Painting a 1920's Touring car

[scott12180]

Hi All ---  I'm curious as to the feasibility of painting or repainting a 1920's touring car, a big  car like a Cadillac.  It's a car that I'd like to buy.

 

The car is in good presentable shape with an older paint which is probably lacquer as a guess.  The problem is that it was painted in not the most complimentary color scheme.  If it were darker, like a dark green and black fenders, I think it would look a whole  lot better, at least to me.  So two questions:

 

 1)  Can this be done reasonably well by somehow prepping, sealing and painting over the existing paint?  Or does the car really need to be taken down to bare metal?  The idea is to not have a ton of money into the project, if possible.

2)  If you do need to strip it bare and start from the ground up, any guesses what the cost would be these days?  I've had this done on a few cars but the last time was 1987, so the world has changed a bit since then.

 

Thanks for any advice. 

[Rusty_OToole]

It's all according. If the paint is in good condition, not cracking or peeling should be no problem painting over it. You do not need to strip it in most cases.

 

I don't know about prices these days but at a venture I would say $5000. It may be possible to reduce this by doing some of the work such as removing parts that will not be painted or painted separately.

 

This is for an ordinary driver quality paint job. If you want a show winning restoration that is a completely different story.

 

You might also consider painting it yourself with a brush as was done when your car was new. There are companies that sell the old fashioned brush paint for cars and the correct brushes. This requires a lot of hand labor for sanding, painting, and sanding between coats but it is possible to do an excellent authentic job for a few hundred instead of a few thousand dollars.

[Rusty_OToole]

Some information on traditional coachpainting

http://coachpainting.info/

[vermontboy]

Wheel Horse owners have done an excellent job with tractor paints and a mini-roller (and multi coats sanding between coats). Read and experiment on cheap flea market finds. Nothing to lose.

[Rusty_OToole]

There are paints made for this kind of work including traditional coach paints (recommended) yacht paint and some auto paints. The difference in material cost for good paint over cheap paint would be less than $100. Well worth it. For brushes, sandpaper, masking tape, thinners, etc plus paint probably no more than $300 even for a large car.

 

The secret is to build up thin coats of paint and wet sand after every second coat. Finishing up by polishing and waxing. It is possible to get an excellent finish in this way. It will not work with metallics but you don't want metallic paint on that kind of car anyway.

 

It might be best to practice on a smaller object like the shop fridge until you get the knack. Or maybe get an old fender from a body shop junk pile.

[Restorer32]

It all depends on what you are looking for. If you just want to change the color and make it look a little better then the above advice is ok. If you want a quality paint job using modern materials that will last and is of even minimal show quality that's another story. No reputable restoration shop would paint your car without stripping it down to bare metal. To do a quality job a shop would remove the fenders, doors, hood, running boards etc. and paint those separately. In today's world just the materials cost to do a show quality job would approach $3000. To disassemble the car, do the body and paint work and reassemble the car figure $12,000 to $20,000 depending on the size of the car and whether one color or two. I doubt many, if any, large cars were being brush painted at the factory by the 1920's.

[Larry Schramm]

It never seems to amaze me the cost of materials to repaint a car today. 

[Restorer32]

Good quality PPG paint is now $400+/gal. We recently paid $950 for a gallon of original color red for a 1960's car we repainted.

[scott12180]

What kind of paint is used these days?  Say, to paint something like a 1920's car. 

I assume lacquer is no more.  Are acrylic enamels still used?  Or is it all base coat-clear coat?

[JV Puleo]

Lacquer is still available. I know Bill Hirsch sells it probably others as well. I'll be painting the car I'm working on now in the future and plan to use it... I've no interest in a "show" paint job, have used it successfully in the past (and still have the proper equipment) and can't possibly afford the prices that are so frequently bandied about here. I might even look into coach painting as it is a brass car and that is how they were originally done. I tried it once many years ago with fairly poor results but I now realize that I was using completely incorrect materials. I don't think spray lacquer was even invented until the mid- to late 20s so an teens or early 20s car was probably brush painted to begin with.

[JACK M]

When I paint the race cars I use cheap industrial enamel. Affordable and durable. And doesn't look to bad most of the time.

[Restorer32]

It all comes down to what level of quality you are satisfied with. The nicer the nice the higher the price. Folks love to say "they were never that nice from new". In many cases, yes they were.

[28 Chrysler]

The Color Library has both acrylic enamel and lacquer in almost any color.

Both are easy to work with  and will work on top of the paint that is on the car, if it is in fairly good shape.

[Larry Schramm]

The Color Library has both acrylic enamel and lacquer in almost any color.

Both are easy to work with  and will work on top of the paint that is on the car, if it is in fairly good shape.

 

From my experience, you can paint either lacquer or enamel over original baked on paint.

 

But  from my experience if the car has had a repaint you can paint enamel over lacquer but can not paint lacquer over a repaint enamel.

[Rusty_OToole]

It all depends on what you are looking for. If you just want to change the color and make it look a little better then the above advice is ok. If you want a quality paint job using modern materials that will last and is of even minimal show quality that's another story. No reputable restoration shop would paint your car without stripping it down to bare metal. To do a quality job a shop would remove the fenders, doors, hood, running boards etc. and paint those separately. In today's world just the materials cost to do a show quality job would approach $3000. To disassemble the car, do the body and paint work and reassemble the car figure $12,000 to $20,000 depending on the size of the car and whether one color or two. I doubt many, if any, large cars were being brush painted at the factory by the 1920's.

This brings up an interesting question. How were cars painted at the factory in the twenties? Ford used a low pressure spray system and the kind of cheap quick drying black paint usually used only on chassis and fenders. He did this to reduce costs and speed up production. The usual method of painting at the time was to build up coat after coat brushed on by hand. Is this how more expensive cars were done by the factory?

 

Custom bodied cars were definitely brush painted with coach paint in the twenties. The first modern spray lacquer was introduced by DuPont in 1925 or 1926 and was used on Oakland. In the US, almost all body shops had the new spray equipment by the mid to late thirties but in England and Australia the old fashioned coach painting survived into the fifties. Morgan brush painted some of their new cars in the 70s possibly later.

 

If you are not dealing with metallics it is possible to do just as good a job with a brush as with spray paint. The final finish is wet sanded and polished so it makes no difference how it is applied. A 1920 car being repainted when it was a late model used car would most likely have been brush painted.

 

We are not talking about using leftover house paint and a roller. We are talking about the kind of finish many cars had from the factory prior to the introduction of nitrocellulose lacquer in the late 20s.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[scott12180]

>>We are not talking about using leftover house paint and a roller. We are talking about the kind of finish many cars had from the factory prior to the introduction of nitrocellulose lacquer in the late 20s.

 

So good point ---- suppose someone did want to try to replicate the brushed-on paint of the pre-lacquer days.  Brush on, wet sand, second coat, etc, then wet sand and polish.   What kind of paint would you use for this?

[Rusty_OToole]

>>We are not talking about using leftover house paint and a roller. We are talking about the kind of finish many cars had from the factory prior to the introduction of nitrocellulose lacquer in the late 20s.

 

So good point ---- suppose someone did want to try to replicate the brushed-on paint of the pre-lacquer days.  Brush on, wet sand, second coat, etc, then wet sand and polish.   What kind of paint would you use for this?

I thought I answered that above. A quick search for 'coach paint for cars' got 5,860,000 results. Here are a few from the first page.

 

http://coachpainting.info/

 

http://www.fiennes.co.uk/Restoration/Coachwork-Coachbuilding/Coachbuilding/Coach-painting

 

http://www.craftmasterpaints.co.uk/

 

https://www.paintman.co.uk/

 

I know nothing about these sites except they popped up in a GOOGLE search. They all happen to be English because that is where they do the traditional painting.

 

A few years ago there was a fad of painting cars and hot rods by hand with Tremclad or Rustoleum enamel. These are cheap paints better avoided. There are yacht paints and boat paints made to be applied by brush or roller, weatherproof and salt water proof as used on millionaire's yachts. And there are traditional coach paints. And you can buy automotive enamel from you local auto parts store that can be applied by brush.

 

There are plenty of videos on Youtube showing hand painted cars. Most of them cheap used cars. But, the owners got amazing results at a low cost for materials by doing a lot of hand work themselves.

 

It might take 2 weeks of spare time work to sand, paint and polish a car like your Cadillac. But if you can save $20,000 and end up with an authentic finish that will last at least 20 years, I leave it up to you if it is worth it.

[Rusty_OToole]

If you are wondering how authentic a brush paint job is on your twenties car I give you the Do It Yourself Dude. Painting his 9 liter Renault 40CV while dressed in white shirt, ascot, knee pants and puttees.

[Durant Mike]

I have a copy of a 1923 silent film of the assembly line of the 1923 Star's that were made by Durant Motors Inc. It's from the Leaside, Toronto, Canada plant. It shows the touring car bodies being painted via what looks like a garden hose. The painter is just letting the paint flow down the side and into the trough at the bottom under the line, maybe to be recycled. No OSHA there for sure back in those days. It's amazing to watch, had to be runs and thin spots in the paint when done. 

[Guest]

It all depends on what you are looking for. If you just want to change the color and make it look a little better then the above advice is ok. If you want a quality paint job using modern materials that will last and is of even minimal show quality that's another story. No reputable restoration shop would paint your car without stripping it down to bare metal. To do a quality job a shop would remove the fenders, doors, hood, running boards etc. and paint those separately. In today's world just the materials cost to do a show quality job would approach $3000. To disassemble the car, do the body and paint work and reassemble the car figure $12,000 to $20,000 depending on the size of the car and whether one color or two. I doubt many, if any, large cars were being brush painted at the factory by the 1920's.

This advice from a pro is right on target. I am currently restoring a 31 Cadillac convertible coupe. Quality materials (PPG and some Omni) have exceeded $3500, and I am paying for them directly at the paint store and am getting a discount, so these prices are not the result of being shafted by a middle man. This ain't my first rodeo either. I have a friend who is a professional body man and is working on the car full time 9-5. His bill will be less than that charged by a big shop, but the process has to be just as outlined by Restorer 32, or you are just wasting time, materials and money. The car must be disassembled and stripped bare to get a top notch job. Whenever you strip a car, there will be issues, no matter how good it looks prior to stripping. Those issues will eventually come to the surface if not dealt with to start with.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Guest (see edit history)

[MochetVelo]

Here's the Ford Model T paint line. The paint was "hosed" on at very low pressure. The paint came from a tank above and was recirculated. It was also brushed to remove (most) runs. This method had the drawback of apply a thinner coating at the top of a panel as the paint ran downward. They got a nice shiny finish, however.

 

[Restorer32]

And notice it was done without taping up the upholstery!