Chris_V said:frenchyd said:In reply to Chris_V :
I can walk into any big box store and grab a can of Lacquer thinner off the shelf. You can also buy rattle cans of lacquer. You can go to good wood working stores and buy gallons of Lacquer for wood. But yes I do have to buy automotive lacquer paint on line. There are both cheap Lacquers and good (expensive ) lacquers like Ditzler's. I really like their double deep black.
You mention bigger droplets. Well, they will fall to ground faster than the finer droplets of your Two parts ( usually mixed with a form of cyanide or Arsenic as the hardener ( read the ingredients to confirm)To spray those two parts you are supposed to suit up and have fresh air supply along with the air pressure for the hose. ( in other Words don't breath any contaminated air).
While I like to spray outside in the middle of my driveway. ( less prep) I put something down on the ground within a few feet of the car. Careful to spray on a calm day and any paint falls to the ground on that covering. There a 3M dust mask N95 is all the protection I need. I'm trying to remember how many cars I've painted, 4 MG's 3 Jaguars ( 4 when I do my XJS ) two Morris, 1 Corvette, a Lotus 11, the DeMar,
The only one I ever hard trouble with was Emron painted Corvette ( 2 part ). The instructions never said anything about the dangers, just how good a two part was. Yes, It was a good paint job. But I was down for more than a week with the repercussions of spraying that stuff. For more than 10 years I couldn't go anywhere near a paint booth. Just the slightest whiff of fumes would have me wheezing and sick.
When I spot touched stone chips on my Black Jack almost 14 years later was the first time I painted since the Emron and that never affected me in the least.First off, it's DuPont Imron, not Emron, and it's a special type of enamel that only DuPont makes. I've used it before in industrial use and fleet use. It stands up to just about any chemical you can throw at it, but it's not really a good choice for auto body paint. And yes, it can be quite toxic, especially if you are using a standard spray gun to paint with because half of what you are spraying ends up in the air around you and not on the car. Ditzler is PPG and I used to be an authorized distributor for their lines of automotive paints, from lacquers to enamels to urethanes. (the Ditzler acrylic lacquer used to be one of the cheaper paints available in their line. Now Ditzler basic black acrylic lacquer is over $600 a gallon IF you can find it. And many places won't allow you to spray it due to EPA regulations).
I've been doing automotive paint and bodywork for 40+ years (and painted hundreds of cars, in my pro paint booth back in the day and my garage at home), and know what the chemicals are, what the various manufacturers make, how to use them, and why you can't get some of them for regular automotive use, etc. The toluene in the lacquers have been bad juju for years. Some of the urethanes use hardeners AND reducers, some basecoats only use reducers, and some of the water borne urethanes are ready to spray right out of the can. I use a simple dual filter N95 respirator and never encountered any problems in those 40+ years of spraying automotive paints. Yes, the SataJet pro HVLP gun has a lot to do with that, as 90% of the paint makes it onto the car (and as a bonus, I can mix and use less paint to get the same coverage as a standard spray gun). Don't even get any odor out of the garage and into the house (which my wife is quite happy about)
Lacquer was great back in the day because it was easy to spray, easy to layer in candy jobs, and no matter what the crap was you got in, on, or around the paint, you could easily sand it and polish it out. BUT, being solvent borne, it also was susceptible to any solvents that came near it, like gasoline or brake fluid. Both of which will damage the hell out of a lacquer paint job. Cheap Maaco paint is made from Alkyd enamels and are quick to dry, but can't be recoated later without the possibility of lifting and crazing. Modern urethanes dry faster than lacquers, stand up to chemicals way better, are just as easy to sand and polish AND last longer with less upkeep. And no need for 20 coats of paint to get enough on there to not polish through but also end up with thick, inflexible, cracking and crazing paint that stands the risk of solvent popping in temperature extremes.
Last time I saw a rustoleum roller paint job done, it looked decent when it was sanded and polished, but if you nicked a spot on it, you could then peel it off in huge sheets, like plastidip.
Thank you for the correction. Imron not Emron. I still hated the after effects. I remember when the rep was in the paint supply store telling me all the great things about it and how to use it. He didn't say one word about extra protection or that my 3M N95 wasn't good enough. He said that I shouldn't paint my 64 Corvette lacquer because it would crack.
Well if some painters were painting 20 coats I can understand. I never painted more than 5 and the last two were always wash coats. lacquer thinner, basically to clean the gun.
I'm glad you agree with me how easy it is to paint with Lacquer. I used to say you could paint Lacquer in a wind storm with a broom and win awards.
I wasn't aware of toluene in Lacquer. Is it in the pigment or the lacquer thinner? Why if it's so bad can you still buy rattle cans anywhere and same with the thinner?
I have priced Ditzler's Double deep black and it's a pity it's so expensive. Is that because of so little demand? Are some of those cheap Lacquers made in China?
My DeVilbus paint gun and Snap On paint gun have a really beautiful pattern and control. While the cheap HVLP gun I own seem to have more overspray and far less controlled pattern. Both types seem capable of spraying Lacquer.
I have an old crude Sears gun I got with a compressor . I use for high build primer and Gel coat application making molds and fiberglass parts.
