MTFCA Forum

... or maybe they mix too well.

I laid a sweaty shirt on this fender and made the mistake of leaving it there too long.

I got more than just a ring around the collar.

How old is the lacquer, or should I ask how old is the sweat?

Oh gosh Mr Jelf! A sweaty shirt did that!

Your new laundry soap and dryer sheets are deadly to old paint!

Just Sayin'

Maybe you need to change your diet

Watch out Mr Jelf,
If you get any calls from Zip Strip call an attorney!

Steve I know your thrifty but stop useing water colors to paint T parts!

Aerosol shaker can lacquer or professional spray gun lacquer? I would not be surprised if this happened with shaker can lacquer, but I would be very surprised if it happened with professional spray gun lacquer, which is very hard and durable. Are you absolutely sure it is lacquer and not enamel and is it possible the shirt had some lacquer thinner on it? Jim Patrick

I think Steve would have known if he was wearing it being sweating if it had lacquer thinner on it! That crap burns!

Body salt in the sweat....

Hmm, this reminds me of a mystery we had back in the days when I worked on RR & the like. The owner had a nice Bentley sedan that was painted in lacquer many, many years before, a nice dark blue. In some areas the finish looked "alligatored" just lightly. Easily polished out to a nice smooth finish--but, a few months later, the "alligatoring" re-appeared. Never did figure out what/why. The finish was at least a decade old, so shrinking/drying shouldn't have been an issue. Never have found out what was going on there, even after consulting paint reps.

We had another mystery, but it was solved. Most of these cars are aluminum-skinned. One had been repaired with an aluminum 'brazing" rod. The repair looked successful, so the car was painted. A few weeks later, bubbles under the paint at the repair spot. Grind out, re-do, meticulous cleaning, and BUBBLES again! Finally contacted the brazing rod manufacturer who informed us that it was engineered for a bare-metal finish, not for a painted finish. Would have been nice if that information had been in the MSDS information!

I would find a new supplier for my corn whiskey.

Are you absolutely sure it is lacquer and not enamel...

Pretty sure. It's soluble in lacquer thinner. I have no clue what kind. It was done decades before I got the car.

You need to bottle that sweat and sell as an organic paint remover

It could be enamel. Enamel and lacquer are both softened by lacquer thinner. Jim Patrick

Not sure exactly what paint may have been used on Steve's T but if the T was left out in the sun on a hot day ( was it Steve?) and the paint is Acrylic Lacquer, what has happened is the lacquer has softened from the heat becoming so soft it has glued into the shirt fabric. Using heat is the normal test to determine if the lacquer is Nitro Cellulose Lacquer or Acrylic Lacquer. To test for Acrylic a painter used to strike a match, blow it out and immediately place the match head onto the lacquer if it stuck onto the paint it was acrylic,( in a place suitable and non damaging to the main paint area). No sticking it was NC lacquer. I would bet this is an Acrylic Lacquer from PPG which came to Australia and was very prone to such problems when used in the 1960/70's. Here it was called Duracryl. Lacquers can be dissolved with a solvent and if let dry again will revert to solid, enamel will be softened BUT it destroys the paint film ( good method to strip it off)

For David Dewey, the Bentley was most likely painted in Nitro Cellulose lacquer ( especially if it was imported from England from the factory or repainted there) The primer used under the NC lacquer was a high filling product derived from an enamel, the combination of the two caused the NC lacquer to get what eventually ended up being "crows Feet" or cracking in a pattern due to the different expansion and contraction rates of the two coatings, one pulling against the other. This was common in Australia again due to the more severe summers we have in most of the country. In England the weather is much cooler. Rolls Royces and Bentleys here eventually arrived and were straight away sent to have the NC Lacquer from the factory removed and repainted in lacquer designed for Australian conditions, it saved lots of grief for the RR agents if the new owners never had their new RR paint fail withing 12 months and they then had to replace it under warranty.

Cured Lacquer will melt with lacquer thinner, cured Enamel will bubble up.

Hank

Steve, may you never sweat bullets! Cheers, Bill

Is it possible that the fender maybe got an occasional wind-driven spritzing with a tiny bit of gasoline from an incompletely sealed accessory gas can on the running board???

No, this was in the shop, not out in the sun.

I think the gasoline theory is extremely unlikely. When I travel there's a high enough pile of impedimenta that I think it would catch or deflect any such spray.

Hmmm, maybe something from the canvas then? I know new canvas has an oily stink to it.

Here’s another thought... Does the top touch the fender when it’s down? Maybe a reaction of the paint with a top treatment? Or maybe a reaction to the top material itself?

No, the top is nowhere close to the fenders when it's down. Dunno about the canvas.

Hi Steve

Just a long shot idea. Did you happen to be using any bug spray that day that might have ended up on your shirt?

I have had surprises with spray OFF mosquito bug spray. The solvent in it reacted with the lacquer on my car causing it to raise blisters if it wasn't wiped off quickly after an accidental overspray of OFF got on the car.

Really turned my crank that afternoon.

Drive Safe

Jeff
Nova Scotia

you need to bottle up your sweat and sell it for paint thinner or stripper!
Norm

I've heard about people drinking hand sanitizer to ward of the dreaded virus. Have you been doing that, Steve ?