With the cost of a gallon of red paint going for $500.00 I'm wondering if a 23 year old UNOPENED gallon of Honduras Maroon could turn into some Roadster money. Acrilic Enamel PPG, thanks for your help/advice. Bob
Is it enamel or lacquer? Your going to have to open the can to see if it can be stirred. If after the paint,especially if it is enamel, is mixed and there are no solids in the bottom of the can rub some of the paint between your index finger & thumb,,if the paint feels gritty you need to strain it,,after straining it and it still feels gritty thee is a good possibility the paint has broken down. HRP
Dunno what it might be worth, this is one of my all-time favorite colors! Ever since I saw it on a '61 Belair when I was a kid. Really it's hard to say. A friend bought a whole 'wall' of paint at an old body shop auction a couple of years ago. Easily 200+ containers, some opened some not. He had Around $200 in it if I recall. Took what he wanted, then told everyone else to do the same. Crap shoot at best. Arrangement was he did have to remove the leftovers.
Likely not worth much to most people !not anything to me, I wouldn't even try using it , but good on u if you can make a buck or two from the sale of it !
try selling it Bob, it might sell. i used acrylic enamel that was 20+ years old, on my plow truck. looks ok...... for a plow truck.
Hey, If it's unopened, I'd leave it that way! How & where was it stored in that 23 years? If it got below freezing, in storage, and stayed that way for some time, that could be trouble. By law, I can't even have acrylic enamel or alkyd enamel in the shop, but if I had it , I'd shoot it! " Humpty Dumpty was pushed "
I bought two gallons of it for the Lyndwood rail 23 years ago, even have the receipt somewere. Stored in the basement all this time. When the paint shop gave that round number of $500.00 for a gallon the wheels started turning. Bob
Can you even get the right activator and reducer for it anymore,Here in Canada we cant even find that anymore.With the new VOC laws it is real hard to use that stuff anymore,i have pile of old paints left over,all I use them for is trimming in parts and edges,work fine for that.if the paint is no good it wont go through a strainer,it will act like it has sand in it,will spray out like spray in boxliner.Myself I wouldn't take the chance,at least on something you care about. Harvey
It might be 500 a gallon for red waterborne basecoat, Here I can buy red singe stage urethane for around 150?,and it is twice the paint that acrylic enamel used to be.
Hey Bob, I hope you find a buyer, and soon! The days of solvent based paint material in North America are numbered if the EPA has its' way. That's a great lookin colour IIRC?
I remember when buying paint for a car was about $125.00 apx in the early 1980's , wages were about $9.00-11.00 per hour for the average blue collar worker, now single stage kits are anywhere from 250.00 and up , so in some ways it's cheaper, hok paint has always been expensive for high end shit !
After following the procedure HOTRODPRIMER described, a last precaution against using seedy paint would be to brush some out on a used paint stirrer, let dry, check for tiny bubbles in the dried paint film.
I used 50 year old lead enamel that had been stored in a warehouse. It was touchup paint for a trucking company..puke yellow..no problem spraying however in hindsight I should have done a test panel. The paint was free and being applied to a daily driver. On occasions where i did buy paint I always bought mismatches and the older they were the cheaper the were.. never had any problems
I wouldn't pay $500? for 23 year old paint, I might pay $50. Gallon of new red acrylic urethane which is better than AE, I can get for about $160.
Yeah. 1973, I painted my first complete, a 69 Mach1 Mustang in the factory red. I remember paying $14 for the Gallon of Centari and another 3 or 4 bucks for a gallon of "good" reducer. Sigh.... Painted it in my High School auto shop, just out in the middle of the shop, no booth, fans or anything, don't think we could get away with that now! I wouldn't be afraid to use 25 year old enamel as long as I was sure it hadn't been frozen sometime and it had been sealed. If it's still liquid I'd say it stayed sealed.
It may be good, If you open stir it well and if you have a shaker put it on a shaker for 30 mins, then open. Take some of the color and spread on a piece of clear class and let dry. Then you turn it over you can see the structure of the paint and look for seediness or any black specs or inclusions that are not supposed to be there. You can get generic hardeners at the paint jobber that will activate but you will need to experiment with the ratios.
When I went to work in a parts store in 1981, customers were bitching because a gallon of red was going for $35.00. I've got some Centari from that time period that, out of curiosity, I opened and inspected, and it appeared to still be useable. It's probably a crap shoot---if the can was sealed tightly, you stand a chance of getting away with it.
I had a couple cans of unopened Glasurit paint that had been sitting for over 30 years, it was original paint for my o/t German motorcycle, went on like it was new and looked excellant. So good in fact that I sold some of it to another collector for a nice sum. You'll never know unless you try.
I've used really old paint with good results, you can usually tell if it's separated when you first start shaking it. If it's really settled out, it's probably junk. Being unopened, my guess is it'd still probably be good, but I doubt anyone would pay more than $50 for it. A gallon isn't enough to do a full car, unless it's something really small, and matching it would be tough. You can still get non-PPG enamels around here for around $100/gallon
I have cans of paint from the early 1900's. ( some guys will collect anything! ) I wouldn't open them, but they sound liquid when I shake them. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they were still viable. As stated, If it will stir and mix uniformly it's most likely fine. If not, or it feels grainy, It's now a display can.
Hey, During the 1973-'74 Arab Oil Crisis the price of automotive paint would go up daily, it was like buying fish at daily ''market price''! Funny how once the price of World Crude Oil came down, the price of paint didnt follow it Some may turn up their noses over 23 year old Ditzler/PPG acrylic enamel over today's ''gee-wizz'' single stage urethanes, but I bet if you did spray out cards between the two you'd see a truer, deeper, honest red/maroon in the old Ditzler over today's dye/chemical produced colours. The high lead , zinc & cadmium contant was very durable, maybe not the resins, but the colour.
I had to look! Kinda yellow, but looked good on the pencil! Looks like it would spray just fine. There was about 1/2 quart. I don't think it was thinned.I'd guess clear lacquer would last longer than other types of paint. Any guesses on the age of the can?
Hey Tin, My wag on the age of your qt. can of "Duco'' is 40's-50's! I remember the Dupont alkyd enamel was called " Dulux'' along side of their lacquer which was ''Duco''. Later they started callin it "Lucite'' I like the size of the lettering on that can, it's easy for me to read, and probably printed in a language I can speak!
I can remember seeing that style can in the local bodyshop in the mid 1960's. If I had a better camera I'd start a thread on automotive paint can artwork. I've got cans that go back to the 1920's. Bob
That is an oldie. The shop I worked at in the 70's had shelves of really old paints, and I'd put that label back into the 50's as well. Don't quote me, but I think the later Duco cans were more of a peacock color. The good thing is that being lacquer you don't need a drier or a hardener, but even finding lacquer thinner may be a challenge in some areas now. With that clear being yellowish, I'm guessing it never was actually clear like the later ones used to clear coat the finish. That would most likely be used in a tinting system with metallics to allow the metallic flecks to show in the finish. I'm getting a laugh out of the concerns about freezing old paint. Latex maybe, but when is the last time you froze a can of oil? Up here paint gets delivered to automotive stores and body shops every day, winter and summer. I've never seen a heated paint truck. The real issue is separation, grit formation and moisture in the can (there is a small airspace on top that can hold moisture, which can eventually cause rust and contamination within the can).
I know by the time I started painting in the 70's most cans were very clearly marked Acrylic Lacquer. Being Duco this would be a nitrocellulose, so I did a little digging.... http://www2.dupont.com/Phoenix_Heritage/en_US/1923_b_detail.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duco Production of this product ceased in the late 60's as far as our automotive market is concerned. I still think that label dates back to the 50's though...
The Jalopy Journal
