It's no longer avalible in most states. Your best bet is to find someone who has a stockpile in their garage that would be willing to relay it to you. Whatcha want it for, and is there a specific color you need? I know...um..ah..a guy...who may or may not be me...that has a few gallons in the garage.
[I,m looking for that deep burgandy wine that was on that 1940 merc that Barris built for"Matranga".It has been in a few mags(clone).
Hey, Everybody outta shoot atleast one lacquer job in their life, it'al give ya a real feel for what hard work is all about. Try the automotive restoration supply sites for lacquer paints. An outfit in Hemming Motor News, advertises lacquer for sale. Good luck with your lacquer job, Swankey Devils c.C.
I was in a local PPG distributor the other day (Painters Supply in Flint, Mi.) and I went in the back to watch them mix my paint and they had all sorts of Duracryl Acrylic Lacquer. I told the guy that I was surprised and he told me some shops still use it. It may be hard though to have it shipped to you with Ca. being somewhat lacquer unfriendly.-Jim
You can still buy it frm Metalflake but you have to buy it in 1 quart cans. New Hampshire still allows it, too.
Damn....you do know that the crap will eventually crack out..right? And it's a nightmare to sand or strip it down to redo it.....I hate lacquer. Real nice looking when it's polished up but not worth the headaches. IMHO Gary
yup, that's the problem with doing things the traditional way, it's a headache and won't last like modern stuff. I dont know why we're even here.
I'm an autobody Instructor (Teach Metal, very advanced painter). What is the difference in appearence between polished clear lacquer and lets say, polished basecoat- clear coat. I know! I know! pick me! Answer. Years of durability! If this car ever see's the light of day, for gods sake don't lacquer it. Just my T.C.
Dont waste your money on the new stuff its junk, unless your going to paint your mail box or something. If you can find someone with some pre-80s lacquer buy it up, if not something you can look into is PPGs concept line,I just tried it out a few months ago after using up all my Lucite and was very pleased with the results. Heres a pic of my dash before wet sand and polish and I shot it in an open car port.
I think Bill Hirsch sells it in Hemmings along with other restoration supplies, must have a website as well.
Yep, Lacquer sucks. The clear lac on the flames on my hood cracked all to hell last year. And I just painted it a short time ago, in '92... I see lots of urethane clear coats on cars go to hell at half that age. Besides, They just don't look "traditional"! It's only illegal here to paint a car with Lacquer... You can paint all the "refigerators" you want with it.
when you paint with lacquer you can sand and buff the COLOR so that it's perfectly flat and reflective. When you sand and buff a base-clear job, all you're smoothing out is the clearcoat. The lumpy base coat is clearly visible up close. As for clearcoats, the stuff that was sprayed on my 5th Avenue a couple of years ago went dull in less than a year. The stuff that was sprayed on my Grand Marquis just a few months ago is already clouding up. DuPont doesn't even make their good clear any more. We shoot base-clear at work (late model collision repair shop) and I'm still not impressed with the results, up close. The lacquer job on my '34, which was done in an open garage, is twice the quality of what's on the new cars. Yea lacquer won't last as long but the graphics on my car were done in '72 and they're still in good shape in spite of all the stone chips.
Basecoat isn't lumpy if it's sprayed right. I shot Sikkens when I was painting full-time, the base laid out real smooth, so I think you would need a microscope to see the "lumpy" base coat thru the clear. I do think there is still the general thought that polished lacquer has more gloss than a polished base/clear job? That might be true. And, yes, if you keep your car out of the sun that lacquer might hold up for quite a while...hopefully.
I buy nitrocellulose lacquer from these guys, delta labs 352- 629-8101. they usually mix what i want.
Duracryl Acrylic Lacquer is still available at DeAngelo's (702-871-3711) here in Vegas. They have stores in Cali too. I can only order colors by old paint codes. No newer colors, custom mixes and for restoration of old cars only. I just spot painted some damage on an original paint '58 vette. Spot repairs using lacquer on lacquer become invisible if done correctly and you can do small areas with it. Be sitting down when you see the price of the paint and what quality lacquer thinner is going to cost. That $25 for 5 gallons of clean up lacquer thinner won't do the job. Figure $300+ for a 5 of high quality acrylic lacquer thinner. Carl
I Love it,and I've used it on 3 different cars. How long do you want a paintjob to last. My 58 Plymouth was painted in Feb. of 1992 and you should see it. If you're interesed I buy all my paint from a store in Wisconsin(Bladwin)sells PPG and I buy mostly Lacquer. I ordered Bright Red (1995 Pontiac Grand Am) for a base on my 64 Chev wagon last year before I laid down many coats of Silver Flake and then Kandy Tagerine,it looks Great. Contact me if your still looking.Here's a Picture of the 58 Plymouth
Thanks to everyone who replied,your opinions are are very honest and straightforward,however,when i started painting in the late seventies ...lacquer is what i cut my teeth on,and you can't compare that final finish with the current offerings by the paint companies.So i will be taking a trip to vegas to donate to the state of Nevada,and if i have any money left i will be picking up some lacquer at De Angelos Paint.Thank to Krooz'n1(a.k.a.Carl)
This is not true. If your basecoat is a solid color, you can sand it just like a laquer basecoat. If the basecoat is a metallic or pearl, you can't. But then, you can't if it's laquer, either. In both cases you run the risk of sanding the pigment off the metallic particles, or reducing the amount of pearl or flake in that section. The difference is that if you spray the clear on within 24hours, you CAN do so without sanding the basecoat and not have adhesion problems, unlike laquer, where you have to have a "tooth" for the next coat to bite into. But iof you want that perfectly smooth surface, you can sand it just like laquer. I've painted hundreds of laquer jobs both on customs when I was starting, to restorations of cars that had laquer as factory original. I won't do it now unless the latter is the case regardless of whether it was "traditional." Some traditions do deserve to go the way of the dinosaurs. Ever spill gas on a fresh laquer paint job? And the clears sprayed on my daily drivers are still just as shiny after years and years. Maybe you're trying to treat it like laquer. Apologies to the OT cars pictured (hey, they aren't VWs!), but the first is my current daily driver and the paint is now 3 years old and only gets Meguires quick detailer every month, and a real waxing once every 6 months. The second was a street car/race car (5.0 Ford powered RX7) that had 5 years on the paint job at the point the picture was taken. Just as shiny as the day it was sprayed. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cvetters3/fiat03.jpg http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cvetters3/rx7e.jpg Never been impressed with collision shop work. Part of it is you guys aren't paid enough to do real prep. And there's a differnce between a hand done job and a robotic one. But look at a Rod Powell modern urethane paint job or the paint on Rick Dore's '36, and tell me that THAT looks like a modern factory finish? Yet it's urethane.
The ONLY reason we're painting with ugly, orange-peeling, raspy Base/Clear is that the do-gooders in the EPA won't let us paint with quality paint anymore. I've seen Rick's car. It's shiny on the top, grainy underneath.
Oh, yea. I put lacquer-compatible urethane clear over my color-sanded lacquer bike tanks. That cures the spilled gasoline issue. Metalflake sells they stuff, BTW.
Here's one a guy I know just bought a couple weeks ago, but I'm not sure if it's lacquer or not, but it sure is purty. Edit-- just talked to him, it's base coat clear
If you poke around and aren't fussy on color, you might get it free, I have about 5 quart cans stashed in the basement that I got at college when the body instructor was giving them away to get rid of them because just like the carburators, they weren't going to teach it anymore (I got two or three of those at the time, too). One is a '61 Plymouth lavender that looks like it was made in the 60's, some of the others were newer. I figured they'd be good for graphics or dashboards or something on down the road.
Go to Auto Color Library .com they have a store in San Diego the sell and ship Lacquer and will custom mix colors.
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