Paint

[Richard Kolodzinski]

Question: My understanding is all the mid-year vette's were painted at the factory using lacquer. Since we all know how much labor is involved in rubbing out lacquer, how did the factory do it? Did they attack the car with 20 people armed with buffing wheels? Slower/faster drying thinners? Climate controlled spray booths are probably part of the equation. No clear coats were used (I think). Does anyone know how they made it shine without spending a lot of time rubbibg it out? If they did buff the car, any idea of how much time was allotted for this phase?

Seems like a labor intensive approach for a factory to use verses using an enamel. Just curious.

Rich

[Duke W.]

Re: Paint

Midyear Corvettes were painted with (non-clear coated) acrylic lacquer as were all other GM cars (trucks were painted with enamel). The gloss was brought out by baking the finished bodies in ovens to "reflow" the lacquer and bring out the shine, but Corvette fiberglass bodies were reflowed at a lower temperature, so they required more finish buffing that steel cars. That's why the door jambs on Corvettes are not as glossy as the exterior of the body.
Duke

[John H.]

Re: Paint

The (partial) reflow smoothed the lacquer surface somewhat, and the final gloss resulted from a lot of power compounding and buffing (as opposed to steel-bodied cars in high-volume plants, where the 350-degree reflow ovens imparted adequate gloss without buffing); the Corvette reflow oven only ran at 250, as that's the highest temperature the fiberglass and resin could tolerate. The Corvette Paint Shop was very crude, with open spray booths and no booth temperature or humidity controls of any kind; the only conveyors were through the ovens - bodies were pushed manually into the spray booths.

[Wayne C.]

Re: Paint

I can't speak directly for Corvettes, but I worked in a Fisher Body plant in the very early sixties... bodies were rubbed-out by several men using very large air-driven buffing wheels and compound. They got very good at it with experience and it really didn't take them long to do a body, probably under 5 minutes (they weren't doing front fenders and hoods, just firewall-back). I cannot specifically recall, but I believe the bodies were wet color-sanded then washed down and dried before buffing.

Noland Adams' Volume 2 shows a Corvette's primer being wet-sanded on page 24, and then the finish coat being buffed out on page 27, with the latter caption saying the car is going through the first of two polishing stages. Unfortunately he does not seem to cover these steps in any detail in his text.

[Richard Kolodzinski]

Re: Paint

John:

Sounds like you've been there, seen it, done that. I guess the process has came a long way through the years.

Thanks for the info.

Rich

[Richard Kolodzinski]

Re: Paint

Wayne:

Thanks for the excellent input. I wonder how much dealer prep work went into the cars when they were delivered? GM must of had a quality control phase that checked everything, but some customers can get real picky. I would think that anything missed would have fell onto the dealer to clean up before delivery. Or, maybe the guys in the factory were real good.

Any old timers out there that worked for dealers in the 60's?

Rich

[John H.]

Re: Paint

St. Louis Corvette paint finish was nothing to write home about (certainly not even close to the kind of paint finish quality we expect today) due to poor substrate surface, grinding and sanding all over the car, multiple surface and bond seam prime and topcoat repairs, lots of dirt in the paint due to the open spray booths and lack of air filtration, air contaminated with dirt and dust, lack of full reflow capability, and reliance on manual power buffing which depended highly on operator technique and training. I'm sure dealer prep techs did a lot of buffing in those days, although customer expectations weren't as high then as they are today, as even the most expensive cars in the 50's and early 60's had exterior paint quality we wouldn't accept today on the underside of a deck lid.

[Art A.]

Re: Paint

John, as I recall the current paint booth in the BG Corvette plant was installed to the tune of about 7 million bucks!

Art

[John H.]

Re: Paint

Art -

True, and that's CHEAP compared to today's prices; modern Paint Shops are the most expensive real estate on the planet, and are cleaner, with better air quality, than a hospital operating room. A typical new assembly plant is $800-$900 million, and about $600 million of that is the Paint Shop. Just the plumbing alone is beyond belief - now that all the primers and color basecoats are waterborne, every inch of piping (about 12 miles on average) and all the pumps, valves, regulators, and 500-gallon paint tote tanks are 100% solid stainless steel - you don't want to write the check for that!

[Art A.]

Re: Paint

Actually now that you mention it, I recall that the 7 mil was just a major up grade of the existing facility, which took place about 5 to 7 years ago.

Art

[Mike M.]

You're making a giant leap of faith assuming GM...

had a "quality control phase" and "checked everythig".
The local here dealers built-in a $15.00 line item on each Corvette order for buffing (and touch-up). Many of the cars looked like they came straight from the spray booth, must have had one last spot to fill on a waiting trailer. If it happened not to be necessary, the $15.00 was credited.
By '78 my Silver Anniversary came with every peak, and other places obviously buffer burned. Many areas down to the glass. Many other items were disasters as well.

[Roberto L.]

Re: Paint

Hello John, did they wetsanded the car after painting and before buffing?
Thats an interesting point. Most repainters now speak about sanding to get a mirror like surface, but how was really in those days?

Roberto, NCRS #30019, RMC

[Bill W.]

Re: Paint

I hate to think of myself as an old timer but i have been around gm dealers sense 1959 ( my dad was the general manager at a buick dealer) and I worked at them sense 1966.I also live about 20 miles from the old Corvette plant.& toured it many times .If you could look at your reflection in the paint on any new Corvette and read the name on your shirt it wasent the origional paint. also they only had three coats not counting the repair line so any buffing done at the dealer was very light.In the mid 70s we repainted most of the new Corvettes we sold before the owners even new they were in .And remember those were the good old days of 12 months or 12000 miles warranty.plus people were not nearly as picky then . we almost never had any one complain about wind noise or water leaks.& most of the paint problems were from dirt or paint thin on the peaks not from being to dull. Now in the 2000s they complain about there clear shows scratches to easy,rock chips,& acid rain. Bill

[John H.]

Re: Paint

Roberto -

The entire body was wet-sanded after the primer coat(s) were baked; after color was sprayed and baked (and any repairs that showed up after the color oven were done), the body was compounded and buffed as the last step before the body went to the Trim Line. The only sanding done after color bake was for repairs.

[Roberto L.]

Thanks! *NM*