asking true painters... I need to do some touch up work on my 35-40 yr old paint on my car. Yes it is faded (only a little) which might be hard to match up. The current paint was probably put on in the mid to late 70's and is most likely a lacquer paint. So the question is, can I use the modern enamel paints on the car with the old paint? I know I have to sand & feather in the area but I don't want to take the "touch up" areas all the way down to bare metal due to the depth of leveling involved. I don't want to repainting the whole car either, I like the old paint but it has some small spots that need fixed and my concern is bonding issues between the old paint & new. Insight from you quality painters would be greatly appreciated!
Lacquer is still available from Fred Hirsch and others. Blending new chemistry into old will be sketchy at best. Bonding isn't the issue. Losing the blend line between old and new is.
Yea I figure the blend line will be DOA anyhow, not sure how faded from original color will be. I'm taking a panel to my ppg mixer to put under the ingredients scanner. Here's hoping for close!! I was worried about adherence issues. I'll have to see if they can mix up lacquer. I thought EPA did away with the sale of old style lacquer paints. ----------- I wonder if I can use 1000 grit wet sand or higher to cut the fade out of the old paint and spray a couple coats of clear over it to bring the shine back into it.. Clear probably wouldn't work to well over top of old lacquer though..... Can you tell I'm not a "MASTER" painter?
Just get any solvent based base coat clear coat ppg is good. Do your repairs and wet sand the area with 600 grit. Then use 1000 grit wet all the way around the area. Keep your base color inside the 600 grit areas and them shoot the clear out p***ed the base color. Then mix in the clear a good blender like grow 1600 blendz-all. Then blend out to the edge of the scuffed area. Let it dry over night then color sand and polish. Blending new color into old color will be hard for someone that just wants to try it out. There are a lot of paint touch up company's that are mobile and work the new car dealerships, you could always find one. I would do if for you if you where in California. Lacquer is still available. They still use it on guitars. You just have to find the counties it's still legal in. You can get lacquer in califonia at most part houses like autozone car quest, but you can not by it at a auto body supply store. Lame huh it's more for the hobbiest... The blendz-all will kill the blend line.
Thanks!! I really appreciate your input! I have a paint guy, since this doesn't sound like a job for a novice like me.. I'll show him your info and see if he can manage it..
Matching the color will be the hardest part. You may need to tint it a bit. I would use lacquer for this if your existing paint is lacquer. Over reduce the last coat with slow thinner.
Just be careful and test a hidden area first. Sometimes you can shoot new paint and thinner over old paint and it will crawl/lift the old paint. There is no real way to know for sure - other than to test. If you didn't apply the original paint - who knows what is on it, how well the job was done, etc -- so test for adhesion and blend issues in a spot that is less visible and/or is hidden all together. Another thing, I always use a high-quality wax-grease remover first, then color sand the old paint in the area that I'm planning on putting the new paint over - to remove oxidation and give the new stuff something to bond to. I typically use 800 grit 3M wetordry paper and a rubber pad. I recently had a big challenge with my 32 Cab - had the quarters redone, some rear tail-light holes plugged (back to stock lights), fronts of rear fenders (where running boards meet) and the front areas of both front fenders. New metal was put into all these places - great job by my friend Tom at Flop Custom. I then did all the finish body work to get things as absolutely straight as possible (going to be black afterall!) The paint that was on it was 70+ years old . . . and I wanted to maintain as much of the original scratches, patina and character as possible. I was worried that I might not have enough adhesion and that it would not blend . . . it came out really nice (but I've done a lot of this - many years ago). I would have used lacquer in the past - but I went with some new Urethane 2-stage Shop-Line paint from PPG - it worked out extremely well: I then masked off as much of the old paint as needed and shot the first base coat stage - making sure that I really reduced the amount of paint sprayed in the blend area (and thinned it a bit more). Then I shot the clear - taking the clear further back into/over the original paint (thinned it a bit, very careful touch). Let it dry only about 12 hours (had to get to an event!), then hand sanded the areas with 1000 grit wetordry, then carefully buffed the areas with a foam buff pad, then a lot of hand rubbing. You can just barely see the blend line (if you know it is there) - and only in certain sunlight conditions. Here it is buffer out - just with the machine, then I went over it by hand: This is the low-end of the PPG line - I was very impressed with it:
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