Clear lacquer over French polished surface ??

[simso]

I had a customer come in today with an old jaguar car he has been restoring, he was referred to me because I do a fair bit of guitar refinishing, he has a french polished dash board and he wants a sealer coat of lacquer applied, tried to explain that French polish surface is in fact a finished surface, he could rub a bit of wax on if he wants for extra protection, but nope, he wants a lacquer coat applied.

Told him I have never spray painted over a French polished surface, I can envisage issues with it, example the oil used for the polish contaminating and creating fish eyes.

Long story short told him to let me think on it.

Has anyone here actually ever done this, that is not laquer over shellac but over a French polished surface which clearly indicates oils have been used.

Steve

[kiwigeo]

I haven't done it but I don't see why it wouldn't work. If its a Jag then the french polish would have been done properly and any residual oil would have been removed during spiriting off. The only issues I can see would be if the owners has used silicone based cleaning/polishing products on the dashboard.

[simso]

He has redone the dash himself, looks good, but.

My concern is fisheyes etc due to the inherent oils from French polishing, I dont want to add some silicone mix to my guns and contaminate them just to prevent fisheyes on this one job.

Steve

[jeffhigh]

I had a 56 Jag Mk8 a few years back
The original finish would have been Nitro lacquer which did not stand up well to exposure to the Australian sun.
I used acrylic lacquer in refinishing mine.
I think putting lacquer over the FP would be a retrograde step but if I had to, I'd probably remove any surface oil and wipe on a seal coat of dewaxed shellac first.

[Allen]

If there is any build to the French Polish at all.......other than what you'd call a pore fill and seal coat, then this is not the thing to do.

[kiwigeo]

If its an old Jag there'd be more oil leaking out of the engine than the french polish on the dash

[simso]

That was my thoughts, I might just pass on this one.

I could just shellac over his french polish to be able to paint,but then I have just ruined his nice french polishing efforts, that being said when I paint it would ruin the finish IMO.

So I think I will just pass.

Thanks for the sounding board

Steve