[CAUT] Plate refinishing

[Greg Granoff]

Hi Alan,
I've never seen any discussion about this, but myself, I do this from time
to time and prefer a fairly powders-heavy mixture.  I keep the lacquer
mixture fairly thin as well; in this way I'm looking for a thoroughly
covered, no shadows color coat that is also thin--i.e. with little
appreciable surface buildup. I follow with a couple or 3 more normally
thinned clear coats to get the buildup and sheen I want, stopping short of
the very last coat to do a very light fine sanding or even just a fine steel
wooling for smoothness, then any lettering, then a final well flowed clear
coat.
I would guess my bronzing lacquer mixture is maybe something like a well
rounded tablespoon of bronzing powder to each 16 ounces of thinned lacquer.
I've never bothered to measure since I tend to do this stuff by feel, but
ultimately you can figure it out by doing test pieces.  If you get good
color coverage with just a couple or 3 passes of the gun, and the coating
"lays out" without being dry or lumpy looking, you've probably got a good
mixture.  If you have to do many passes of the gun to end the "see through"
look you don't have enough powder; if it covers completely in one pass and
looks sandy and dry, you've got too much. 
BTW, I also like to use "pre-catalyzed" lacquer for a little extra hardness.

Greg Granoff

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Alan
McCoy
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 1:26 PM
To: College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>
Subject: [CAUT] Plate refinishing

Hi Folks,

Has there been any recent discussion on the lists on plate refinishing? I
don't recall any on CAUT. I'm especially interested in mixing bronzing
powder into lacquer, i.e. what ratio of powder to lacquer.

Thanks.

Alan


-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy at mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627