[sdiy] Lacquer finish/second thoughts

[Scott]

I had done a lot of reading through the sdiy archives, and on various synth and electronics forums about panel finish over the past few weeks.  I had been using an acrylic spray which dried clear, stayed clear (about 10 years now) but looks like my panels are coated in plastic.  I need to re-do all of my panels, so read up on other finishes.  The consensus on almost every list/forum ends up being lacquer.  Sounded great.  Re-did 3 panels this weekend.  Silk-screened and then sprayed w/ lacquer.  It looks GREAT!

Last night I decided to read about lacquer at places other than here and e-music, and the tube forums, etc, and the first thing on just about every page is "Lacquer WILL yellow" which made my heart sink.  Now that I think about it, I went through this 10 years ago when I first started building my synth, and that's why I avoided lacquer at that time.

So, to my question..  A lot of aluminum panel people seem to like lacquer, but then every woodworking site, the first thing they say is be ready for it to turn yellow.  It seems like that would be completely undesirable for panels!  My panels are bare aluminum (not anodized) so are bright silver.  Turning yellow would be noticed.  Even black panels, though, it seems like all of the lettering would turn yellow.

Does lacquer not yellow as much on aluminum as it does on wood?  Are the woodworking forums which talk about yellowing using old info, and modern lacquers don't yellow so much?  (I used DEFT which was recommended as an easy solution.. which it was)
then finally, if it does yellow, why do so many people recommend it?  At least you could strip wood and re-finish.  w/ the panels, Im pretty sure the lacquer thinner would strip away the ink lettering, so you'd be starting from scratch if you want to re-do the lacquer finish on a panel.

any thoughts on the situation?