Restoring "tired" paint

[Ed Jennings]

My 62 has an older paint job. It appears to be a BC/CC. It looks great from a few feet away, but on close inspection has a lot of scratches in the cc. When it's freshly waxed, it looks pretty nice, but as soon as the fresh wax job fades a bit it starts looking a little dowdy. The dilema is that the paint is a little too good to warrant stripping and repainting, but not quite good enough to suit me. I have tried buffing with an orbital buffer and compound intended for bc/cc. Some success, but not a great deal. I have read on the board some time back that bc/cc does not respond particularly well to buffing. I know that most professional shops I see use a circular buffer which is certainly more agressive.
I know my way around lacquer paint pretty well as to what works and doesn't, but I'm sort of lost with the bc/cc. Any suggestions would be welcomed. What about sanding with 1500-2000 grit and rebuffing? The cc appears to be pretty thick.

[Dennis F. King]

Re: Restoring "tired" paint

Ed.
My '67 was painted with urethane, has a full stripe down the middle. The stripe had a thin clear over it. This was done in '87 and it became a little dull and cloudy by this time last year. Went to a paint shop in So. MD.that does only corvettes, Tony's Auto Body. The are connected to Tony's Corvette Shop in Gaithersburg MD. I had planned to get an estimate for a full repaint with me stripping the car. Tony agreed with my main complaint about the stripe and said he could remove the old one, repaint a new one and wet sand and buff the hole car...$750.00 Done! When I went to pick it up I was awe struck, I thought he repainted the whole car, incredible attention to detail and care in buffing. Sorry to be so winded, but the combination of wet sanding and buffing made a 14 year old paint look new again.
Give it a try, good luck! Dennis TOY-1

[Duke W.]

Re: Restoring "tired" paint

I'd recommend you consult with a good professional detailer, Ed. One should have an optical instrument that can measure the paint film thickness and verify what kind of paint system is on your car and make a recommendation from there.

The typical OEM clear coat is only about 2 mils thick, but it's very durable. The actual color coat is only a mil or less and has zero durability without the CC, so the key is to not break through the CC.

I believe OEM acrylic enamel and acrylic lacquer jobs have about 3 to 4 mils of color coat thickness.

Duke

[Jack H.]

There's a shop in town....

that specializes in doing just this--making BC/CC surfaces look factory 'fresh'.
They do a lot of concours d'elegance work and our chapter took a facility tour a few years ago. Very interesting!

The approach is based around a special sander with integral vacuum head and sets of 3M ultra-fine pads (20,000 grade). Ridge lines are masked to thwart 'burn through' and they essentially remove wind abraded CC in approximately 1-mil increments, then buff and re-seal chemically. Cars look pretty darn good when done!

But, the Catch-22 is pit. If there are stone dings (always are a few) that've pierced the depth of the final CC finish, all the sanding/leveling in the world doesn't get that repaired. The only way is to spot touch these areas BEFORE the surface reduction process and hope for the best in terms of an EXACT match in CC hue (never happens--but they can get close).

[Ed Jennings]

Re: There's a shop in town....

Sounds like I need to consult a good paint/detail shop. Looks like what I want to do can be done. Thanks.

[Michael Jones]

Re: There's a shop in town....

I'm a paint novice. Is it possible to put a Clear Coat over lacquer? If that's not an option, what can I do to bring a lacquer finish back?

Muke

[Duke W.]

Re: There's a shop in town....

There are special acrylic urethanes that are formulated to coat acrylic lacquer, but it's really only an option if the paint is fresh.

The nice thing about lacquer is that you can just keep polishing it until the primer shows through. Once enamal dulls - it's a goner. Most inexpensive repaints are done with alkyd enanmel - basically house paint. Enamels are insoluble to lacquer thinner, but if you swipe lacquer with a rag very slightly dampened with lacquer thinner, the color will transfer to the rag; not so with enamel. Have you done this test?

If your paint really is acrylic lacquer that is not seriously checked, you should be able to "rub it out" with a mild polishing compound to the point where it will at least be a good "twenty footer".

Duke

[Ed Jennings]

Re: There's a shop in town....

Years ago, I used to put two or three coats of clear lacquer on after lightly sanding the color coats. (also lacquer). I doubt you could put fresh lacquer over an old paint job without risking lifting the old paint. Duke is right about compounding it. It will usually bring it back unless there are serious problems. If it's not too bad, try a product called Dupont #7 cleaner wax. I've used it on oxidized lacquer for years with good results. If it's really pretty far gone, try some of the red rubbing compound rather than the less agressive white compound. Be careful however, the old lacquer paints aren't typically very thick and can be cut through pretty easily.

[Dale Pearman]

Re: Restoring "tired" paint

Have you tried Dri-Wash? Here at Jerry Clark's in Florida today we Dri-Washed a HOPELESS midyear and the results were startling!

Dale.

[Ed Jennings]

Re: Restoring "tired" paint

Not familiar with Dri-Wash. What is it?

[Clem Z.]

what is dry wash? *NM*