Restoration

[Michael G.]

Re: Restoration

I think I see one of the issues that most have with trying/wanting to duplicate a typical factory finish. The words "orange peel. That's not what typical factory original lacquer paint had.
Lacquer was applier at very high pressure so there weren't any of the typical larger droplets of material headed for it's target. The paint was basically a mist, much finer than typical home/shop equipment produced. That would be the surface that remained after painting. Once baked and sent to the reflow oven, the paint became somewhat glossy, even though it may have had some texture. (but not orange peel)
That's why the paint on a new car looked shinny, even in areas that were not sanded smooth prior to painting.

Folks seem to think that the paint on every 63-67 Corvette was terrible. That couldn't be further from the truth. I've said this before but I'll say it again. Next time one of the ultra low mileage original paint cars shows up at an event, take a good look at the paint. Next time you see the 1500 mile green/saddle 65 FI conv., or the untouched 3000 mile Milano maroon 65 396 conv., study the paint and body, especially below the side body line. See if you think the paint looks terrible, as it has been described here.

I have to agree with Michael on this one. I had an early 63 back in the sixties. It was original paint, never buffed, wet-sanded, or otherwise repaired. It may have been a "non-typical" car, but its paint was nice, shiny, heavy all over, with no orange peal. I know, I waxed it many, many times.

Having spent countless hours in GM plants over the years, the one thing I know is that just about anything was possible. The day-to-day variation was unbelievable. Cars were repainted, right over the old paint, sometimes two times. Cars were repaired, including wet-sanded, frequently. Every part, every panel, every operation, including paint, was a constantly changing process.

The GM system embraced this, the material specifications were specifically and deliberately written to allow variation within limits, to save money. Sometimes you could drive a truck between those limits and purchasing often did so, just to save a penny. For many years at GM, a big part of my job was helping write those specs and then sorting out the plant problems caused by those "limits" so I can tell you that GM cars were all a moving target, period.

Frankly, sometimes I laugh at the NCRS insistence that only one way is correct. Its not reality. To say that a car could not have come out of St Louis with heavy, glossy, no-orange-peel paint is patently absurd. I had one. Was this "typical"? Maybe not, but it was produced by St Louis and it would get heavy deductions today. These anomalies are way more common than we are hearing here.

The standard should be "was this a possible variation at St Louis?" 'Cause if it was possible, it probably happened.

Our current "typical" standards would probably reject 20% of the cars that St Louis produced. There, I'm off my soap box.

[Patrick N.]

Re: Restoration

Pat,
I was able to get back early but most of my pics are bad and I had to delete them but here is what I have.

The close up has the orange peel on the left side.


The other is the hood that I didn't shoot it with orange peel and the other is a full view about like the factory did.[ATTACH=CONFIG]39671[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39672[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39673[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39674[/ATTACH]

Again, I am going to 1200 sand and buff but I knew that when I shot the paint so it is not up to the even quality one would buff and keep as a final.

DOM

Dom, thanks for the posting, I can see some of the surface variation / orange peel you mentioned when i look at the reflections of the lights. It is helpful to see theses as I do not have original paint and forced to repaint. Trying to understand the balance of typical finish vs head turner finish is numbing- perhaps mutually exclusive. I also think it makes sense what the others have said regarding the term orange peel and the type of finish it implies. Garver made a good point about the standard being more of a tolerance range- but how would one measure that range both for painting and for judging?
BTW- your car looks great! that is one of my favorite combinations - classic!

[Tom A.]

Re: Restoration

How exactly would you describe the surface texture common to Corvette paint so 54,000 members could understand it. Normal description is "small tight patterned orange peel". I've been painting cars professionally since the mid-60's and that has been the term used in the industry for surface texture. In today's nomenclature it would be described as levels of DOI (distinctness of image). How many members would have a mental picture of what DOI is. There was a huge variation in surface texture from one car to the next due to factors such as temperature, humidity, painter technique, pressure at the gun (both fluid pressure and air pressure) and a host of other constantly changing variables. In judging you have to take into consideration the various experience levels of judges at any given meet. Everyone has their own opinion of what paint should look like. NCRS has be teaching correct paint judging methods for years through Judges retreats and seminars but it is a difficult task to reach everyone let alone change their idea of what original appeared like. As you said there was tremendous variations from car to car. That makes teaching it even harder because we all depend on our own experience first. NCRS does allow a wide latitude for variations but then people say we allow too much. The system isn't perfect and never will be as long as people are involved. We do the best we can and constantly try to improve, it's not a simple process. This is a society of volunteers doing the best job possible with what we have. You will have to admit looking at the new judging manuals coming out we've come a long way.

[Patrick N.]

Re: Restoration

NCRS does allow a wide latitude for variations

Please keep in mind, I was born in the late 60's and have zero understanding of what "original" ever looked like, but I really do want to learn. Are the allowable ranges of variation or DOI documented / made available in a way I could communicate to my painter?

[Patrick H.]

Re: Restoration

Please keep in mind, I was born in the late 60's and have zero understanding of what "original" ever looked like, but I really do want to learn. Are the allowable ranges of variation or DOI documented / made available in a way I could communicate to my painter?

Patrick,

Same age as you, and my recommendation is to show your painter an original paint car that you want to copy.
If a picture is worth 1000 words, the real thing is probably worth 1000 pictures.

Patrick

[Joe C.]

Re: Restoration

Pat,
I was able to get back early but most of my pics are bad and I had to delete them but here is what I have.

The close up has the orange peel on the left side.

The other is the hood that I didn't shoot it with orange peel and the other is a full view about like the factory did.[ATTACH=CONFIG]39671[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39672[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39673[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]39674[/ATTACH]

Again, I am going to 1200 sand and buff but I knew that when I shot the paint so it is not up to the even quality one would buff and keep as a final.

DOM

Dominic,

Thanks for the excellent photos showing what appears to be "typical" surface texture and sheen of original lacquer paint after bake and light buffing without color sanding, on a car which would be in perhaps the top 10 percentile of high quality paint jobs. The third photo from the right gives an excellent representation, if one looks at the texture which appears in the small white reflection of the ceiling light fixture in the upper left hand side of the photo.

After the lacquer is "shot", the surface texture is much finer, but the bake operation levels much of this and the light buffing knocks down the rest of it. The surface texture of non-buffed lacquer (as would be found in the door jambs, and other areas which were not buffed), has an appearance somewhat like the plastic surfaces of your computer tower, printer, keyboard, etc, although not quite as pronounced.

I don't recall seeing whether or not you mentioned authenticity of metallic particle size, and although your color is beautiful, the metallic flakes appear to be larger than original.

Back in the old days, cars would need to be buffed-out every 6 months or so because lacquer, unlike urethanes and enamels, continually sheds solvent ("dessicates") throughout its lifetime. This results in the top layer of paint becoming dry, chalky, and dull. The buffing and polishing would remove the "dead" paint, and then a good heavy layer of Carnauba wax such as Simoniz would seal, protect and moisturize (yup, just like skin cream for women) the lacquer and forestall but not prevent the relentless dessication process.

[Michael G.]

Re: Restoration

Tom, I wouldn't presume to be able to tell an expert such as yourself how to adequately describe orange peel. I did not suggest that you even needed to consider any sort of change to your description of that phenomenon. It was also not my intent to assail you, or any other dedicated volunteer in the NCRS. You have my thanks for your efforts

I'm only trying to understand the meaning and applicability of "typical"

My point was that there was an infinitely variable process for applying paint, as well as significant variation in the paint itself, the cars, the weather, the operators, and so on. I'm pretty sure, though, with my limited experience with body paint, that some combination of factors in St. Louis could, and did, on occasion, produce cars with perfectly smooth paint (or a practically reasonable approximation of such). I've seen them, I owned one. Given that fact, and having participated in the writing of more than a few GM materials specs, I think it goes without saying that a Corvette with perfectly smooth paint would have been acceptable to GM and well within what was permitted for shipment from the St Louis plant.

If it was possible, and perfectly acceptable to GM, how can we, therefore, say that the "typical" production paint process for a Corvette could not include the variable that is "no orange peel"?

The same argument goes for paint coverage. I need not belabor the point, except to say: some cars got thorough paint, some got way more than thorough paint, some did not get much at all. How can we say a car with complete coverage is not typical?


Thanks,

[Domenic T.]

Re: Restoration

Yes,
The metalic is about double the size. I have the original paint on some of the front end parts that I kept after replacing the whole front end and they are tame compared to the metalic that is in my paint, I was not happy but at least I was able to get the color and it's hard to know what you got till your done.

If any one decides to use BC/CC do not buy Limco because it has very little pigment and it required over 6 WET coates to cover White primer with the dark goodwod green. Then the clear has to cover it to seal the solvents. BACKWARDS is this state I live in.

It also takes twice the amount of paint to cover. You are exposed to dust over double the time not to mention the extra time it takes to paint.

I CA they want you to buy water base paint and this was the only solvent based paint I could get from my paint shop.

CA tried to clean up the air and managed to put more vapor in it then there was when paint was paint.

DOM

[Joe C.]

Re: Restoration

Tom, I wouldn't presume to be able to tell an expert such as yourself how to adequately describe orange peel. I did not suggest that you even needed to consider any sort of change to your description of that phenomenon. It was also not my intent to assail you, or any other dedicated volunteer in the NCRS. You have my thanks for your efforts

I'm only trying to understand the meaning and applicability of "typical"

My point was that there was an infinitely variable process for applying paint, as well as significant variation in the paint itself, the cars, the weather, the operators, and so on. I'm pretty sure, though, with my limited experience with body paint, that some combination of factors in St. Louis could, and did, on occasion, produce cars with perfectly smooth paint (or a practically reasonable approximation of such). I've seen them, I owned one. Given that fact, and having participated in the writing of more than a few GM materials specs, I think it goes without saying that a Corvette with perfectly smooth paint would have been acceptable to GM and well within what was permitted for shipment from the St Louis plant.

If it was possible, and perfectly acceptable to GM, how can we, therefore, say that the "typical" production paint process for a Corvette could not include the variable that is "no orange peel"?

The same argument goes for paint coverage. I need not belabor the point, except to say: some cars got thorough paint, some got way more than thorough paint, some did not get much at all. How can we say a car with complete coverage is not typical?


Thanks,

Mike,

One of my favorite stories was told by one of my father's WWII buddies, Joe McDonaugh. Joe worked as a paint inspector for a GM "BOP" plant in Wilmington DE, during the 50's and 60's. He took pride in his job and was fairly thorough in his work and was frequently admonished by his supervisor for pointing out too many flaws. The way he related the story, his boss would tell him: "Close your eyes. Can't you see that you're holding up production!"

[Terry M.]

Re: Restoration

Patrick,

Same age as you, and my recommendation is to show your painter an original paint car that you want to copy.
If a picture is worth 1000 words, the real thing is probably worth 1000 pictures.

Patrick

One original paint car will not do it. You need to see yourself, and show your painter several -- the more the better. You don't learn a foreign language by reading one book, not do you learn any other subject by studying one book either. If you want graduate level results you have to do the study to get there.

[Patrick H.]

Re: Restoration

One original paint car will not do it. You need to see yourself, and show your painter several -- the more the better. You don't learn a foreign language by reading one book, not do you learn any other subject by studying one book either. If you want graduate level results you have to do the study to get there.

True, but good luck getting several original cars for a painter to see in person. I would suspect that the odds of getting your painter to an NCRS National Convention or an event in St Charles, IL are quite small.

Patrick

[Dick W.]

Re: Restoration

Beware of using cars that are supposedly "original" paint. I can name numerous cars that have gotten a pass on the originality of the paint when well over half of the car has been painted.

[Terry M.]

Re: Restoration

That depends on who and where your painter is.

Illinois Chapter had a paint judging seminar with two painters (one not even an NCRS member) present a couple of weeks ago (April 20).

Yesterday we had 3 4/5-star Bowtie cars at a Judging Seminar (1958, 1966, & 1970), and one Bowtie candidate (1972). No painters this time however. If the guy you want to paint your car isn't open to doing it the NCRS way -- find another painter, of take the car someplace else for judging. It will be easier all around. Remember not to bring a football to a baseball game.

[Pat M.]

Re: Restoration

Cue Terry M's "bringing a baseball to a football game" analogy. We might need a permanent sticky for that.

Remember not to bring a football to a baseball game.

Told ya, although I had the balls/games mixed up.

[Terry M.]

Re: Restoration

Told ya, although I had the balls/games mixed up.