer? The other one '71 blue dated 2-27-70 says Lucite Acrylic Lacquer. I have these things two years and just noted one says Dispersion Lacquer. (got em on ebay)

I guess this would do the trick if I had one for the Corvette 976 red? Can these be used for exact factory color matching ? I also want to have the blue Vega (repainted in 2 stage enamel) done in lacquer. The orange one is factory lacquer.

[Michael M.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Robert the only way to check the color match is to have a small amount of paint made and then spray test panels. What ever you are going to use lacquer, single stage, or BC/CC use the test panels to see what the best color match is.

[Kenny C.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Bob
Yes the color plates were produced for color matching and still would do the trick presuming they have not been abused and discolored. Finding one for the Corvette would be a miracle being that they are fairly rare especially in your color.
At this point your best bet is to see a competent experienced painter (you said you had someone in mind) and let him match it by experimentation trial and error on a test plate. You clearly have decided what you want and know how to get it. There's only so much you can get off the boards here, eventually it comes down to putting your nose in the paint.

[Robert S.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Thanks Ken, but how does the painter know which formula is correct without the plate or an original non-faded car??

[Dick W.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

Robert, I have over 100 of those panels. Let me see if I have your color

[John H.]

Re: Acrylic Lacquer Brand

the bright orange one dated 1-22-73 (color intro May 73) envelope says Lucite Dispersion Lacquer??? this was a special edition color. what is Dispersion Lacquer?

Lucite Dispersion Lacquer is a Vega-only (and factory-only) lacquer formulation that the DuPont chemists literally invented over a weekend at Lordstown. As we reached 85 per hour in the Paint Shop (on the way to 106), we could no longer spray lacquer on bodies at that line rate at the specified film thickness without an unacceptable level of runs and sags.

We backed the line rate down to 80 per hour and called in DuPont, and their paint chemists developed Dispersion Lacquer, which cured the run/sag problem and allowed us to proceed to 106 per hour.

That paint wasn't used in any other GM plant - it was unique to Lordstown.

No "factory" lacquer was ever available in the refinish market; factory lacquer was reflowed at 325*F. Refinish paint is a completely different chemical formulation designed to air-dry or for 150*F low-bake dealer ovens.

As others have noted, the only way you'll get a color-match with currently-available lacquer formulations is to have sample quantities mixed and do spray-outs and re-tint until you create a match.