crushed glass dirt racers

[The Modeling Hermit]

Back in the late sixties, the Super Modified (pre-sprint car) racers came to my hometown a couple times a year. Many of them had crushed glass paintjobs. They stopped running as Knoxville got going strong. When and why did they start using the fancy paint, and when and why did they stop?

[Joe Handley]

I'd imagine it was done by the wealthier racers as a form of showmanship and braggadocio (IE, look at what I can afford!) The best reasons I can think of for discontinuing use of that type of finish is costs (since the Blendtec blender wasn't around, that wouldn't have been cheap to make!), weight (it is glass after all), and possible dangers if the paint had a sandpaper like finish and somebody got rubbed the wrong way.

[seeker589]

Crushed glass?

Are you sure that some racer wasn't pulling your leg? Or a racing announcer wasn't trying to fill in some "dead space" by making some stuff up just to keep talking? I know a few announcers - they do that. Some of the stuff they tell the attending crowd are outright lies!

Crushed glass is pretty much sand.

Paint additives have been known to be metal flake (in various sizes), crushed mica, and crushed pearl.

Sorry - I had never heard of crushed glass as a paint additive.

[Joe Handley]

If you crush glass fine enough, it should work well and give a nice flake like effect if done right, especially if you're using some kind of clear and/or metallic or candy paint as the carrying medium

Edited October 31, 2010 by Joe Handley

[Greg Myers]

Have you heard about the car with a wooden frame? How about the carburetor that gets 50 MPG ?

THE Fish Carburetor

[Jon Cole]

Crushed glass? Crushed glass? No. Not buying it. As previously stated, glass originates from sand. Sand in a paintjob = one crappy job, i.e. spraying a car in the middle of a sandpit on a windy day. Why would someone intentionally do that?

But I could be wrong.

[junkman1153]

GOOGLE IT you can still buy glass flake paint. if you had the money in the early 70's you could get diamond dust added to your paint.there were some really nice metalflake paint jobs back then and some really ugly ones too

[Joe Handley]

Crushed glass will have a different effect than sand because at least it will be reflective (being able to throw light off the chunks of glass sticking through the finish) and enough clear and a good polish and wax job should alleviate the rough finish too.

[dwc43]

Still in use today. Read this. I hope the links in the pasted section work so you can see the pics of it on a real car.

http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/164226/

07-21-07 05:19 PM - Post#1213627

In response to Elevin.six2one

OK Elvin... here's the deal on Planet Color;

Let me start by stating up front that I am a Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes employee.

I'll tell you I wouldn't say anything at all if I didn't have anything nice to say, but I realize you have no idea of my credibility level, this being my first post to this forum.

This is my friend's '49 Chevy pickup;

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c23/JPPics/49% 20...

or

http://tinyurl.com/27lts3

We painted it in Planet Color earlier this year. In 5 car shows, it took Best of show in 1 show, and best paint in the remaining 4 shows.

Yes, it's similar to HOK in that you have crushed glass, crushed mirror, candies and other custom paint additives. Where it is very dissimilar to HOK is in the fact that these additives go into our OEM approved paint line. So, you have UV protection, chip resistance... you can put this on your car, drive it every day, and it's going to hold up to the sun, rocks, rain, snow...

We drive the '49 to all the shows (last week's show was an hour and a half drive, including some interstate driving).

Planet color is on NASCAR cars (Dale Jr.s Navy car is all Planet Color - his other cars are all other paint lines from Sherwin-Williams), Champ cars, and whatever number of custom bikes & cars.

If you ask experienced painters, you will probably learn that SW automotive paints were nothing to write home about in the early 90's. If they lack recent experience with SW auto paints, they may believe that opinion to still be true. The past few years has seen a dramatic change in that reality. Ask anyone shooting it now, and you're likely to find they love it. Especially in the last two years, we've certainly pulled ahead of our competitors in regard to quality and innovation.

Pricing in comparable to HOK products. You have a choice of picking from an entire catalog of formulas which you can buy pre-mixed, ready to spray, or you can just buy the additives and create your own formulas.

I don't know that every SW store would do this, but at my store (in the Chicago area), I work with the custom painters who come in asking for something specific (in terms of a custom color), I'll work with them (and usually one of my Tech Reps) to create the exact color they're looking for.

Of everyone I've sold Planet Color to, I've gotten back nothing but glowing praise and excellent results.

On the truck we used a combination of Sherwin-Williams Ultra 930 & 950 clear (the 950 for appearance, the 930 was added to speed it up, since we needed to get the truck done in a certain time frame).

Those are top of the line clears. I imagine if you're spending the money on Planet Color, you'd likely go that route. However, if you did want to shave some cost from the clear budget, the Refinisher Select line has some great looking clear coats (I recommend RS 6030/6040).

I recommend you stop by your local Sherwin-Williams Automotive store (or your local SW jobber), and check it out.

If you need help finding them, or if you want to ask me any specific question, feel free to get in touch with me. I have no problem with emailing you my phone number to help you out in any way I can.

John P.

[dwc43]

Here's another post about the paint.

http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?87269-any1-have-a-glass-flake-paintjob

any1 have a glass flake paintjob?

went to my local car show on friday and some guy had a really nice black fox body stang that was black with green flames.when i walked closer the flames turned purple yellow green blue red and mayb a few others.the actual black had some blue flake in it .i walk up to the owner and compliment him about how much i like the paint and he tells me he diid it himself and he paints cars.i am in serious need of a paint job.

so i ask him how much would a job like that cost he told me some # of thousands.then i asked him how much a black paint job with some blue flake would cost he told me 400 to spray if i bring my own paint and clear.i was wow really.he then tells me that the flake is actually crushed blue glass i was like whatClick here to enlargethats awsome .so thats the paint i want now btw the flake is provided with the job .i just wanted to tell you what kinda paint job ima get.Click here to enlarge any1 in the forums have this kinda paint job? if ya do plZZ PUT UP SOME PICTURES

[Jon Cole]

Like I said, I could be wrong. According to my wife, I'm always wrong LoL! Buried down in my dungeon somewhere, I had a big jar of silver flake; the kind they used on customs back in the 70's and earlier. You would need a lot of clear to bury that stuff!

I just think it odd to go thru all that work to use crushed glass, or flake on a race car. Every now and again, it does happen... a racing "show" car. For example, there has been more than one stock car done up in "chrome"; one of which was DW.

[dwc43]

a racing "show" car. For example, there has been more than one stock car done up in "chrome"; one of which was DW.

Yeah, that was a little over the top. lol

[The Modeling Hermit]

To be fair, this would have been in the mid-sixties, probably 65-67. I would have been 11-13. The cars were called super modifieds at that time and came to our track about twice a year, usually at county fair time. Not all of the cars carried the fancy paint, but there were quite a few that did. One that I loved in particular was a medium blue, and when you looked down into the paint, it looked like thousands of diamonds. Under the track lighting, they were a mindblowing sight. I was told that it was crushed glass, and always assumed that I was told correctly. I can sure identify that the expense was over the top, but one sure noticed them.

[Aaronw]

You can buy glass powder to add to paint, it is usually used with traffic paint to make the lines on the road reflective. I've never seen it used elsewhere, but I would imagine it would provide an interesting effect on a car, although it would be much rougher than a regular paint job.

[Guest madazzskilzkustumz]

Better be careful about using words like “any1†and other number and word grammar mistakes. I got yelled at and name called for it hear. How come no body yelled at you I don’t know? Now I use spell check. Every time. Thanks JIMMY!

Here's another post about the paint.

http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?87269-any1-have-a-glass-flake-paintjob

any1 have a glass flake paintjob?

went to my local car show on friday and some guy had a really nice black fox body stang that was black with green flames.when i walked closer the flames turned purple yellow green blue red and mayb a few others.the actual black had some blue flake in it .i walk up to the owner and compliment him about how much i like the paint and he tells me he diid it himself and he paints cars.i am in serious need of a paint job.

so i ask him how much would a job like that cost he told me some # of thousands.then i asked him how much a black paint job with some blue flake would cost he told me 400 to spray if i bring my own paint and clear.i was wow really.he then tells me that the flake is actually crushed blue glass i was like whatClick here to enlargethats awsome .so thats the paint i want now btw the flake is provided with the job .i just wanted to tell you what kinda paint job ima get.Click here to enlarge any1 in the forums have this kinda paint job? if ya do plZZ PUT UP SOME PICTURES

[dwc43]

Better be careful about using words like “any1†and other number and word grammar mistakes. I got yelled at and name called for it hear. How come no body yelled at you I don’t know? Now I use spell check. Every time. Thanks JIMMY!

I bet it's 'cause I did not write it. It's a copy and paste along with the link to the page I got it from. Might want to pass that info on the guy that actually wrote it.

[Customman]

For the the guys that have never seen a crushed glass finish the glass does a superb job of refracting the light. I think it's better than a metal flake job. It really doesn't cause any problem it's super fine granulated and weight wasn't a problem it's actually light. The kustom shop I worked in we used it on show cars that we built. You surely want to use a good respirator. Diamond Dust wasn't cheap, excepting in our case there was a glass plant in town. Depending on who you knew i used to get it free a friend used to get me a quart full at a time. There is some art to using it though, there is the thing of overkill with it. Oh and no one would ever get hurt or cut on it as long as it was clear coated and you didn't breath it, it could cut your lungs up like fiberglass.I used to freak out holding a spoon fool in the sunlight watching it go wild.We would use it on some areas for a different effect. Wow you guys flashed me back to the good old days, they were the greatest! Yep I'm big time`old scool.

George