Practically Classics Forum

kstrutt1 wrote:Fantastic looking car, you might want to laquer over the rusty patches to prevent them getting worse though.

Lovely car!
How can laquering over rust stop it getting worse? Painting over it certainly doesn't have that effect!

If it is as it looks surface rust laquering over a dry surface keeps the water out, this slows the rusting down.

kstrutt1 wrote:If it is as it looks surface rust laquering over a dry surface keeps the water out, this slows the rusting down.

Ah! I've seen them doing it on those shows on TV and always wondered how laquer was going to do something paint can't! I guess that unless you have a de-humidified atmosphere to apply the laquer in, it would just bubble through the same as paint?

Anything that prevents contact between the bare steel and oxygen will prevent change to the surface. Some cars, such as the Noble, have used chassis which were deliberately allowed to flash rust in the open to provide a better key to their chosen primer.
Paint only bubbles through if the substrate is rusted through from the reverse side in which case the rot is there long before the rust is visible but in dry state cars like the O/P's Kaiser, the rust is on the outside of the panel, hence hasn't gone through. Lacquer designed for bare steel contains an acid that works as it does in etch primer, this would hold the car indefinitely as the rust that can be seen tends to be the rust there is on a dry state car. The underside, which would otherwise be vulnerable in the climate we enjoy, should of course be treated - with something like Shell's superb Ensis V - to prevent that rot coming through and that'll preserve the car well enough, even for the rare few areas that still use salt.