I've got a car with pretty nice original paint. Nice enough, that I don't want to repaint it in the foreseeable future. However, the original owner backed into a tree or something and there were pretty substantial dents that needed to be pulled out and a few spots that had to go down to bare metal for stud welds. I planned on repainting the entire engine bay with spraymax 2k in a can epoxy, base and clear. I figured I should also do the bit below the trunk at the same time - my first question is can I blend the original lacquer paint with this 2k in a can stuff? The area I'm attempting to blend is pretty small and the majority will be behind "rambler" lettering. Here's where I'm talking about, it's not like the middle of a panel or even flat at that:
I'm betting you know the answer about blending / matching 50 year old paint. You may get close ??? You'll have to just try. Nothing to lose, you'll be painting anyway, correct ?
Yep I know it won't be perfect. I mainly just want to know if I'll experience any problems trying to use 2k base and clear over the surrounding area/if that's acceptable. I just want it to look good enough to not be noticeable. I figure this is in an inconspicuous enough spot as well.
The shine will be different. Clear coat has a different shine than single stage paint. However even if you use single stage pain to do that repair the shine will be different because of the age. You will be able to get the shine close with single stage paint and a fresh buffing of the original paint, but in a couple weeks the new paint will just look too shiny. You need to know how to kinda dull down the paint. Some shops have great guys working for them that can do that, but they are not using spray cans. That being said, you need to get paint on it. So just do it!
We used to get customers years ago asking why the repairs always stood out when compared to the rest of the original faded paint. We did our best to explain that it was difficult / almost impossible to replicate things that only come with age and exposure to the elements. They always thought that we'd repaint the entire car at no additional cost so the rest matched the repair(s). We'd try and buff things up to make things look as good as we could but we couldn't work miracles. I feel the pain of having to do it but repair it and buff the car to blend it in as best as possible. Try some CLR beforehand, it worked wonders on this Chevy.
This is an OT vehicle, but it is paint blended into a 50 year old finish. Not perfect but it doesn't jump out at you where it was shortened and welded back together .
Blending is a little different than straight painting, you blend by pulling back and or your fan control should fade (blend) its kinda like letting the paint droplets get less and less as you leave the solid paint area. Hope that helps... here this a start vid there are lots of them some good some Not so good.
Sand lower trunk panel for paint. Polish adjacent areas to gloss. Spray color to hiding. Clear the entire panel.
Thank you for the help! It turns out the original paint is actually acrylic enamel and not lacquer. I don't know why I thought it was the other way around, but I've been told the best course of action would be to use single stage acrylic (on the area I want to blend at least) to lessen the difference in gloss/shine like a previous post said. For being a 50 year old car, the paint is in much better condition than what was posted above, I haven't tried to buff or polish any of it but I hope it will shine after doing so:
Your welcome from ALL of us ya go pissup a rope you dope J/K I WANT THAT CAR man oh man thats a nice one... Dont see many of those uuu uuu luckie duck
Haha thank you, Spent a lot of time on craigslist waiting. Bought it from the original owner who was a librarian and drove it to and from work before sitting for 30 years. It has 70k miles on it and the interior is nearly perfect except for the headliner: It's the first project and this forum and many others have been super helpful with teaching me how to rebuild everything and remove what little rust there was, body work etc.
I think you are in luck here. You have several breaks, seams and body lines that will draw the eye away. Personally I think you can have the whole panel painted with the border being the taillight, decklid and the body seams. It should blend well and be almost unnoticeable unless you tell. No one except a car guy would notice. So what if they did.... My experience with 50 year old paint is that it has worn unevenly anyway. The sides are a different shade than the the top. There's more sun damage on the roof, More heat damage on the hood, more road damage on the sides so a 50 year old car is many different colors anyway. A good shop with skilled staff that is most importantly, on the same page as you with the goal of preserving the original finish as much as possible should be able to accomplish this for you. With this said you need to be same page with them as far as realistic expectation. This should be made clear. There is a lot you can do with a single stage urethane. I think this type of paint lends itself better for this much more so than a base clear and even good old enamel or lacquer. As far as clearing the rest or a large portion of the car, to me it gives a pickled look that is undesirable. Keep in mind how the car looks as it leaves the shop may not be how it looks 2 years from now. In two years the shade may be more visible but there again we're talking about 50 year old patched up paint. Attitudes are different now. Even if it eventually does show as the paints age at different rates, I don't think it will hurt the appeal at all.
I've had to blend and match old paint quite a bit over the years. I usually use lacquer, just more "adjustable" when it comes to matching the gloss, have to play with it but sometime you buff it, sometimes not so much. Lacquer blends easier, back when I started painting it was the go to paint to match accident repairs. If you go with urethane you probably will need to paint a whole panel, hard to hide a blend. With urethane you can get a flatting agent from the paint store and add it yourself to match the fade in the original but it's kinda a pain, have to measure and shoot test panels to get it just right. OT car but I just did this one last week. Owner had put another fender on, it was bright orange. Doesn't want to paint the whole car yet so he had me match the patina to the rest of the car. Your Rambler ought to be considerably easier then this!
And now we hear from an unskilled amateur hobbyist (me). I have a black '51 Ford club coupe that was repainted about 40 years ago. It looks pretty good except where, over the years, people had been careless when filling the fuel tank and had spilled gas down the side of the rear quarter, blistering the paint. It was real obvious, and just about everyone who looked at the car mentioned it. A couple of years ago, I got tired if this and decided to fix it. Being a compete novice, I went to all of the stores around and bought 1 can of black spray paint that was different. I ended up with 8 cans. I tried them on the interior of the deck lid until I found the one that was closest. I then sanded down the damaged area and repainted it with my first choice. More work with some wet-or-dry, rubbing compound, and various polishes, and I ended up with a repair that was almost undetectable. I think I started over 3 different times because of what I learned the previous cycle, but I ended up with a result that was better than expected. I hardly think about it anymore, but I do watch people at shows as they look at the car, and no one (as yet) has mentioned anything or reached out to touch it (as they almost always did when it was damaged). I started from nowhere and ended up fully satisfied, so it can be done. One thing I found out by doing this. That old rock song by "Los Bravos" is not correct : "Black is NOT Black"". I was amazed at how many shades of "Gloss Black" there are out there!
i have actually had good success using benjamin moore porch and deck paint oil base or what ever they call it now [not EPA legal for painting cars with]. i match the color using their sample book, use the semi or egg which ever matches. after epoxy priming, thin paint out and spary lightly. i have matched 90 year old finishes that way. if i got that job in i would match a laquer and blend it tho.......
The Jalopy Journal
