39b Pontiac Convertible Paint Query

[mike]

I also found this model on eBay.
Auction end in 4 days.

Is the original color? or painted over.?
See the bonnet.

Prost mike

[johnboy]

The paint looks ok to me Mike, paint bubbles are normal.

[Taniwha]

I've seen a lot of these purple Pontiacs with a poor paint finish - I wonder if that is one reason they changed to yellow reasonably early on in the model's life.

Cheers,
Gavin

[nickjones]

Paint bubbling on the hood/bonnet seems to be a common problem on this model. I have seen many like this.

[Tinman]

The Pontiac discussion will be nearly impossible to find since it's piggy backed in this thread.

[Idris]

The Pontiac discussion will be nearly impossible to find since it's piggy backed in this thread.

Hint taken: thread split and new thread given an appropriate name.

[Idris]

The paint looks ok to me Mike, paint bubbles are normal.

Paint bubbling on the hood/bonnet seems to be a common problem on this model. I have seen many like this.

I don't think they are paint bubbles. If they were, they would be thin-walled and would break very easily leaving something a bit like a crater behind. I believe that they are large drops of solid paint which are probably something to do with the way these early metallic paints behaved in the spray guns.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

I agree with Hugh and can relate to what he says from my screen printing days. They are more likely to be hard lumps of paint where this type of paint has the ability to dry faster than non-metallic paint and it easily clogs in the spray nozzles, but because it is under pressure it spits out as larger particles than intended and unfortunatly lands on the model as a lump, but before it can be rectified the model has gone into the heating phase and that is that!

We go back to an earlier point I made on paint faults at Lesney, where there will be a percentage of faults or errors allowed through the whole production process, after all, these were toys aimed at a younger clientel and if every fault or sub-standard model was removed from the line, there simply would be too much waste and money down the drain.

It's really only us collectors nowadays, that are aware of all this and picking-up on such inherent problems of mass produced toy cars from the likes of Corgi, Dinky and Matchbox.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[johnboy]

This is an interesting thread. So a poor paint finish here could have just been accepted until the opportunity came along to switch colours without undue expense. Are there any other models that spring to mind from a similar era where this has happened?

[SMS88]

I dont see any sound reason for Lesney to regard the paint finish as being poor -its actually very good indeed with just a few extra drops on the hood. However much metallic purple paint Lesney bought,they clearly used it to paint as many cars as they could - these are common enough today for ½ million to have been made back when the casting was new. While the primrose shade that replaced purple was more stand out & brighter (a real reason for COLOUR change),it is obviously inferior quality because that colour chips much more easily.
The fact that D boxes feature a purple car yet always contained yellow cars from the factory points to the use of non metallic paint as a bean counter inspired cost cutting exercise (purple enamel could have been used but was rejected although 47b did switch to candy blue from metallic blue) - and not merely related to the cost per barrel of paint but also in relation to the cost of time lost shutting the paint line down to clean clogged spray nozzles -clearly an issue with these early metallic colours and a cost issue we have previously recognised in relation to mask sprayed silver trim.
The next generation of metallic paints were much finer grain allowing them to be sprayed in thinner coats that didnt clog spray nozzles (28c + 44b) after successful introduction of thin candy coats over thin primers ( 32b,42b)