Coating Single Stage Paint

[xabo]

Can a coating be used on single stage paint or is it a waste of product?

[02whitetundra]

I've used it on my single stage white without issues for about 3 years before polishing it off.

[DaveT435]

It's my understanding that it has to be a water based coating. I was told this by a rep with a coating company. He seemed to know his business, but I can't say it's fact.

[xabo]

My dad drives a cab and it is inspected by the DMV every year. Any oxidation of the paint will result in failure of inspection. The vehicle is painted with with single stage paint. Trying to come up with some type of protection that will last a year or two.

[Mike Phillips]

Can a coating be used on single stage paint or is it a waste of product?

Look for an article on this topic in the future, here's the nutshell version...


When working on MODERN single stage paint, like the single stage urethane paint used on some white Toyotas, then YES you can chemically strip this type of paint and apply a paint coating.


When working on OLD SCHOOL single stage paint like old lacquers and enamels used on cars before the 1980's then in my opinion you should NOT try to coat them BECAUSE these types of paints are easily dulled when wiped with solvents. Thus the chemical stripping step will likely dull the paint and this is called working backwards.


Of course you can certainly do a Chemical Stripping and Coating TEST SPOT on anything with old single stage paint and if it looks good then go with it...

[Mike Phillips]

And....

After typing a few key words into Google, here's my article on the topic of coating MODERN urethane single stage paint from 2013


Detailer’s Paint Coating on Single Stage Paint



Eric dampening a clean, dry gold Finger Pocket with Detailer’s Paint Coating




Gently applying the coating...




Glassy looking...

[Mike Phillips]

And if you're new to car detailing, the above pictures were actually taken from the below write-up I did back in 2013 and it is a VERY thorough and detailed write-up showing you step by step how to detail a car.

Because this old Ford has MODERN paint all the tools, pads, products and techniques I share in this write-up would apply to the Honda or Tesla sitting in your garage.


Rupes 21 & Flex 3401 Comparison + Detailer's Paint Coating


















And even more pictures in the write-up plus an unbiased review of FLEX vs RUPES (back in 2013)


Rupes 21 & Flex 3401 Comparison + Detailer's Paint Coating

[BillyJack]

This may or may not be relevant to your situation, but I'll pass it along FWIW. Back in 2009 I did a single-stage resto on the tired paint of my '87 El Camino, following the directions in Mike's iconic SS paint article. The roof was the worst having been painted with air-dried lacquer around 1992. You can see from this split-shot, taken when I was doing the #7 rubs:


After finishing the process, any gloss I had achieved diminished rapidly even though it's a garage queen.
I had some Opticoat handy, so I emailed Optimum about its suitability for single-stage lacquer. Dr. G replied that even though it wasn't formulated for SS paints, he saw no reason not to try it. I gave it a try and found it worked satisfactory. Longevity was not as good as the same coating applied to modern urethanes, but a heckuva lot better than every wax or sealant I had tried.

I'd certainly not do it on a vehicle with a true "show car" finish, but for your purposes it's worth trying, IMO.

Bill

[Paul A.]

I still maintain a rather short inventory of pure carnauba based waxes. I do not use anything but those on really old single stage paints.

Good question though and with all the coating rage lately I am curious to hear more of the science of that application.

[xabo]

Thanks for the replies...............looking forward to the article. Was 63 degrees today in D.C. Hit it with Rupes UHS system. Turned out "200 times better than it was before".....according to pops.