Paints: Acrylic, Enamel, Laquer (and a knife fight)

hogjowlz · Post by **hogjowlz** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 12:01 pm

did your clear coat bubble up on ya?? my shit does that all the time but if you wait a bit its fine dude.

SuperFly · Post by **SuperFly** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 1:53 pm

hogjowlz wrote:did your clear coat bubble up on ya?? my shit does that all the time but if you wait a bit its fine dude.

That's exactly what happened. Usually I use Future floor polish (which is an acrylic) over my enamel paint. Doing that requires 4 steps in cleaning/priming my airbrush (clean out the paint, run laquer thinner through it, let it dry really well, run some ammonia through it, spray Future, then do the whole process in reverse to get back to paint). Anyway, I was feeling kinda lazy and was at the store and saw "Krylon Crystal Clear" and thought I would try it since I clearcoat everything. I figured if it worked ok I could just use rattle cans for that step since I do it every time.

So yeah, that shit somehow got a million tiny bubbles in it. I panicked and put a second coat on about an hour or two later, and it didn't fix the problem. Two days later my beautiful car looked like it had a bad case of acne. All the bubbles had opened to the surface and they looked like craters. so I got out the wet sandpaper and went to work. With all those curved surfaces, the Beetle is the worst car ever to try to sand off a clearcoat without going through the paint on the corners. The thing that super-sucked was that the original red and ivory was smmmmoooooth as silk, one of the better paintjobs I've done.

With Future, if anything goes wrong with the clearcoat, you can fix it with a q-tip and a little ammonia, and it won't touch the paint. Anyway, lesson learned, stay away from rattle cans.

Post by **CaboWabo** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:32 pm

spray cans are easy to overspray clear coat.
it comes out so thick and if you spray it thin, it looks all bumpy, just gotta let it dry and do some more clear coating in small amounts to get rid of the bubbles.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 5:40 pm

Yep, Cabo pretty much nailed it, but that's why I like Duplicolor, and it's patented nozzle. I swear I used to be the worst painter ever, and that's the reason I can lay such even coats now.

Post by **CaboWabo** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 7:57 pm

we just gotta take the next step and go air-brush dude.
evolution calls for it.

DarkTari · Post by **DarkTari** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:42 pm

I used to use the Testors Clear Coat, that shit gives one hella shine but it takes almost 4 days before it cures completely. Then if you handle it a lot it'll start to get tacky. I bought some Rustolium Satin Laquer to do my Interior & Controller. THis stuff dries COMPLETELY in 5 minutes! Also picked up Rustolium Gloss Lacquer for the body. This dries COMPLETELY in 5 minutes also (1 coat). I've done 3-4 coats and it dried COMPLETELY in a few hours and gives a shine very comparable, if not better than the Testors

SuperFly · Post by **SuperFly** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:59 pm

DarkTari wrote:I used to use the Testors Clear Coat, that shit gives one hella shine but it takes almost 4 days before it cures completely. Then if you handle it a lot it'll start to get tacky. I bought some Rustolium Satin Laquer to do my Interior & Controller. THis stuff dries COMPLETELY in 5 minutes! Also picked up Rustolium Gloss Lacquer for the body. This dries COMPLETELY in 5 minutes also (1 coat). I've done 3-4 coats and it dried COMPLETELY in a few hours and gives a shine very comparable, if not better than the Testors

Are you painting with enamels or acrylics? I'm curious if what you lay it over affects how it performs.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:22 pm

SuperFly wrote:Are you painting with enamels or acrylics? I'm curious if what you lay it over affects how it performs.

Superfly, I'm not meaning to get on your case here, but you just touched on something that always just irks me. Mostly cause I feel like I'm the only one that understands this.

Enamels are Acrylic, Laquers available in Acrylic, and Nitrocellulose. Nitro laquers have not been widely used since the 60s, and today is only used in upper end furniture, and instrument building, and is very expensive. So the Laquers you find in the harware or automotive store are Acrylic.

So what you mean to say is, are you using enamel or laquer.

The difference being in the base. Which effect how it cures. Laquer is solvent based, and cures by evaporation. It dries to the touch very quick, but takes months to fully cure. Air flow will dry laquer fastest. Enamels are synthetic, and cure by oxidation. Heat helps cure enamel faster.

Sorry for the rant, now on with your coversation.

hue35 · Post by **hue35** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:41 pm

I assumed SuperFly meant water-based acrylic. So, are you saying enamel is a base and lacquer is a base? It seems to me that whenever people are talking about acrylic paint (and I mean, referring to it as "acrylic"), they're talking about water-based paint.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:48 pm

hue35 wrote:I assumed SuperFly meant water-based acrylic. So, are you saying enamel is a base and lacquer is a base? It seems to me that whenever people are talking about acrylic paint (and I mean, referring to it as "acrylic"), they're talking about water-based paint.

Shit man, I don't know the scientific terms. OK, Acrylic is the base in either case. the thing that I called base but is actually called something else is solvent, or synthetic.

That making sense? Popular Hotrodding on TV one Sunday, Explained it way better than the guitar forums do, I meant to write it down, but I was too busy watching. Anyways, go to reranch.com it's a guitar refinishing site, but search the forums, they'll learn ya good about paints.

I know what your talking about though, there that stuff we had in high school art class, it was a powder mixed with water, and everyone refer to that as acrylics. I'm thinking that's just Acrylic paint, and not Enamel, or laquer, but don't quote me on that.

hogjowlz · Post by **hogjowlz** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:55 pm

acrylic pretty much means plastic based right?

DarkTari · Post by **DarkTari** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:05 pm

SF, CrazyDave has a thing about lacquers & enamels. I first met Dave over on TRC when he and I went at it about this same subject (remember Dave

)

Anyways, the Testors are all Enamels (paints & clear). The Dupli-color auto paint I use doesn't say but I'm assuming it's enamel also. I've NEVER had the problem of bubbling like you mentioned before so I'm not sure of what caused it. I have an idea but don't want to fire Dave back up on this subject again

hogjowlz · Post by **hogjowlz** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:20 pm

clear coat bubbles on me quite often. i think it has to do with moisture in the air. but seriously thin coats and letting it dry long enough under a heat lamp even will smoov her out.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:24 pm

DarkTari wrote:SF, CrazyDave has a thing about lacquers & enamels. I first met Dave over on TRC when he and I went at it about this same subject (remember Dave )

Anyways, the Testors are all Enamels (paints & clear). The Dupli-color auto paint I use doesn't say but I'm assuming it's enamel also. I've NEVER had the problem of bubbling like you mentioned before so I'm not sure of what caused it. I have an idea but don't want to fire Dave back up on this subject again

Oh was that you? Which time?

Sorry it's such a sensitive subject with me. It's just that I feel like no one's listening sometimes, since I've gone off several times.

If everyones calling everything Acrylic, how we supposed to distinguish what they're talking about. You gotta know what I'm saying there.

Dupli-color is an Acrylic Laquer, its says somewhere on the label, "this is a laquer based product", but notice it does say laquer-based. That's why it's not reccomened to mix brands, besides types. They all have their own little formulas.

hogjowlz · Post by **hogjowlz** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:32 pm

trust me dave i listen to ya

you are forsure the definitive paint dude.