Probably the most important quote in this thread on why clears are now water based and the issues that go hand in hand with it. Stern playfields are pretty decent up until about 2015, after that you started seeing clearcoat issues and quality control issues etc.
“Laquers went away due to the high VOC content and rather dangerous chemicals involved. Laquers cure by evaporation of the solvent carriers, which releases dangerous toxins like toluene into the air. Non catalyzed enamels also dry by solvent evaporation, though the toxins are less. But the trend went to catalyzed urethanes which cure by crosslinking the polymers in the paint, giving a much more durable finish as well as NOT releasing solvents into the atmosphere. Modern automotive paints, at least in factories, are also primarily waterborne, rather than solvent-borne, with even lower VOC content when sprayed. Unfortunately, waterborne paints suffer from adhesion problems as there are no solvents to bind them properly to the substrates (generally electrostatically applied epoxy primer) this causes most of the paint delmination problems you see on so many newer cars.”
Minneapolis, MN
