I am in the process of opening my own place. Being active duty does lend well to devoting much time to my passion, restoring cars. That hasnt stopped me from getting jobs though. I am elbows deep in a '68 GTO vert resto-mod and just picked up a '66 Chrysler 300 to polish up a bit.

 

sweet. good luck on opening your own place.., the last restore paintjob on a classic car we did was a 71 vette.tons of fiberglass work but in the end it came out great....

 

50 coats is possible with laquer. Thats probably what they used, old school techniques. Laquer is 90% bonder and 10% material so it takes lots of coats to get the desired effect.

 

they are jerks if they chose to use laquer on a 3rd gen firebird , if it was an earlier car from 60's early 70's id say ok... laquer just isnt gonna cut it tho for modern day and if you use that on your show car that isnt a factory resto or somthing like that i find that incredibly stupid...

 

What is stupid is this comment. BC/CC didnt come mainstream until the mid 80's, so your beloved third gen was more than likely lacquer or acrylic enamel. Even if it is either of those two, done by an experienced painter, the end result would have you second guessing yourself as to whether it is BC/CC or enamel.

Man that vette looks good. Here are a couple of jobs I have done (since I am a pic ***** ). The last one is the GTO I am working on.

 

sweet sweet.....

 

Im not exactly sure when they made it illegal to use laquer but they have. So you cant even buy good laquer thinner to paint with laquer anymore. I had to paint a Harley for this guy and he ordered the paint from the dealer and they gave him laquer. I said daaaaaam i dont know about that , but i guess ill try it. But hell no forget that i could not even get my hands on good laquer thinner. plus it would of been a hell going coat after coat.

 

could be done but that would be continuous painting for like 13hours if you allow 15-20 minutes between coats...i doubt it was cleared more than 5-7 times max