Did OEMs wet sand and buff paint?

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Hi Pete. My 65 will live a very sheltered life. Garage kept and driven on nice days. I feel comfortable that the single stage will last me a good long while. And if I screw up painting, it doesn't cost that much to sand and shoot it again.
 
Here's a 1950's Plymouth factory. Looks like they come out of the oven, and right back to the assembly line. No buffing. When a friend of mine was restoring his '68 Charger R/T, silver with red interior, that that color was buffed. Never heard of any others getting that treatment. Some cars got fender tags that said SPECIAL HANDLING and SPECIAL PAINT, and perhaps they would buff those, but that's speculation on my part.

[ame]https://youtu.be/b6L0ykX9lPU?t=19m4s[/ame]

When they switched to unibodies, they added the dip tanks for rust proofing. They don't show them getting painted, but still interesting to see how they were made.

[ame]https://youtu.be/OhEdi416JoI?t=7m53s[/ame]

Part II if you want to continue:
[ame]https://youtu.be/VFTZw63XuA0[/ame]

This is a GM plant from 1959. They used lacquer, from what I understand, and Mopar used acrylic enamel. Men painting with no respirators, and rolled up sleeves, day after day. Crazy. Perhaps this was just for the film.

[ame]https://youtu.be/ACWMbeXd31s?t=24m31s[/ame]
 
By the way, that car in my avatar is still wearing it's original 50 year old, single stage acrylic enamel paint, and besides the scratches she's accumulated, still looks great.



This is the only pic I have of my '69 Swinger with original paint, single stage acrylic enamel. The paint is thin on the edges, and faded a bit, but just a quick wax brings her back to life. No heavy buffing needed, or recommended at this point.

 
I've seen a "Y91" "show car finish" code on some '69 n up Fender Tags. It's not a common code - kind of rare actually. I think the Y91 "show car finish" denoted that the car received special paint prep and finish to really make that enamel shine - to possibly include cutting and buffing (but I'm not sure). I think that there were some other "Y" codes that covered special paint prep and finish but I can't think of them at the time.
 
MrJLR said:
I kinda doubt it.....
So how did Chrysler get decent paint jobs that had shine without the massive labor of wet sanding and buffing?

I'm a wanna be home painter in the not too distant future.....sorry if it's a dumb question!
Click to expand...

MrJLR

There are no dumb questions if you are attempting to learn.

I've been in every OEM assembly plant within NAFTA, a few in Europe, and one in Japan.

I'l try to answer your question with general statements:

When every OEM used single stage high bake enamels and lacquers any defects were sanded and entire panels or sides/tops repainted. No spot repairs were done. GM used lacquer paints and some repairs required wheel polishing in the assembly plant's final finish area.

I don't recall any Chrysler vehicles being wet sanded or polished at all in the 60's, 70' or 80's. Some show cars make have had a wheel polish but it wasn't the norm.

In fact; of all the OEM's Chrysler vehicles had the poorest overall paint quality of any OEM car manufacturer, up until just recently.

When the OEM's slowly switched to Base/ Clear in the early 90's there was a gradual evolution to finessing (wet sanding and polishing) but only on minor defects. If there was a major issue it was sand and repaint the panel or panels. Some spot repairs were done but only on lower areas.

The only plant I was ever in (1990's) that did a massive wet sand and polish was the Ford Wixom, MI plant. They had a line that was totally dedicated to this process. I was told this was done to combat orange peel on their flagship vehicles, meaning Lincolns.

BMW (Spartanburg SC) and Mercedes (Vance AL) did a lot of polishing on the sides of their vehicles in the 90's and early 2000's but don't do much today.


Today, the OEM paint processes are so fine tuned and the paint systems have been optimized greatly to the point where there isn't a lot of paint defects including orange peel and the ones that do get to the post paint finesse area are very small and easily finessed out. Spot repairs (blending) are common and very well done for the most part.

I hope this answers your question.

FYI - I wanted to be a "home painter" too when I was teenager. I don't paint much anymore but when I do I still get a little excited at the prospect of it.

To be a great spray painter it takes 95% desire and 5% learning. You're almost there.

Good luck with your hobby and take proper precautions when you are painting.


:glasses7:
 
sscuda said:
MrJLR

There are no dumb questions if you are attempting to learn.

I've been in every OEM assembly plant within NAFTA, a few in Europe, and one in Japan.

I'l try to answer your question with general statements:

When every OEM used single stage high bake enamels and lacquers any defects were sanded and entire panels or sides/tops repainted. No spot repairs were done. GM used lacquer paints and some repairs required wheel polishing in the assembly plant's final finish area.

I don't recall any Chrysler vehicles being wet sanded or polished at all in the 60's, 70' or 80's. Some show cars make have had a wheel polish but it wasn't the norm.

In fact; of all the OEM's Chrysler vehicles had the poorest overall paint quality of any OEM car manufacturer, up until just recently.

When the OEM's slowly switched to Base/ Clear in the early 90's there was a gradual evolution to finessing (wet sanding and polishing) but only on minor defects. If there was a major issue it was sand and repaint the panel or panels. Some spot repairs were done but only on lower areas.

The only plant I was ever in (1990's) that did a massive wet sand and polish was the Ford Wixom, MI plant. They had a line that was totally dedicated to this process. I was told this was done to combat orange peel on their flagship vehicles, meaning Lincolns.

BMW (Spartanburg SC) and Mercedes (Vance AL) did a lot of polishing on the sides of their vehicles in the 90's and early 2000's but don't do much today.


Today, the OEM paint processes are so fine tuned and the paint systems have been optimized greatly to the point where there isn't a lot of paint defects including orange peel and the ones that do get to the post paint finesse area are very small and easily finessed out. Spot repairs (blending) are common and very well done for the most part.

I hope this answers your question.

FYI - I wanted to be a "home painter" too when I was teenager. I don't paint much anymore but when I do I still get a little excited at the prospect of it.

To be a great spray painter it takes 95% desire and 5% learning. You're almost there.

Good luck with your hobby and take proper precautions when you are painting.


:glasses7:
Click to expand...


Wow! Thank you for that!
So I could achieve a close to OEM paint job with single stage and no clear...?
I guess it's fair to say they weren't really all that great back in the 60's!

I have the desire - working on a little skill and a lot of nerve!
 
Love those videos that 375 posted up! That "up from clay" video and the post by SS brings up an interesting point. A lot has been said of the evolution of the various types of paints used by the manufacturers over the years. The amazing thing is that "back in the day" those paints were layed on manually by a group of skilled painters in the spray booth line. I don't know when they switched over to the computer controlled robot arms spraying on the paint, but in all actuality, those guys spraying the paint on manually back in the day actually did pretty decent job compared to the modern computer controlled precision of the robot-arm.

I believe strongly that it's the guy spraying the paint that makes all the difference. A hack can spend a lot of money on the best paint available and still wind up with a paint job that looks like dog poop. Case in point, I have a bud who took his Challenger to MAACO (of all places) and had them shoot it with their "premium package" and it turned out amazingly well. I had an Astro van that I wanted painted, but was hesitant to do it myself cause I thought that I would need some kind of scaffolding or something to do the roof. So inspired by my friends good results with his Challenger, I took my van to the same MAACO and got the same "premium package" for my van. When I went to pick it up it looked absolutely heinous! Forget "orange peel" - my van had a "golf ball" finish to it and the paint looked dull and dead. They must of used a lightning fast reducer, cranked up the air pressure to the hilt and had their "rookie" painter shoot it to make that paint look as bad as it did. I couldn't believe that they even tried to get me to accept it like that and of course I didn't. It was the same paint and service as my friends Challenger but obviously a different crew that did the painting. The guy with the gun makes all the difference.

So if you want to be a future painter and not a "hack", start practicing now. Practice on stuff you don't really care about before you move to something that you do. I started out by going to a local body shop and asked about some damaged panels that they had in their scrap bin - and they gave them to me for free. I practiced on those panels until I was able to put down a pretty consistent finish before I moved on to my car. Practice makes perfect!
 
Thanks for the video, that was amazing how things were done during that time period. Awesome info.
 
MrJLR said:
Wow! Thank you for that!
So I could achieve a close to OEM paint job with single stage and no clear...?
I guess it's fair to say they weren't really all that great back in the 60's!

I have the desire - working on a little skill and a lot of nerve!
Click to expand...


MrJLB,

You are very welcome.

From the dawn of the car industry till the mid 80's OEM primers and paint was applied by hand, so yes you can easily achieve an OEM paint finish today. And no, paint jobs weren't that great back then. in fact they sucked compared today's paint jobs.

The "dipping" helped with corrosion but the OEM's lacked the experience to allow the corrosion products to get into all metal surfaces. Plus the corrosion material (technology) back then was nowhere near as effective as it is today.

Imagine a paint booth with 30 painters in it, all trying to paint cars at 62 jobs an hour without painting each other. It was like watching a Chinese fire-drill. I still laugh when I think about it.

In summary, OEM paint finishes were a learning experience for everyone. The government mandated better and better corrosion protection which helped speed things up. The consumer demanded better appearance. The environmentalists drove better paint technologies too, this waterborne paint systems. Application equipment was and still is evolving. OEM automotive paint chemistry will always evolve. You may see very soon powder top -coat paints , coil coatings, rust and stain resistant metals, in mold colored plastics used, and many more new alternate technologies in your lifetime.

And refinish paint products today have benefited from the OEM paint technology evolution.


:glasses7:
 
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