Forensic origins of your vehicle are intriguing. The exterior of our project truck is blue colour coat with peeling clear over that. Some receipts that came with the truck suggest a 1980's build date or at least mod date. I want to bring a bit of shine back to the paint but, with failing clear that might be problematic unless it was done by a pro shop where I expect the quality to be a bit better. I recall a late 80's Jeep Cherokee I had that the hood clear failed and that was factory. Question for the crowd was when did they start using clear coat for home builds. Picture this done in a small town. Google say's 80's but, if someone was doing a car in their garage early 80's would clear have been available or only just to paint shops? My hope is it was a pro job and I can hit it with slow speed buffer.
A friend did a silver base clear on a 34 chev in his garage around 1983-84. Also, prior to that many people would paint a car with acrylic enamel and then put a clearcoat on it for more gloss and UV protection.
Probably through the "custom paint" back door....... when the gold leaf, big metal flakes, color stripes butting next to other colors, and other tricks started catching on.
We used clear Lacquer in the seventies, clear coat is the best way to lay out perfect kolor coat. It makes everything better. Of course it will show flaws off better also. For the last fifteen years I’ve been using a clear base coat over the kolor coats, this gives you the ability to sand the clear base before applying the clear Urethane, this gives you an ultra nice finish cote.
The hot ticket in the 80’s around here was a lacquer with an enamel clear. The problems didn’t show up for a while. It kinda made an eggshell effect.
I have never heard of this. Do tell more. What do you color sand it with? Does it end up bonding the same? I guess the window for clearing is the same?
I sand the base clear with 800 wet, the thing I like about it is you can pull the car apart and just clear everything. If you’re painting a main body completely and removing the doors trunk lid etc. there are no tape lines in the jams.
Remember, All of the clear needs to be sanded off off the truck due to the bond is no longer there and that is why it is peeling off. I used enamel clear over lacquer candy colors in '82-'83 with good results for several years.
We sprayed our first base/clear in 1988. Had moved out of our garage and started pro shop. Around here you can buy anything w/o being a pro shop, I know it was available on the market before we tried it. Sprayed a Caddy and a 57 Chevy
I custom painted the hood of the shops dodge wrecker with a " waving American flag" in 1968 , put a ton of clear on it to bury the edges , lotta sanding/ buffing , all martin senour laquer. In 62-63 we were using laquer clear to blend in a spot repair . first catalyzed urethane clear about '76??
Back in the 80s we sprayed lacquer cleared for repair jobs, enamel for complete jobs. about 1989 a paint jobber was peddling a new product called Ero clear didnt have to cut and buff it we were told. The oldtimers didnt want anything to do with it why fix what ant broke. I tryed over lacquer and it worked good didnt have to cut and buff until the truck came back when the clear yellowed. A trick we done was to spray Ero clear over enamel the paint was a mile deep.
Beginning in the 1960's, when my Dad would be pissed off at me, he would always ask me..."IS THAT CLEAR!?"
Clear coat has been around forever. The more modern base/ clear since around the early 80s. I've seen factory, custom shop and home painters all have clear delaminate. I started painting professionally in the heyday of GM white shit peelers. Want to know how many garbage white Chevy trucks I've hand stripped? A lot........
Well it should have started in 1973 for me when I painted my 48 72 Monte Carlo Placer Gold. Foster at Foster's paint supply in Waco missed the boat when he didn't tell me that I needed to buy the clear to go with the paint when I painted it and I busted my ass trying to make that satin gold paint shine the way it should have if it had been cleared. I guess I was 40 something years ahead of my time with satin paint.
I remember guys using clear even back in the early 70's, using lacquer. Even on driveway paint jobs. I know the shops had to be using it in the 50's when pearl and candy paints came out. First time I used base coat and clear was in the mid 80's. Tried to spray the base to look as shiny as lacquer did. Chased my tail trying to do that!
Consider me educated! So wet sand the clear until I've got it off then buff the colour coat. I think in my case just having the clear off will at least make it look like it doesn't have a skin condition.
My first experience with base/clear was about 1974. The shop where I worked had to repair a couple of Porsches and VW's that had that as a factory finish. I recall being very impressed with the shine and depth compared to the enamels we used on most stuff.
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