Painting A Corvette & Body Basics

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The same technique for painting a Corvette is the same as any other car material like steel, aluminum and will depend upon your choices of paint you are wanting to use. The choices of paint material is base Coat Clear coat or a solid color absent of the metallic. Using a good quality filling and leveling epoxy primer is a first step and preparing it for the paint. I have always been a fan of PpG's products and was certified with them in 1991.

Many of the new colors in the last 30 years were designed to be sprayed with the base coat color and then a window of clear applied over the top. The industry began this in the early 1980s after using lacquer paints for several decades, but lacquer has a draw back as I found out the hard way back then when it comes to the high metallic paints used today. Lacquer requires buffing and the right thinners depending upon the weather conditions. On a hot day, the slower the thinner and during winter months you would be required a faster drying thinner for Lacquer. On rainy days you would need a special added product to slow it even more to prevent moisture being trapped and turning white. The same holds true for the bc/cc paints also. Ask the paint store for recommendations concerning weather conditions.

With the new radiant metallic s. Buffing lacquer can cause swirls as the layers break away creating discoloration and this was one of the main reasons for a clear coat on top on the base coat. Clear coat is basically the same as the base coat, but absent of the pigment. However, the industry has changed and a urethane clear is usually the choice for many painters. Several years ago some of the clears that were being produced had a tendency to yellow after about 90 days and this always created bad feelings with the customers. Ouch!

That problem has been solved with today's new products. If you are going to paint a Corvette with a metallic then I recommend a bc/cc paint, but if it is a solid color for an original Corvette then a quality Urethane paint is one of the best to use. You can apply 3 good coats and then wait until the next day and re-sand and re coat or you can sand with 1000-2000 grit wet and dry sand paper followed by a good buffing to obtain a high gloss.

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