Thanks! Years ago I spoke with a guy that repainted a MILLER Indy car in 1925, all the sanding was done with felt covered blocks with water and pumice.
I finally settled on BBQ black paint when I painted my bucket. I tried about 10 different shades, hues, and styles of paint before deciding that this looked the closest to what I thought it was.
Interesting information. The original finish of my '46 ford -what was left of it buffed out to a beautiful rich deep black. Some modern black paints appear to have a brown hue when compared to the original. Good Luck-
The early lacquers from the 20s were Nitrocellulose lacquers I believe that is the difference in the luster of an antique auto and a modern paint job. Years ago there were suppliers for this paint for the Pebble beach crowd. I don't know if it is still available or not. I think luster is a good description as apposed to the modern BCCCs that are polished to look like glass. Acrylic lacquers came along in the 50s. I remember reading in the little books about 10 coats of hand rubbed lacquer on the customs with the more coats the better. I think that was probably the acrylic lacquer.
Back in the late 50s my friend Dick Valenzeula painted his deuce in his driveway with black nitrocellulose lacquer. The finish has some shrinkage cracks here and there. But the paint still polishes up nicely.
Bill Hirsch has nitrocellulose lacquer in black. $85 a gallon. http://www.hirschauto.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NITL-GAL
Model A's were painted with "pyroxilin" (sic) [per the 1930 Ford SaleFax book at http://idisk.mac.com/forever4/Public/pages/fordsalesfax.htm]. Pyrolxylin can be either enamel or lacquer, but at least in 1926-27 Ford's version was enamel. I presume it was enamel on the Model A's, but I can't verify that.
I used single stage Sherwin Williams on my coupe. Sanded and buffed, it is often mistaken for lacquer, plus, it's real simple to touch up.
I believe you're correct...I always heard that the earliest lacquers were nitrocellulose lacquers also...Here in NorCal, the AQMB would have a freakin' fit if they found someone spraying lacquer!!...something about VOC's??? (go figure...) But nothing beat Duracryl for the "lacquer look"...can't get it in Ca. anymore, but they still make it, I did see some a bodyshop in Southeast Asia a few years ago...
The paint was a nitro celulose base type paint. It was hard as a rock and tough as nails. The Gilsonite was a form of this base mix. If you can find a paint shop that can still mix up old style acrylic enamel with polysol hardner this is real close to the toughness and sheen quality.
My Galaxie is currently in PPG 9700 black. Won't be using it for the repaint, it has too much brown in it for me.
Lacquer wasn't invented yet when T's were still in production, that's a late 30's-early 40's thing. GM used lacquer up into the 80's. Just thought I'd put that out there.
Maybe Mark can help he has worked with it. http://woodgraining.com/flash/merc.html I did some Pianos and thought it to be really a soft paint to work with easy to buff. Wet sand with Kerosene I was told? but I did not do that when I was doing the Steinway C-grands . I can't remember, to keep from plugging the sand paper maybe? Jdee
duracryl was ppg's acrylic laquer......not bad stuff. i was always told the early fords were painted with a varnish baesd paint with lamp black......they had to be had rubbed with pumice between coats, which is where that "hand rubbed between coats" discription comes from when any custom paint job is descibed. as any painter can tell ya, paint is not rubbed between coats, only when completed. as for the lamp black and varnish story, i wasnt there, so i dont know what they used, but i did see photos of hundreds of cars lined up and drying in a ford lot, waiting for the next hit of paint. caption said it took henry a month to paint a car. regardless of how they painted them then, id get a good quality single stage and paint it. i ve been painting long enough to remember both nitrocellulose and acrylic laquers, and can gurantee ya that the single stage urethane or enamel is gonna last way longer. nitro based stuff buffs up to the best finish ever, but the durability is nil compared to modern paint systems. laquer just dries, catylised paints become a 3rd compound and are much more durable. skull
some one said the the early ford enamel was an alkyd enamel, which if i remember is what One Shot is. anyone every tried to thin down and spray one shot?
Hey Guys, First time poster on here, but have been through some '20's vintage cars and paint. I have seen original ford A paint in both enamel and lacquer (nitrocellulose) form. The enamel being of the "synthetic enamel" or modified alkyd enamel family. It seems ford liked to flip flop to whatever was cheaper for a given year, month, or day. Enamel was a time consuming, yet high quality process found on many of the higher end cars of the '20's and '30's, literally taking weeks to do well, but being more durable in the end. So how can you duplicate that finish now? Guess what, you dont have to, its still made! The aviation community has been using the same materials from about 1920 to present, with synthetic enamels still being available. Check out www.polyfiber.com. The product called poly-tone resembles the old NC lacquer quite well, and the enamel is the same material as it was in the 1920's. Next best I have seen is a 2k acrylic enamel, wet sanded and rubbed out with no clear.
Without getting too long winded my research shows that Henry Ford when he finally got serious about building cars for the public in 1903 used Ditzler paints. The two Ditzler brothers, Fred and Peter had worked for various carriage makers involved in the paint process of these carriages. They struck out on their own in 1902 and made paint for various carriage manufacturers. Their first auto customer I believe was Cadillac in 1902 (bodies built by CJ Wilson Co.). Shorlty thereafter in 1903 they also sold paints to Ford (Ford Motor Co started prodcution in March of 1903)and the Ford bodies were also Wilson bodies. In fact the 1903 Cadillacs were called Model A and the 1903 Fords were also called Model A. The bodies were virtually identical (some of the inner sturcture was a bit different but on the outside very similar)and built by Wilson who had leased space earlier from The Henry Ford Co (the name Henry Ford Co. was changed to Cadillac Motor Car in the autumn of 1902) and Wilson continued to lease space temporarily from Cadillac. If you were to research the Leland Archives you would find CB Owen wrote down about the painting procedure (for what I believe is the period around 1907/1908 at Cadillac Motor). " The bodies are received with one coat of filler or 'rough stuff' on, after which they receive fifteen more coats of filler, color and varnish before they are complete....The fenders, hoods, radiator jackets, lamp brackets etc are all enamelled and baked in four large steam heated ovens, any of which are large enough to bake a complete chassis if desired. Small parts are dipped while the hoods etc are enamalled by hand brush work and sand papered down between the four coats of enamel." The development of nitrocellulose did not result in a usable product I believe until the mid twenties which allowed the use of spray equipment which really sped things up. The Ditzler brothers played with mixing paint from India enamel and then Jap enamels. The India referred to the use of lamp black from india ink I believe and the jap enamel I believe referred to the use of Japanese colors that they used as the pigments for improved enamel. I believe the black paint that Ford used was jap black enamel and that he did use it because the pigment base dried faster than the other colors. Ford was a time study guy and owed his fortune to it. This is a guy who ordered his engines from the Dodge Brothers and each engine had to be shipped in a separate wood crate. Each crate had to be made to a very exact spec and the crates were disassembled and were then used to make the floor boards for his production cars. Time was of the essence in building the Model Ts. He learned from building his Model Ks that nice large cars looked nice but made him little money comparatively speaking-Jim
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