Most touch-up paint is acrylic lacquer. I bought acrylic lacquer from Stew-Mac and used it on my de-fretted bass. That allowed me to use undercoats of the same stuff. That was 20 years ago.
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anyone finish a bass using automotive lacquer?
- Thread starter bon viesta
- Start date
Better question, anybody finish a bass not using a lacquer developed for automotive? Ok, other than oil rubbed!
I'm thinking this could be a trick question. I don't know what to you qualifies. I've used plenty of clear and amber clear lacquer from suppliers oriented toward furniture and instrument/guitar finishing, but automotive companies in the '50s and '60s probably also applied clear lacquer top coats (not amber tinted, of course) on at least some of their lux vehicle models.
I used Rustoleum clear gloss lacquer as the final coat. Well, about five coats of it, actually. The color coats underneath were auto lacquer.
I don't know much about finishing, and since people who do, are looking at and responding to this thread, I wanna see if I'm close to understanding how this works.
Lacquer isn't actual lacquer anymore, but just a name that got attached to solvent based paints and clear coats?
So, just saying "lacquer" doesn't really tell you what the product is, other than it's solvent based, correct? Just like saying "pants" doesn't tell you what kind or what they're made of.
Isn't it more important to say what kind of "lacquer" it is, like acrylic, nitrocellulose, etc?
And am I correct in thinking that polyurethanes cure chemically and pretty much anything else that cures by evaporating it's solvents is called a lacquer?
And where does that leave water based products? They dry by evaporating their water content and leaving the solids behind, but is there still a chemical process that binds and melts the solids left behind? Wouldn't they also be considered a lacquer?
I'm just trying to understand all the designations and how these things operate. Also, what is a lacquer and what isn't because there's no actual lacquer in any of these products (or is there?)
Is it the solvents? The binders? The solids? The viscosity? The dry time? The sheen?
Is it anything that isn't an enamel or a urethane?
Lacquer isn't actual lacquer anymore, but just a name that got attached to solvent based paints and clear coats?
So, just saying "lacquer" doesn't really tell you what the product is, other than it's solvent based, correct? Just like saying "pants" doesn't tell you what kind or what they're made of.
Isn't it more important to say what kind of "lacquer" it is, like acrylic, nitrocellulose, etc?
And am I correct in thinking that polyurethanes cure chemically and pretty much anything else that cures by evaporating it's solvents is called a lacquer?
And where does that leave water based products? They dry by evaporating their water content and leaving the solids behind, but is there still a chemical process that binds and melts the solids left behind? Wouldn't they also be considered a lacquer?
I'm just trying to understand all the designations and how these things operate. Also, what is a lacquer and what isn't because there's no actual lacquer in any of these products (or is there?)
Is it the solvents? The binders? The solids? The viscosity? The dry time? The sheen?
Is it anything that isn't an enamel or a urethane?
I had one finished in shoreline gold at an automotive shop. The even contacted DuPont for the exact match.
Auto polyurethane is thicker and more forgiving to poor surface prep. Water based finished are very thin and telegraph much until they are built way up. What you say about surface prep is true and must be complete but auto poly is thick and can hide a lot.
They certainly were as of last November, essentially. Bill Lester was responding to email inquiries at that time though.
Maybe it's different over your side of the pond, but over here you can get water-based lacquer.
Water based "lacquer" is lacquer in name only. It isn't actually lacquer.
And @RichterScale, yes, there are still actual lacquers. They may have more plasticizers in them than they had in the 1950's and '60's, but yes they are actual nitrocellulose lacquer.
I think where the confusion is coming in is that "acrylic" lacquers are not true lacquers. I may be wrong about that, but that's my understanding.
I remember being a kid, (and that was in the late 70s/early 80s, so there were tons of different products) and hearing a lot of adults call everything shellac, or varnish.
I never bothered to educate myself on lacquer, but I always assumed it was a similar situation. Where, at one time, lacquer was actual lacquer and over time, people just called pretty much any clear coat "lacquer"
I never bothered to educate myself on lacquer, but I always assumed it was a similar situation. Where, at one time, lacquer was actual lacquer and over time, people just called pretty much any clear coat "lacquer"
I came across this product recently which seems to tick a lot of boxes, including the "burning in" quality of nitro.
EMTECH EM6000 WB Production Lacquer | Target Coatings
Not available over here unfortunately so I can't try it!
EMTECH EM6000 WB Production Lacquer | Target Coatings
Not available over here unfortunately so I can't try it!
There’s some discussion of the EM6000 lacquer in the water based finishes thread. Bruce doesn’t sound impressed.
