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when did metallic paint start
#1
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Dell
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looks like I will need to do more then touch up the paint on my 33 super eight. The car now has a fine metallic in the paint, as I don't know when Packard started to use metallic and don't want to make the same mistake the previous owner had done, if metallic is not correct for the time period. Thanks Dell

Posted on: 2015/8/31 11:53

35-1200 touring sedan
42-110 convertible coupe
48-2293 station sedan
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#2
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bkazmer
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the two early special effect paints were pearlescent with fish scales and fine metallic. The tale I heard was that the balls in a pigment mill broke down while making special paint for Cadillac for an auto show. Before your car was made. So metallic was around but with plain and fine aluminum flake, as you described. Modern paints generally use large and sometimes coated flakes. Do not use Xyrillic effects!

Posted on: 2015/8/31 12:37
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#3
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Owen_Dyneto
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The 1933 Packard paint charts lists what we would today call "metallic" paints and they may well have been available a year before that, perhaps on special order or custom coachwork. As bkazmer points out, the "metallic" feature was very subtle, often barely noticeable.

Posted on: 2015/8/31 13:14
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Re: when did metallic paint start
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Tim Cole
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According to Turnquist metallics were first displayed on Fleetwood Cadillacs for 1928.

According to him, his 31 840 Individual Custom Dietrich was originally a metallic maroon body with tan fenders.

As well, I think Packard was calling their early metallics Pearlite finishes. I would do some detective work on your car and consider the build date. If it is a late 10th series car, who knows?

Posted on: 2015/8/31 18:56
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#5
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Dell
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It is a late 10th series car so I think I will stay with the metallic paint. Thanks for all the help. Dell

Posted on: 2015/8/31 19:50

35-1200 touring sedan
42-110 convertible coupe
48-2293 station sedan
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#6
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Leeedy
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It is important to remember that names/terms used to describe automotive paints over the years were not always what the paints actually were. Nor did such terms accurately describe the appearance in a way that could be understood in 21st-century thinking of today.

The confusion of terminologies and what the paints actually were goes on today-largely because the terms used were just plain inaccurate.

In the late 1930s there was a widely used term "pearlescent." There was another term widely used called "opalescent." But what these terms were really describing were what we today would call metallic paints.

Also in the 1930s and even back to the 1800s
there was a translucent dark red that was described variously as "ruby"..."rubescent" and other names. Decades later this same color and paint type was described as "flamboyant red"... and then "candy apple red" (people who don't remember-or never saw-real candy apples have run wild calling jillions of different reds "candy apple" today). And worse, people in the 1960s thought "candy apple red" was new. In reality, the only thing new was the name and the different colors being used under it. But it was all translucent red... and while the appearance may have altered depending on what was under the layer of paint, it was basically the same stuff.

Also in the 1960s came "metalflake" paint... never to be confused with mere metallic. Metalflake indeed used huge flakes of metal (usually aluminum) and resulted in a sometimes blinding, almost garish finish. It still turns up on occasion at hot-rod shows today. Aftermarket fiberglass car components, boats and motorcycle pieces came for a while with this finish under the gelcoat.

The fish scales mix paint that created a mother-of-pearl true iridescent pearlescent look really only came to vogue in the 1950s. And this was largely because of Rinshed-Mason and a company called Creative Industries of Detroit that used this specially-mixed paint on numerous dream cars it built for the Big-3 and some for Packard...like one of the Panthers, the Packard Request and... (via their recommendation) the Packard Predictor.

Creative Industries of Detroit also helped to develop what they called "chameleon" paint that changed color and tone depending on lighting and angle of view. This was in the 1960s, but those who don't remember or never saw it then think it is "new" today.

By the 1980s, people were fudging the terms again and calling yet another paint "pearl." This paint looked metallic and some people today are further confusing the issue by calling it that too. But this paint was not metallic at all... nor was it iridescent pearl. It was mica.

The appearance of the finish was-and is-metallic, but the particles in it are made of mica.

As for Packard using real metallic finishes... indeed they did...and were one of the first to use and promote it. And for sure by the early 1930s. Ed Macauley's ever-morphing car was painted his favorite color: root beer metallic brown...and as such, acquired the name "Brown Bomber."

And as a closing note... the very last finished scale model built at the Packard plant was finished in metallic black. It was a 1957 Four Hundred coupe that disappeared when the plant closed. The whereabouts of this model to this day are still unknown. The color was similar to what GM years later would call "Firemist"...

Posted on: 2015/9/1 15:20
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#7
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Dell
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Thanks Leeedy; very interesting information, It all helps!

Posted on: 2015/9/1 20:57

35-1200 touring sedan
42-110 convertible coupe
48-2293 station sedan
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#8
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Owen_Dyneto
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In the early years DuPont referred to their metallic paints as "polychromatic". Look for that word in the DuPont paint chips and forumlations of that era.

Posted on: 2015/9/1 23:29
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#9
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Leeedy
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Yes. "Polychromatic" is yet one more term out of a cornucopia grab bag of terms that appears and then goes away, only to re-appear again. Each time a new meaning seems to be attached.

I have a 1945 movie from the U.K. that refers to "polychromatic colors." And yet another reference that calls a painted silver-aluminum surface "polychromatic." And still more references to two-tone and three-tone cars as "polychromatic."

The problem with all this stuff is that each new generation and source makes up their own meaning/definition for the term and there you are. Tower of Babel time.

This is why it is always so important that the history of terminology is known whenever a person or company decides to name some new thingie, idea or substance.

Anyway, again, Packard has indeed been doing metallic paint finishes since a long, long way back. Certainly by the time of the Packard in question.

Posted on: 2015/9/2 0:55
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Re: when did metallic paint start
#10
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BDC
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Now this is the reason I love this forum; not a bunch of smart alligs (or how do you spell that?), with big heads, but a lot of interesting information not just about packards but also a lot of background information like this metallic paint, and all down to earth! I peek around on some other forums every now and then and I hardly see what we have here!

Sorry I went and kinda hijacked this topic!

Posted on: 2015/9/2 6:29
I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you

Bad company corrupts good character!

Farming: the art of losing money while working 100 hours a week to feed people who think you are trying to kill them
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