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Re: How'd they do it?
#21
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Leeedy
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DaveB845 wrote:
What I would have given to be a closer, or first-hand, observer to all these artistic and engineering innovations in that Golden Age of Detroit. Instead, I was stuck as a ten year old in St. Louis, then the second largest concentration of automotive industries in the U.S. GM had three plants producing cars, trucks and Corvettes; Ford made all the big Mercuries there, and Chrysler was about to spring its mid-sized car lines. But none of these plants produced the ideas that turned into new car designs like the Detroit area did. That must be part of the allure people like me have for plants like Packard and River Rouge, buildings like GM's old headquarters building on Grand, and the thankfully-saved Packard Proving Grounds.

In my travels I have observed that there are mighty few car plants that have not been completely re-done over the past twenty years or so. Some that still bear traces of the past (e.g. VW's Wolfsburg, Opel's Russelsheim and Ford's River Rouge) harken only to just a bit of the ways things were done before efficiency and economy became the benchmarks that today's competition requires. Other plants have been completely relocated and rebuilt to the point that they are unrecognizable to a worker from thirty years ago.

If Packard or Briggs had the metal and paint technology of today in past years, would more of them survived? Possibly, but Nash was dunking bodies in their Bonderizing process, and where are they today? Enamels of yesterday may have held up differently than today's water-based paints, but American society has become used to "replace it, don't preserve it" to the point that it would not matter anyway. We, who grew up when these magnificent Detroit creations were new, have some of the spirit to save what we can of that dream, drive and show them off, sometimes as a homage to those men and women who made them in the first place. There's still a bit of the spirit of those workers inhabiting my old Packard and Corvettes. I'm thankful to be able to still feel, appreciate and acknowledge it as I enjoy them.



The paint that Briggs was using was lacquer. Nitrocellulose lacquer. Primarily Rinshed-Mason (they were just north up Mt. Elliot from the Packard Plant on Grand Blvd.) but I believe some Ditzler may have been used too. Anyway, this kind of lacquer it was darned good stuff too. Hard as nails if properly applied. Its worst failing was a condition known as "blush" if applied in too cold an ambient temperature... or the other condition known as "lacquer crackle." The latter usually encountered in older age, largely from lack of elasticity from years of temperature changes. And there were supposed to be four coats of it... but sometimes on the V8s, the four coats didn't quite get applied somehow.

However, the Conner Plant was using some new Binks paint equipment with an airflow system in the booth that reportedly affected both temps and sometimes pelletized the already super-fast drying lacquer. In other words, the atomized spray that was supposed to stick on the car body actually hit it as dried dust and thus, no further coating as intended. Apparently they didn't quite have this all dialed in when the assembly lines started chunking out Packards.

Even the Howard Hughes/Jean Peters 1955 Caribbean had paint issues on it when I saw the car with only 800 miles on the odometer in the 1970s (see The Packard Cormorant magazine Spring, 1980 issue). From the looks of things on close inspection we concluded that this car was painted at the dealer. It is serial number 8. That oughta tell you something.

As for nitrocellulose lacquer... I love the stuff. Can't easily get it anymore. But as a friend of mine once said, if you get a dribble while you're painting? Keep going and rub it out later! I've seen Packards sitting out in the desert for over a half a century with this paint. It gets oxidized, and dull. But one good waxing or compounding that the stuff shines line new money! My Packard buddy back in the 1970s used to buy a lot of old Packards... and he made the paint shine again by using a can of Bon Ami! It was amazing how many paint jobs he brought back from the dead with his treatments.

As for clear coats on modern paints? I'll put a 1956 Packard fender and hood with factory paint up against any modern fender and hood with clearcoat on it. Sit them out in the sun for a couple of years in SoCal...and the Packard factory paint will STILL be savable and shinable. The clearcoat? Betcha it'll look like dried you-know-what and cracked, dull and peeling.

Finally on the body dipping process, Ford also used this very immersion in primer process on 1958-60 Continentals and Lincolns. Since those and the AMC cars were unit body construction, frankly, it only made sense! The Continentals and Lincolns of this period didn't bolt their fenders on... they were welded on! The fenders actually contributed to the body rigidity. I think Ford guys found this out when they drove one over a China pothole during early prototype testing.

I don't think Packards had any unusual problems with rust for 1950s cars. Of course I have seen Packards in all states of condition. Apparently there are two definitions of "rusty." I've known people in Southern California who look at a desert car with surface rust and to them THAT'S "russsssssted out, dude!" Yet I grew up in Michigan where those very same cars would draw OOOooooos and ahhhhs and where people would cut off quarter panels and swiss-cheese rocker panels and pronounce, "I can save it!" The rustiest V8 Packard I ever saw was a Caribbean I bought. It had been sitting for many decades (unprotected mind you) next to the ocean in Florida. The car was SO bad that when I called a truck to move it and we attempted to lift it? The body came right off of the chassis! Sheet metal was about the consistency of wet toilet paper. But this poor car had been left sitting in salt air unprotected for many decades. You want real rust issues in the 1950s? Try a '57 Plymouth. My aunt's brand new one actually had tinworm in about 16 months! That had to be some kind of record!

Posted on: 2014/4/1 20:22
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Re: How'd they do it?
#22
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talk about rust out early in a cars life, I had a 77 Plymouth Valore I bought new and the front fenders rusted out in a year. The factory replaced them but the new ones also rusted out in a year. They refused to replace the second set.

Posted on: 2014/4/1 22:20
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Re: How'd they do it?
#23
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Curious - I don't think Rinshed-Mason as Packard's major paint supplier has been once mentioned on here in a decade, and suddenly it's mentioned twice.

I sure agree with Leeedy about the quality of those nitrocellulose paint jobs; properly done and given care and avoiding the worst elements they can survive splendidly for 80 or more years. As many of you know most the paint on my 34 is original and good enough for 92+ points at a CCCA Grand Classic a couple of years ago. First failures are normally crazing over the lead joints and I'm beginning to get a bit of that. The major lead joints are quite large in area and are where the 4 steel panels are joined to form the roof. The 4 fenders and hood were repainted by me many years ago with Rinshed Mason nitrocellulose lacquer and fortunately I have enough left to do some spot repair on the roof areas if they become worse.

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Posted on: 2014/4/1 22:35
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Re: How'd they do it?
#24
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In our family fleet of mostly GM light trucks and SUVs, the very worst part about these otherwise long-lived vehicles (400-600,000 miles) is the adherence of the water-based paints. Since most of ours are white, the paint will lift off of the zinc-coated panels in patches, leaving the gray primer showing. Then the vehicle has to be stripped if any new paint has to adhere. Somewhat strangely, the darker colored vehicles have had very little paint lifting and some of them are approaching twenty years. Then again, having moved south almost thirty years ago, everything seems to last much longer than our times in Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Maine. When we see the "snow birds" come south in their fairly recent Chrysler minivans and SUVs, I am horrified at the toll taken by the salted roadways in the form of surface rust and perforation. I thought that newer cars were warranted for ten years against that sort of damage. Is nothing being done to pay those claims, or is it just another bonus for the pleasures of living north?

With regard to Packard paint and rust protection, my 56 still looks good with the 45 year old Duco respray. However, looking good is not all it's cracked up to be. The front inner fenders around the radiator have mostly rusted into oblivion, and the inner rocker panels are doing the same, albeit more slowly. New parts are in my future, should I be able to find them. Since this car was used for its first twenty in Virginia where I remember salt and sand, I will blame that on the roads instead of Packard. As my Corvette friends would say when it came to frame rails rusting, GM never intended these cars to last more than 5-8 years when they were produced. Having 58 years, or even O-D's 80, out of a Packard, is saying something more to the care than to the car.

Posted on: 2014/4/2 7:49
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Re: How'd they do it?
#25
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Leeedy
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Quote:

Owen_Dyneto wrote:
Curious - I don't think Rinshed-Mason as Packard's major paint supplier has been once mentioned on here in a decade, and suddenly it's mentioned twice.

I sure agree with Leeedy about the quality of those nitrocellulose paint jobs; properly done and given care and avoiding the worst elements they can survive splendidly for 80 or more years. As many of you know most the paint on my 34 is original and good enough for 92+ points at a CCCA Grand Classic a couple of years ago. First failures are normally crazing over the lead joints and I'm beginning to get a bit of that. The major lead joints are quite large in area and are where the 4 steel panels are joined to form the roof. The 4 fenders and hood were repainted by me many years ago with Rinshed Mason nitrocellulose lacquer and fortunately I have enough left to do some spot repair on the roof areas if they become worse.


Hello... I have certainly mentioned R-M numerous times in connection with Packard. In fact, if you go back to my article in Car Classics magazine (December 1978) on Creative Industries, I quote a friend of mine, Gary Hutchings, who worked for Creative on the Panthers and on the Packard Request. In this quote I mention how Creative made the white pearl paint that was used on The Request, Rex Terry's black & pearl white Panther and on the Predictor. That paint was mixed by Creative, but supplied by R-M. When people today on the internet are talking about Creative and the connection with the Packard concepts, they are usually (whether they realize it or not) merely parroting back the information in that article.

I also re-discusssed R-M and Packard Pearl White on The Request and Predictor in The Packard Cormorant magazine, (Summer, 2008 issue) in my history of the Predictor.

So perhaps R-M has not seen mention in this internet forum, but it certainly has been mentioned in print in connection with Packard many times. R-M was also mentioned in industrial magazines that covered the new Packard Conner Avenue Plant... and there were several of these. R-M also ran big ads talking about how it supplied Packard.

However, as I said earlier, I believe Ditzler also supplied some paints (lacquer) to Packard. Also Du Pont (Duco) certainly had all formulas and color chip sheets for Packard going well back into the 1930s in my records. Du Pont issued color chips and formulas for Packard well into 1956. It is rather amazing to look at color chips from the 1930s and then compare them to those issued for V8 Packards... kinda..WOW!

Finally... in the old days of Detroit when the Packard Plant on East Grand Blvd. was still producing cars, if you drove past the plant heading west, then turned north (right) on Mt. Elliot you would eventually come to the split of Mt. Elliot and Conant Avenue. Somewhere up that way I remember to the right was a stamping plant and a huge outdoor fenced area there hundreds of thousands of black painted car chassis were stacked... row after row, column after column. An amazing sight if there ever was one. There was always a hum in the air-day or night... people working... making good salaries while they were making cars. And there always was the heavy fragrance of fresh automotive paint in the air, especially the sweet smell of nitro lacquer. Like someone once said about Los Angeles, you could smell it before you could see it.

Anyway... eventually along here was a huge overhead enclosed bridge. The sides were painted in brilliant colors (I remember a lot of orange) and it was illuminated with floodlights at night. It said..."RINSHED-MASON"... which my little cousin back then proudly referred to as "rinsed mason." I sure miss it all.

Posted on: 2014/4/2 15:12
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Re: How'd they do it?
#26
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56executive
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From the February 1955 "Special Packard Section" of Finish the magazine of metal products manufacturing

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Posted on: 2014/4/2 17:04
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Re: How'd they do it?
#27
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Leeedy
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Yes, these are Page P-48 and the color inside cover of the Special Packard Section from Finish Magazine of February, 1955.

Elsewhere in the same section you will find a full page advertisement for Parker Rust Proof Company on Page P-57. This company provided a special primer called "Bonderite" for both Studebakers and Packards.

By the way, this section talks in detail about and shows the entire metal prep and painting process for 1955-56 Packards and Clippers.

Posted on: 2014/4/3 12:22
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Re: How'd they do it?
#28
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Have to find my copy.

It says that they built the Caribbeans, I thought I had heard it was done someplace else, or do I have that mixed up with the 53-54 Caribbeans?

Posted on: 2014/4/3 14:00
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Re: How'd they do it?
#29
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Elsewhere in the same section you will find a full page advertisement for Parker Rust Proof Company on Page P-57. This company provided a special primer called "Bonderite" for both Studebakers and Packards.


Apparently no one today remembers what rust buckets these cars were in the day.

I bought my first Packard in 1959. By then all the Packards were on the last row of the lot, and all lacked rocker panels and most had other rust related issues. I finally found a 1956 Patrician in good shape, for which I paid $550. Much as I ;liked the interior, the headlight area had pinpricks, as did the rockers. the door bottoms were suspect as well.

And we all remember Studebaker front fenders and the lack of a proper interior splash guard.

Bonderite must have been associated with bondo, another fine product of the era....

Posted on: 2014/4/3 16:18
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Re: How'd they do it?
#30
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Leeedy
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patgreen wrote:
Quote:
Elsewhere in the same section you will find a full page advertisement for Parker Rust Proof Company on Page P-57. This company provided a special primer called "Bonderite" for both Studebakers and Packards.


Apparently no one today remembers what rust buckets these cars were in the day.

I bought my first Packard in 1959. By then all the Packards were on the last row of the lot, and all lacked rocker panels and most had other rust related issues. I finally found a 1956 Patrician in good shape, for which I paid $550. Much as I ;liked the interior, the headlight area had pinpricks, as did the rockers. the door bottoms were suspect as well.

And we all remember Studebaker front fenders and the lack of a proper interior splash guard.

Bonderite must have been associated with bondo, another fine product of the era....


For one, I remember these cars very, very, very well. I lived around them, watched them grow old, owned more than I want to count, and like I said previously, I can think of so many other cars that out-rusted these Packards. I lived in Detroit... grew up there. I knew real rust!

I had a cousin in Detroit who swore that Nash had the best bodies when they went to unit body construction. He kept his opinion... until the rear suspension on his car came right up through the floor and the trunk one day, locking up the rear tires in the wheel wells! Even IF Packards were parked at the end of the used car lots in 1959...at least they were ON the lot!

I also had an uncle who argued that Buicks and GM cars had the best rust resistance... until one day when we were headed in his Roadmaster out to Hines Park for a picnic (old Detroiters ought to know this location). We hit a good-sized bump in the road and two melons sitting on the rear floor went right through it ...and ejected out behind the car ... exploding like WW2 depth-charges off the back of a Navy ship!

And speaking of GM's supposed great resistance to the elements, we also bought two brand-new 1955 Pontiacs. Assure you... one of them never made it to the good 'ol used car lot by 1959... mainly because it wasn't drivable past our garage! Much of that reason was you know what! AND the other car was a wagon. Wanna know how many times yours truly had replaced totally rusted tailgate cable reels by 1959? Hmmm??? By the way, these little gadgets were only reached from inside the vehicle... but they rusted like they had been dragged up from the ocean bottom by a deep-sea trawler!

I already gave the example of my aunt's brand new 1957 Plymouth that rusted out (swiss-cheese kinda rust) in less than 16 months! AND.. if it helps any, my family were also die-hard MoPar folks-so this isn't anti-MoPar bias talking. One uncle helped set up a new Chrysler plant in Ohio and retired from Chrysler. My cousin (son of the aunt in question here) also retired from Chrysler and worked at one point with Packard aficionado and fan Marv King. Ask Marvin.

I'm sorry, but if a new Packard out-rusted my aunt's new 1957 Plymouth, I would LOVE to hear the story and see some pics.

RE: "Bondo"... No. Bonderite and Bondo were two different things-the first a primer, the latter a body filler. However since we're making fun of Bondo and whether people can remember things, let us not forget that Packard invented a type of Bondo. Remember THAT? It was officially known as "Packard New Metal" and was (at least for a time) considered an advanced new kind of replacement for lead. And for anyone still laughing... wanna know what they used the stuff on at the factory??? 1955 Caribbean hoods. But that's another story for another time and place.

Posted on: 2014/4/3 21:04
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