1950's finishes

[Plugger]

I'm surprised to see that a lot of the high-end 1950's style replicas are finished in nitro... weren't real 1950's Fender guitars actually finished in automotive paint?

-Mark

[LesPauloholic]

Yep....50's auto paint = nitro.

[Cogs]

Fender guitars were finished in both nitocellulose & acrylic lacquers. If you can find an old color chart you'll see the codes.
Here's a quote taken from THIS website:

Take the first color, Lake Placid Blue, for example. The paint type is "Lucite", which is DuPont's brand name for acrylic lacquer. The number, 2876L next to "Lucite", is the DuPont paint code identifying the paint formula for Lake Placid Blue (note some colors are "Duco", which is DuPont's brand name for their nitrocellulose lacquer).

If you bring the paint code 2876L to your local DuPont automotive paint dealer, you can identify which car originally used this color. In Lake Placid Blue's case, that would be a 1958 Cadillac color available in acrylic lacquer (Lucite).

But you say, "acrylic lacquer? I thought Fender used nitrocellulose lacquer?". Fender used both acrylic and nitrocellulose lacquer in the color coat. To understand why, we have to understand what the difference is between acrylic and nitrocellulose lacquer.

guitarHQ.com is a great resource!

[tuberattler]

I've painted many a guitar in Acrylic Laquer with excellent results. Usually automotive paint shops will mix you up any color you want in either areosol or solid paint you can put in your gun. (most body shops use AL for touch up paint anymore) I did the last few in areosol and with color sanding and clearcoats they turn out just fine..cans are almost $15 each now but that's still only about $45-$60 per guitar for me.

[Plugger]

Thanks for shedding some light on this for me, guys. I really had no idea they were still using nitro as a car finish as late as the 1950's... I thought that was strictly pre-WWII vintage car stuff.

-Mark

[LZ_69]

They never had anything better then lacquer, the enamels that they had in the late 50's would literally lose there gloss after a couple months.

[telecast]

Thanks for shedding some light on this for me, guys. I really had no idea they were still using nitro as a car finish as late as the 1950's... I thought that was strictly pre-WWII vintage car stuff.

-Mark

You're correct. Nitro lacquer isn't strong enough to use as an automotive paint, it moves around too much and flakes off. By the 50's, they had stopped using it and had moved to Acrylic lacquer, which is much more stable. 7181 put up the correct info, Fender used Acrylic and Nitro.