I am getting close to painting my mustang and in the past (30 years ago) did a lot of lacquer paint jobs with great results. Are there any places that still sell it? My main concern with the stuff today is spraying silver metallic. When I used lacquer my last coats were mist coats and then wet sand and buff.
Lacquer paint
- Thread starter RayH
- Start date
Chris_Hamilton
Trying to be the best me, I can be
All the major paint manufacturers have loooong since stopped making any lacquer automotive paint system. Finding it in a specific OEM color would be a longshot. I seem to recall at one time that there was a company that had bought out either Dupont or PPG lacquers/toners and were mixing colors but I can't remember who and at this point I would doubt you are going to find anything very easily. Particularly in formulated OEM colors. Maybe black and other simple solid colors but not OEM colors. I would be suspect of the quality of any new lacquer today. In general no one actually sprays it anymore and haven't for years.
The good news is that modern basecoats are easy to spray, even metallics. A modern base sprays similar to lacquers of old, and they are pretty much foolproof, provided you use proper technique. And on the off chance that you get mottling or striping of a metallic color there are blending agents that you can use with the base to eliminate those problems. Plus modern base/clears will outlast a lacquer job by a big margin.
The good news is that modern basecoats are easy to spray, even metallics. A modern base sprays similar to lacquers of old, and they are pretty much foolproof, provided you use proper technique. And on the off chance that you get mottling or striping of a metallic color there are blending agents that you can use with the base to eliminate those problems. Plus modern base/clears will outlast a lacquer job by a big margin.
Chris_Hamilton
Trying to be the best me, I can be
Only colors that will give any issue are lighter silvers and beige metallics. Darker metallics are pretty easy to spray. If you use a good gun, light medium-medium coats and consistent overlap of 50-75% you will not have any issues with striping, molting, mottling etc. Where you can get into trouble is when spraying heavy coats of base with a fast reducer. You don't want to do that. Light medium to at most medium coats, use a quality reducer (SPI makes the best I've used) and consistent overlap and you will have no issues.