10 Things You Need To Know About Paint

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Chapter 1

A Quick History On Paint

Painters Tip:

Paint colour will not affect the value of a car. It can however affect the ability to sell the car if the colour is only pleasing to you.

It’s important to understand the different types of paint that are available because more often than not it is best to match the chemical makeup of the paint that is on your car. It can be difficult to determine what paint is on the car if it has a history of accidents or repaints, but the era of your car can be a guide.

Originally, vehicles underwent  japanning and not paintwork as we conventionally know it today. Japan Black was the standard paint colour used by all vehicle manufactures because it took only 48 hours to cure per coat. With coloured Japanning, a vehicle would take up to 14 days per coat to dry. With 3 coats it would take 6 weeks alone just to paint a car in colour. This is the main reason that Henry Ford was famously known for saying The customer can have any colour they want, so long as it is black.

In the early 1920’s an accident at a Dupont factory lead to the creation of a magnificent new paint that took only a few minutes per coat to dry, Nitrocellulose lacquer. Dupont was the major manufacturer of cellulose film used in cameras, projectors and early video. The story goes that one weekend an employee carelessly left a barrel of cellulose film outside over the weekend. As the barrel baked in the sun the film dissolved into a stew of lost product, and the results of such carelessness lead to the discovery of a new quick drying laquer that could be made in a variety of colours. It’s unknown if this story is factually true or just a tall tale, but Dupont did discover nitrocellulose lacquer in the 1920’s and it changed how cars were painted from that moment on.

Nitro lacquer was much thinner than it’s counterpart Japan Black, which made it a pain to apply using a brush, as that was the standard method back then. Dupont needed a more practical method for applying the Nitro lacquer, so they began engineering an air powered paint gun to atomize and spray the new paint onto its target and in doing so created the worlds first Paint Gun. It’s design has evolved and become more efficient, allowing you to adjust the spray pattern for the type of paint, paint job or circumstances, but the basic premise of the spray gun hasn’t really changed since the 20’s.

In the 1950’s Dupont once again made a quantum leap in the realm of lacquer. Although Nitro lacquer was now the standard, durability was a major issue as the lacquer would continue to dry and shrink over time causing paint chips to fall off the car. DuPont believed there had to be a way to make a more durable and quick drying type of paint, and so became, acrylic lacquer.

Like any other acrylic, it’s