1960 Corvette - How To Restore Single Stage Acrylic Lacquer Paint

[Mike Phillips]

1960 Corvette - How To Restore Single Stage Acrylic Lacquer Paint

We often see questions about how to work on older single stage paints like Lacquer paint, or which product to use on non-clearcoated single stage paint.

Hopefully this little write-up will share with you the products and techniques to safely work on single stage paints like the 20 year old acrylic lacquer finish on this restored 1960 Corvette.

First, when we arrived and looked at this car while it was parked in the garage, the finish looked really nice as does the overall car.





However, after asking the owner/restorer to drive the car out into the sun where we can better see a more accurate representation of the true condition of the paint, here's what our camera captures...

[Mike Phillips]

Here are some before and after pictures after applying one very well worked-in pass of M80 Speed Glaze on this single stage lacquer paint with no wax applied as of yet.

Before Side


After Side


We found that because the lacquer paint was fairly soft, it was easy to remove about 95% of all of the swirls and scratches using M80 Speed Glaze with Meguiar's W-8006 Foam Polishing Pad on the G100 at the 5.0 setting.

After machine cleaning and polishing the finish to perfection, (or close to it), we then apply two coats of NXT Tech Wax Liquid using a W-9006 Foam Finishing pad on the G100 at the 3.0 setting.

After both coats of wax had fully dried and the Swipe Test indicated the wax was ready to remove, we use a Meguiar's microfiber bonnet on a clean, dry W-7006 Foam Cutting pad to remove the wax. We then removed our painters tape and pulled the Corvette out into the sun for some after shots.

Finished off with two coats of NXT Tech Wax Liquid Applied by Machine

[SeabreezeDetailing]

Hey, Ill take one Mike!

Looks as if 80 is more versatile than I thought. Ill have to try this on the old F100! Thanks!

[Superior Shine]

Anybody else get a warm fuzzy feeling inside by looking at those after pics????

Awsome work Mike but I wound'nt expect any less from you.

[Electric Shepherd]

Mike, I've been loitering here for a while but had to register and say 'wow' to what you've done there. Outstanding!

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by Electric Shepherd
Mike, I've been loitering here for a while but had to register and say 'wow' to what you've done there. Outstanding!

Hi Electric Shepherd,

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

Thank you for the kind words, but it's really just a matter of,

• 1) Evaluate the surface
  2) Choose the right products
  3) Use good technique

These are the things all of our Meguiar's Instructor's teach here in the U.S. as well as other parts of the word. The thing to note is that the techniques Meguiar's teaches can be used with any companies products.

One thing that you always have to remember when working on lacquer paints is to,

"Always use the least aggressive product to get the job done"

These types of paints are soft when compared to most modern catalyzed paints and if you're not careful you could make a irreversible mistake.



The owner Steve is a super nice guy and it was a genuine pleasure to work on his car.

[Electric Shepherd]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
Hi Electric Shepherd,

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

Thanks Mike

These types of paints are soft when compared to most modern catalyzed paints and if you're not careful you could make a irreversible mistake.

Precisely why I'm in admiration, that took some care to get that result.

[Beercan31]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips


[/B]

Ok you got the best of me !

What is hanging out of the tail pipes?
Looks like socks.
But Why?

[gregcavi]

mike did you do an IPA swipe? I found last time when i used #80 all the swirls appeared again after IPA. car looks great but I just am wondering if the swirls are gone or hiddn?

Greg

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by Beercan31
Ok you got the best of me !

What is hanging out of the tail pipes?
Looks like socks. But Why?

Steve backs his Corvette into his garage, right up to the wall; when he does this, old Chevy engines tend to sputter a little black stuff out the tail pipes when you first start them up and as they are warming up. Steve places the socks over the tail pipe ends until he gets the car out of the garage and then takes them off.

The day we we're working on the car, because he wasn't really going anywhere, I said it would be okay to just leave them on... kind of adds to the story...

By the way, I've owned a lot of Chevy trucks and cars with Chevy engines and I can back him up on the sputtering a little black stuff out on start-up... even the 402 Big Block Chevy in my Drag boat would do this when it was brand new and down the road a few years. After I would start my engine and run it for a few minutes I would always have to wipe the back of the hull off...

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by gregcavi
mike did you do an IPA swipe? I found last time when i used #80 all the swirls appeared again after IPA. car looks great but I just am wondering if the swirls are gone or hidden?

Greg

Hi Greg,

When I'm working on a car like this, I adopt the mindset that it's my car, then I do everything to the paint that I would normally do if it truly were my car. With this in mind, I don't ever introduce or apply anything to the paint that isn't beneficial to the paint.

Isopropyl Alcohol isn't beneficial to the paint.

Years of polishing paint under great circumstances and under the worst circumstances helps you to develop a feel for how long to buff each square inch to achieve the desired goal.

The picture of the finish on the Pilot in this thread,

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8331

is the real deal. I really did swirl out the finish, I actually used a competitors compound (supposedly filler free), and machined cleaned the finish to test the product, it might have been filler free but it left the finish scoured and hazy. I let it go for a bout a week and when I could stand it no longer, I decided to restore the finish using M80 just as reflex regimen. Just by coincidence, the topic of fillers reared its head again thus I put the hood of the Pilot through the rigors I outlined in the above thread. After multiple chemical washes and the a detergent wash, the finish remained swirl free.

Now think about this for a second...

The finish on the Pilot is much harder than the finish on this 1960 Corvette, follow me? If the product and process I used on the Pilot yielded a finish free of defects, then don't you think it's safe to assume the same products, the same process and the same person using them on the softer paint could achieve the same end-results without have to introduce something to the finish that's not beneficial to the paint for the sole purpose of double checking against his experience?

Others can do it, but I make it a habit to never apply anything to the paint that's not beneficial to the paint or the process.

[Alex7938]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips

first off WOW

secondly, whats with the socks?

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by Alex7938
first off WOW

secondly, whats with the socks?

Check the last message on the bottom of the first page

[Beercan31]

or 4 posts back.


Hey Mike getting close to braking the 10000 mark.

[Alex7938]

that'll teach me to just look at the photos.