THE FINISH ON THE CAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 752, 27 August 1929, Page 6

THE FINISH ON THE CAR

An article published in these columns a week or two ago dealing with the paint-work of the car was found so useful by many motorists that some further remarks on the same subject are here added. There are quite a number of different paints on the market, such as Duco or cellulose laquer, paint and varnish, enamel, oilfinish. These are all different in their substance and must be handled differently. The last-named gives a surface like laquer; it has not been in this country very long, but seems to stand as well as the others. It can also be polished like duco. The price to he paid for a good job is very hard to fix, as cars vary very much in size and general makeup. Some have to be stripped down to the metal others done over the old surface. As an example we will take a car like a Chevrolet tourer. This would be about £lO for paint, enamel or oil-finish, or £l2 for laquer. That is, of course, a fair job started from the bare metal. Bigger cars cost more. A job that is well done at first can always be renovated again and again, as the foundation is there, whereas a cheap job can hardly be renovated and never looks, well at any time. It also depreciates the value of the car and is generally bad policy, as the car done like that has to be repainted every year. A good job should last several years. Should any parts become bare, touch them up with paint, so that they will not rust. The best time to paint is now, in the earlv spring, as the sun is not fierce, which gives the paint time to harden gradually. Fierce sunlight on a newly painted surface will crack it. It is also important that a newly painted car should be washed before taking it out; if any rain gets on it ! and is left to dry before being washed down, it will spot the surface. This, of course, does not apply to laquer. An ingenious safety device was demonstrated in Loudon recently. It consists of a roller faced with cork, and a little larger than,a buffer, mounted in front of the vehicle. If struck by anybody its mounting causes it to fall to the ground and to revolve in the opposite direction to the vehicle’s wheels, so that the victim is rolled over until the vehicle can be stopped.