What happened here?

[Evan Atkinson]

A few days ago, I shot this old Torrington vent fan blade in about 2-3 coats of Rustoleum black gloss enamel. Things were copacetic until today when I sprayed a coat of Nikolas clear lacquer to seal it up As you can see, the Nikolas wrinkled and I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong? In all fairness, the can was an unused (though quite old) can of lacquer, could that be the reason for the wrinkling? 

[Stan Adams]

Lacquer & enamel don't mix until that enamel has dried for a long time. Even then its iffy.

[Evan Atkinson]

1 minute ago, Stan Adams said:

Lacquer & enamel don't mix until that enamel has dried for a long time. Even then its iffy.

Ugh. Thank you Stan! Lacquer thinner, here I come.

[Alec Burns]

I think that’s what happened here. Enamel will take 2-3 weeks+ to fully clear. Also if you’re you I’d go the clear Nikolas Trumpet Lacquer, that product is primarily for bare non-ferrous metals. I might recommend a clear acrylic enamel topcoat instead.

 

cheers

[David Kilnapp]

All true comments above unless you lacquer when the underlying paint coat is still tacky when you apply the spray lacquer. Then you might be ok

[Rod Rogers]

The old rule is that you can put enamel over laquer, but not laquer over enamel. I had an old Chevy I tried to patch some spots on years ago, and the touch up spray paint always wrinkled the original paint. At the time, I couldn't understand this! Obviously, the old paint was well cured!

 

~Sparky~