4 Color Coats vs Base Color and Clear

[RonB]

I was talking with a fellow that does brass ere restoration. He has been doing this for the past 28 plus years.

He stated the he now use exclusive Glasuit paint. and does 4 coats with no clear. The reason being that when you use a clear coat it is to [shinny]. It not like the old original finish that came out of the factory. After painting, he lets the care sit for 30 days to harden up and buff it out to a gorges shine.

On the open house I asked him what paint he was using. He said that PPG was his old paint. He switched over because it just did not harden up even after a year, it was still soft and had to be buffed out every year.
This is the reason  he went with Glasuit.

He has done many fine automobiles and has several at all of the major concourse by his clients. By the way he is looking for a restoration tech. I believe there is a staff of 8 techs.

This discussion all started because I am doing a full repaint and was wondering about the best paint process. The cars of our time where done with no clear coat. I know it would bring up the cost - but it would look like cars when they came out of the factory and not be over shinny.

What your thoughts?
 

[DaveB]

I guess he's probably using the Glasurit 22 single-stage paint, which is a different formula to the base paint of a color/clear system. Single-stage is less shiny and more authentic. Personally I prefer it, particularly on the solid colours.

[George Des]

Not sure what type PPG paint he was using, but I suspect it was an acrylic enamel and not the polyurethane like PPG Concept that uses a polyisocyanate hardener. I used PPG single stage Concept on my 230Sl, and I can tell you that it was hard enough to color sand and buff within 24 hours. The 22 line Glasurit is similar to the Concept paint using the same process to chemically cross link and harden the paint so that it can be color sanded and buffed the next day. With a two stage process i.e. Base coat/clear coat, typically an acylic base coat is used to color the car. This coat does not contain a hardener and is very similar in application to a lacquer paint in that it dries quickly to a matte finish. The gloss is obtained by overspraying this base coat with a clear coat that contains a hardener so that it can be color sanded and buffed. Done properly a base/ clear job can look almost like the single stage job.

[George Des]

Most MB of the era our cars were made were sprayed with a single stage synthetic enamel that was baked in order to dry it and allow it to flow out and provide gloss. Synthetic enamel is an air drying paint and normally can not be color sanded unless a hardener is added to it. Consequently, it is a paint that normally has some degree of orange peel in it after it dries. This or age peel is typically what distinguishes the finish on our cars from those on modern cars. The newer technology paints like The Glasurit 22 line and PPG Concept can both be applied as single stage or base/clear finishes and then color sanded and buffed. They can be made to almost duplicate the original synthetic finishes by varying the degree of color sanding and buffing to allow a degree of orange peel to remain in the final finish. Much of this depends upon the skill and experience of the painter.