Learned something new last night

I went to a DuPond Hot Hues paint siminar last night and at the end was a question and answer session. I asked if they were planning on coming out with any pinstiping paints. His answer kind of surprised me. First, he said that they will be coming out with some pinstriping paints at a later date, but for now that Centari with a little laquer thinner works pretty good. Add some hardener if you want to clear over it. You experienced stripers may have known that, but being the amature that I am I didn't know it. I don't know how knowedgeable he was on the subject, but sounded like it stripes better than OneShot!! Any opinions on that?

 

Sounds weird putting lacquer thinner in it since Centari is Enamel...?
Or is it some kind of hybrid now?
Seems they change paint formulas on a weekly basis these days.

 

I'm with the Doc on the addition of lacquer thinner.

Something else I'd think about, make a mistake with One Shot and you can wipe it off without damaging the paint underneath.
I'd say the lacquer thinner and maybe even the Centari paint would damage the paint underneath if you tried to wipe it off.

One Shot is definitely the stuff to use - keep in mind that I'm a very amateur pinstriper and haven't really done it for some time - but other enamels are usable if One Shot is difficult to obtain in your area.
We used to use a Sherwin Williams paint called, "Four Hour Enamel."
It worked well and thinned just a touch with the right thinner - think it was turpentine - it flowed well and mistakes wiped right off with no damage underneath.

Here in Sunny California you may want to think twice about using a paint called "enamel."
There's a lot of water based stuff out here due to tree-hugger laws.
Some of it ok and some of it you wonder why you spent the money....

 

The thing I don't like about using all these fancy-pants-HOK-automotive paint based-striping colors, is things get complicated if you have to do MORE than stripe on the vehicle. If the owner wants a little image painted or something, then what? You gonna try to get the auto stuff to flow and cover as well as One-Shot? You gonna stripe with the auto stuff and switch to One-Shot for the image? If you do that, there's no need to use the auto paint because you're back to square one by using the One-Shot. Know what I mean? Too confusing. If you let One-Shot cure, properly, there shouldn't be a problem with clearing over it. I striped a bike tank one afternoon, and because the shop was in too much of a hurry to wait til the next day, they cleared over it that night (!)...still barely lifted any of the striping! If they had waited til the next day it would've nbeen completely fine, with no lifting. Maybe I'm just lazy and cheap, but I hate having to deal with several different kinds of striping and lettering paint...especially when some of it is even more costly than One-Shot. K.I.S.S.

 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm with the Doc on the addition of lacquer thinner.

Something else I'd think about, make a mistake with One Shot and you can wipe it off without damaging the paint underneath.
I'd say the lacquer thinner and maybe even the Centari paint would damage the paint underneath if you tried to wipe it off.


We used to use a Sherwin Williams paint called, "Four Hour Enamel."
It worked well and thinned just a touch with the right thinner - think it was turpentine - it flowed well and mistakes wiped right off with no damage underneath.



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I would question not only the use of lacquer thinner in Centari but the purpose of doing so in the first place.Another consideration would be coverage;most automotive paints become very transparent when thinned even marginally.That's why 1-Shot works so well;it covers in"one shot".
Jay the S-W product you refer to might be a variation on their old,"Bulletin"colors which were used by a lot of sign painters years ago.I haven't seen any of those in a long time.
As far as using lacquer thinner in 1-Shot,I know several stripers who do just that and it seems to work well for them.I don't like doing it because lacquer thinner seems to attack the epoxy used to bind the hairs in striping brushes.I have cleared over 1-Shot both freshly layed down and allowed to dry overnight and the determining factor whether it,"wrinkles" or not is dependent on the application of the clear.If you "mist"the first couple coats on and allow about 10 minutes between them before wet coating the surface the striping seems to stay down.If you apply it too heavily all at once it wrinkles.
HOK paints are another story entirely.I have used them several times(by request only)and although they appear to flow as nicely as 1-Shot(except for their new pearl colors which go on like latex paint)two things about them turn me off to them:
1)If you have to remove a mistake,the solvent will sometimes attack the base coat.This is not good if you have a transparent or metallic surface.
2)the solvents will destroy a brush almost immediately.I did a job with a brand new brush and it was shedding hair and swelling up almost imediately after I cleaned it for the first time.This has happened to me every time I use the stuff.I just include the price of the brush in with the job now.
A lot of the older stripers used to use Dag-R-Lac which was a nitrocellulose lacquer especially made for striping.An old sign painter I knew used to use it and to slow the drying time he would put in a couple drops of castor oil.You had to be careful because if you put too much in it would never dry.
Me I'll stick with 1-Shot over anything available today.
Ray

 

You guys have it all wrong. I use lacquer thinner in Centari when I need it to set up very quickly. I was shown this over 30 years ago by my old boss, and custom teacher, who was an excellent painter. It works. I can use the hardener in it, or not, depending on the cir***stances. With Centari, the 'reducer' just thins the paint, it doesn't add any catalyzing, or cross-linking qualities. So lacquer thinner can work. You DO have to add it slowly to the Centari when mixing it, as it can "curdle" the paint if just dumped in quickly.
I would be wary of using this paint over existing enamel, as it may act more like lacquer than enamel when laying out. It might lift or wrinkle the old paint, like lacquer would.
Centari was used (for pinstriping) by a lot of old timers, in body shops, because that is what they had on the shelves. Probably not the best paint, like One Shot, but it works. Dupont even made (still makes??) a 'brushing' additive for Centari. Smooths out the brush strokes. I've heard of guys using it to brush paint a whole car, with reportedly good results. I've never seen one though....