Clear coat/color coat finish from a high solids coating composition of a blend of a low molecular weight acrylic polymer and a medium molecular weight acrylic polymer and an alkylated melamine cross-linking agent

Claim 1

A substrate having a finish of a clear coat top layer in firm adherence to a color coat layer in adherence to said substrate; wherein the clear coat consists essentially of a transparent film forming binder and the color coat consists essentially of a film forming binder and pigments in a pigment to binder weight ratio of about 1/100 to 150/100; wherein the color coat and the clear coat being from a high solids coating composition comprising at least 50% by weight of a binder of film-forming constituents and up to 50% by weight of a nonaqueous liquid carrier; in which the film-forming constituents consist essentially of (A) about 5-45% by weight of a medium molecular weight acrylic polymer having a number average molecular weight, determined by gel permeation chromatography, of about 5,000-20,000, a hydroxyl content of about 2-10% by weight, a glass transition temperature of about -20° C. to +25° C.; (B) about 10-50% by weight of a low molecular weight acrylic polymer having a number average molecular weight determined as above of about 500-7,500, a hydroxyl content of about 2-10% by weight, a glass transition temperature of about -20° C. to +25° C.; wherein the acrylic polymers being the same or different consist essentially of 15-82% by weight of methyl methacrylate, 2-50% by weight of an alkyl methacrylate or an alkyl acrylate each having 2-18 carbon atoms in the alkyl group and 16-35% by weight of a hydroxy alkyl acrylate or a hydroxy alkyl methacrylate each having 2-4 carbon atoms in the alkyl group and wherein the difference in molecular weight between the acrylic polymers is at least 3000; and (C) about 25-45% by weight of an alkylated melamine formaldehyde cross-linking agent having 1-4 carbon atoms in the alkyl group; and in addition to the above film-forming constituents contains about 0.1-2.0% by weight of an acid catalyst.