Greetings, I painted my 56 Pontiac with lacquer paint a few weeks ago. There was lots of orange peel, and some runs, so I bought another quart for touch-up. I sanded the runs down to primer and started wetsanding the rest. The car came out very hazy looking, and dull. Buffing doesn't seem to help. Am I doing this right? Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Falcon_H
What number paper are you using to wet sand? and...hate to say it...but you probably need to do some more bodywork, and prime/sand/prime/sand before applying color.
Use a long sanding board when you're doing the body work, then use a block when you're doing the sanding and priming, and none when you're doing the final primer sanding, or the color wet sanding.
Give us the type of Lacquer you used...and Please do not paint your car over a dirt ground... Its very hard to get a run in Lacquer if mixed properly.
using to wet sand? 600 grit Give us the type of Lacquer you used. Acrylic I think some of it is primer coming through, but some seems to be from dust or buffing compound. Thanks
Wow. With 600 you've probably already cut too deep unless you have a lot of coats on. I'm no expert, but I think 12-1500 grit is where to start.
600 grit is pretty course. I use 1200 minimum, blow 3 light coats and wet sand, keep the water running to carry away any grit. As I get closer to the desired thickness, I switch to 1500 grit.
Actually, when I used to do lots of lacquer painting, I ONLY sanded it with 600, they didn't make anything higher grit. What type of compound and pad are you using? If you use a wool pad, and some white compound, it should suffice. Do a good job buffing and it will shine, but with some hazing. A liquid polish afterwards will remove the hazing, and a glaze or wax afterwards by hand is the finishing touch. Lacquer buffs up pretty easy, compared to today's urethanes. If you do have 800, 1000 or 1500, you could use that to get the finish closer to perfection, and spend less time with the buffer.
If you are painting a hot surface in the hot sun you will never get good results, drys too fast and will look like it's textured.
Lacquer is semi-transparent so you really have to build up those coats for coverage. It looks like you didn't spray enough coats and the underlying surface is showing through. I had a similar problem when I painted my first car. It was the first time I ever painted a car , which was a 55 Nomad. I painted it the original Turquoise and White. I sprayed it a old, tankless, Craftsman air compressor with no filter. And I sprayed it outside, in the driveway and fumes were all over the neighborhood, but this was before the crying Liberals took over California. Anyways, I didn't spray enough coats, so after I did the final colorsanding and rub out, you could see the underlying surface showing just a little bit, in some areas. I never did respray it but I still kick myself for selling it.
When I was young I had an old guy tell me that you can make lacquer look deeper with less paint by using a base coat that matches it. back then you are limited, so it would have been dark basecoat dark lacquer, and light basecoat light lacquer. These days with tinted primers you can really alter the look, black for black, gold for gold, red for red and etc.
When I painted the Nomad, I just scuffed it down and sprayed the Lacquer. The wagon was various colors but at one time was painted a metallic Turquosise, with a frenched antenna on the passenger side B pillar. I didn't use any primer and it came out pretty nice, aside from the fact that I should have sprayed a few more coats.
Yeah, back in the lacquer days 600 was as fine as it got. Color sand with 600, buff with a course wool pad, hit it with glaze with a fine wool pad, wax with a good past wax, easy show finish. I know this new stuff is far superior as far as durability but , damn, I miss those days. Getting a show finish is so much more work and will never look as good as buffed lacquer IMHO.
White sealer makes red brighter, red sealer makes red darker, black sealer makes it really darker and moves it toward Marron, Your sealer plays a big part in color cast. When you paint it in pieces be sure to count your coats. Lacquer outside drys to fast and goes on dry creating orange peal. Be sure to match your thinner to the temperature, you can blend thinners to get proper temp. range. And find a well ventilated place inside with a proper respirator, remember once opened the charcold ones are good for 8 hours, so when not in use store in a zip lock bag. Chophold gave you some good info. on buffing. Check with Paintguru here on HAMB he is a wealth of knowledge. Frank
If your seeing primer than you need to repaint. I would block it out again , prime it, block it out again, prime it, block it out and then shoot the color. You then can color sand it with 1200 or 1500 wet and then buff it out,
If you use a little dish wash soap li helps with color sanding. You can actually block runs out with bar if LAVA soap it cuts flat then hit it with 1200 and polish it out. I used it on lacquer, catalised acrilic enamel, and urethane. Old old painters trick.
Jcmarz has it right, perhaps you are used to shooting enamels, or urethanes, and don't realize that lacquer needs to be built up slowly, with many coats. Too thick a film, and you'll get solvent pop, back in the day, we'd do 5-10 coats of lacquer, let it sit a while, block it out, then shoot another 5-10, maybe do it one more time. This was to compensate for the "shrinkage" factor in shooting lacquer. If you used today's epoxy or urethane primers, it probably isn't necessary. But you DO need to shoot many more coats of lacquer, than a modern SS enamel or urethane. If your paint is coming out with a lot of peel, shoot even more coats, so you have insurance when you sand and buff.
Blow a black primer "guide coat" over the top coats before you wet sand it of. The eyes can see better than what numb wet fingers can feel.
A lot of them have been painted that way. I can't say that it is wrong or right, it just is one way that it has been done. It takes less paint the way that the old guy suggested to me. But you have to have primer. if you are spraying over a good solid base you are alright. But the thicker the paint the more likely it is that the paint will craze, and the base color always affects the final appearance of the lacquer.
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