Acrylic enamel paint?

[victionone]

A car I was looking in is painted with acrylic enamel. What kind of paint is it and is it durable? Is it desired, or should I stay away?

[BA.]

I'm no painter but I did sleep at a Holiday Express the other night. :)

I think that Acrylic Enamel *used to be* the big deal over the lame enamel and standard laquer paint jobs many years ago. (like 20 yrs)

Then came Base-coat / Clearcoat for the masses and now it's the paint choice for the masses.

I've not heard anything negative about that type of paint. I don't think there's any reason to be worried about it's upkeep or durability.

Maybe you'll get lucky and get a more professional answer here than my lame experience.

[toxicz28]

What kind of paint is it ?

It's acrylic enamel. (single stage)
If it was prepped right, it'll be fine.

[hotrdblder]

not sure how prep will keep it from chaulking out and fading, then you buff it and it fades 3 weeks later, i would never use it on anything nice, maybe my dash board or firewall.....

[MonzaRacer]

Well as for straight enamel it wont really "shine up" like laquer or 2 stage. but it will live great if it well taken care of.
Good washes and waxes periodicly. IF it fades and you color sand and buff and it refades then its under nourished. My 77 Monza was old hardened synthetic enamel and it shined great when I cleaned it up but if it didnt get wax ofen it liked to start to fade and die some.
And it loved the meguires wax it woyuld suck up 3 waxings at a time then it was good for a week or two depending on the weather.
I gotto the point I just slathered wax on it and rubbed it in like soap and then wiped off the dust,,, never seen anythinghlike it but it was tough stuff and I intend to paint my current project with similar paint.
Can we say $100 paint job.
My buddy had a 73 Camaro drag car and he shot it with AC orange and hardner and it looked great even with scuffs and scrapes and rough body work or lack there of and shined up great evenwth no buffing it was super shiney.
prep is the key to a great paint job. A good painter can paint rustoleum and make it look great, been there and seen it. guy was supposed to be shipped paint for his flat bed wreacker and it never came in so he bought a gallon of black rustoleum and shot it,, it had to be out of the booth by monday and he figured a 4 day weekend was good enough for painting his truck.
I looked great and wa sdry enough to pull out monday morning and the cab still sits in the slavage yard looking great.
Also the chalking and fading wont start for several years and can be slowed dodwn by washing and waxing .

[Analog-kid]

These are recent pics. I painted mine around 1990 with Dupont acrylic enamel. Has held up pretty good over the years despite the inevitable battle scars. Only very light fading on my stripes. Will be re-painting with Base/Clear next time but the paint has held up well.

[MonzaRacer]

remeber unless its catylized 2 stage or actually sold as a urethane enamel its just a base/clear enamel.
The big trick with baseclear is that if your painter does it right its very easy to patch/fix.
when I helped afriend paint his car we got all the metal work done then we shot it with PPG DP74 epoxy primer, then we did all of the mud work needed, very little , straightening stuff, etc. then we shot it with another coat of epoxy primer then we used surfacer and sealer.
Then we got it all preped for the paint and set up his "booth" 2x4s and visqueen and mixed up the base and shot 2 nice coats of base then we wet sanded that and found a couple of high spots and then we shot another couple coats of base and let it tack then I mixed up a coat of color/clear 50/50 and shot 2 light coats of that then we laid on 2 coats of high solids clear.
it laid down smooth as glass and then we went to work giving it a the "{scuff and buff}" color sand then we buffed it good and then after it sat for a month we went over it with a perfect-it pad and polished it up and he got a very bad scratch 2 days before the first car show.
I went over and it wasnt down to the base or primer so I got out the extra clear (50/50 first) then the regualr clear. I had cleaned it with wax and greas remover and then lightly sanded the scratch (7 inches long) and smoothed out the edges. I broke out my air brush for this job but small sctratches can be fixed with touch up brushes.
I laid down the 50/50 then built it back up with the high solids clear. I had hit it with adhesion promoter first. After I built it up then I used a paint stick as a small flat board and sanded the high spot down then let it set over night and buffed it the next day and you cant see the fix.
The clear simply puts a barrier between the color and the atmosphere and most clear has UV blockers and such added.
Single stage simply has no need for the clear.
The big trick is proper prep and proper mixing .
Nothing wrong with enamel millions of cars have it.
Lee