Guide Coat - First Sanding

Our first guide coat process is almost complete and it took a lot of hours to get here.  Thankfully Ty came over and spent many of those hours with a sanding block in his hand.  While sanding, it's amazing to watch how the guide coat identifies everything that's less than perfect.  Here's an example:

The next four pictures show the progress made on the drivers side roof.  The only difference between these pictures is the amount of block sanding that occurred.  After a few swipes with the sanding block lots of irregularities are identified including a significant run in the primer located near the door opening.

A few minutes later many of the irregularities are gone except for the run and a few pits.

A little more sanding and the run is gone.  A few of the pits remain and we now see some irregularities near the door opening. 

Fiberglass is beginning to show through so we have to stop sanding.  The roof is very smooth with minor irregularities that will be fixed with the next coat of primer.

Looking at other areas of the car we can see that this area needs another heavy coat of primer.  The circled spot identifies an area that needs a little Bondo.

Areas marked with an X also require a little Bondo.

This is a repair that was recently made when we found an air bubble in a rivet hole.

These irregularities occurred when we installed the wheel well inserts.

Except for the X's, this area will only require another coat of primer.

The left rear looks great except for a few little shallow areas.

The primer in this photo is very thin but the surface is very smooth.

This is the left rear window area.  The pattern you see are depressions made by the body mold used back in 1963.  They are so shallow they can't be felt but the guide coat tells us they are there.  Our next coat of primer will fix these "irregularities" as well.

More primer, more guide coat and more sanding is next but we only have to do the areas that need it, not the whole car.  We'll still have to make another paint booth though.

As always, thanks for watching.

Guide Coat 101

What the... ?

You gotta be kidding me!

OK, here's the deal.  A Guide Coat does two things.  It insures flat surfaces and it identifies low spots.  The process requires a contrasting paint lightly sprayed over primer followed by block sanding.  We want to leave as much primer on the car as possible but we also want to remove as much as necessary to get a flat surface.  To achieve this we only block sand until the guide coat is removed or until we expose fiberglass.  When either one of these occur we stop sanding and move onto the next area.

Lets get started.  After block sanding this fender for just a few minutes we have mostly flat surfaces (green) and a few low spots (guide coat).  A few more swipes with the sand paper should remove several of these low spots.

And that's exactly what happened.  The front part of this fender is very flat and smooth.  Any thin areas of primer will be corrected when we shoot the car with the next full coat of primer.

The rear part of the fender will need additional work though.  We have low spots and we have exposed fiberglass.  Since we can't sand this area any further we will probably apply a thin coat of Bondo to correct.

These low spots are super shallow and will be filled in with the next coat of primer.

Click on this picture and check out the results.  Do you think the next coat of primer will fix the low spots or do you think they need a little Bondo?  It might be a combination of both. 

The front is turning out very nice.  The raised center section may require a little Bondo.

Nothing major back here.  The next coat of primer should fix these imperfections.

There is a lot left to do including the door jambs, drip rails, hood jamb, window jambs, and everything below the center line.  When we are done we will shoot fresh primer on the whole car again followed by more Guide Coat.  We will continue this process until all the surfaces are flat and all the fiberglass has primer so expect several postings about guide coating.  One thing for sure is the results are already pretty awesome.

Thanks for watching.

Paint - Primer - Fresh for the New Year

While waiting for warmer weather I managed to find another half dozen areas to repair.  None of them were in dire need but I decided to fix them anyway.  This one is the right front blinker housing and it had a few hair line cracks on its face.  The cracks would have been covered by a gasket but I fixed it anyway.

The repair turned out fine.

There is a lot to see in the next few pictures.  Check out the body work that's been done over the last couple months.  How about that paint booth?  Masking the wheel wells and engine compartment took a few hours longer than I thought.  Masking requires a skill that I don't have (yet).  These are hi-def pictures so be sure to click each picture to see the detail.

The entire car was sanded one more time to remove oils and other contaminants.

It was then wiped down with a post sanding solution to insure good adhesion.

House of Kolor 2 part epoxy primer was used..

Two heavy coats equalled about a half gallon of paint.

The garage will be kept at 70 degrees for at least 24 hours.

The plastic has an electrostatic charge and it attracted the over spray like a magnet.  The primer looks great and the make shift paint booth worked perfect.

Gerri took this picture after I was all done and said I had to post it.  XL paint suits are not as roomy as they use to be.

With the new year I thought I'd add a picture to help us remember where we started.  This is our car in Hawaii in 2009 being loaded into a shipping container.  Dennis S., the previous owner, is at the wheel.  Aloha Dennis!

Next up will be Guide Coating 101.  Bet you can't wait!

The Birdcage - Final Repairs and Internal Paint

We took another hard look at the birdcage and we found one additional area that needs attention.  It's the portion of the birdcage that runs along the top of the windshield.  There were factory holes here but they looked... irregular.  I stuck a burr grinder in each hole then gently pushed it in all directions looking for thinning sheet metal.  The burr grinder followed the thinning metal and left behind these tracks.  These areas need repair.

I squared up all the areas to simplify making the repair pieces. 

 

16 gauge metal was bent to match the general profile of the birdcage.

This will be cut as needed to fit each repair area.

The pieces were welded in, new holes were drilled, then JB Weld was used to fill the irregularities.

While the JB Weld was hardening I cleaned all the internal surfaces in preparation for paint.  I used a length of plastic tubing on the end of the air hose to get deep inside and used the shop vac to catch the debris.  There was a bunch of it, mostly sand from the sand blaster. 

An hour later the internal surfaces were clean.

This is a product from Eastwood.  It's a paint that has a phenolic resin that penetrates, converts and encapsulates any rust on internal surfaces.  It also has zinc phosphate that seals internal surfaces to prevent future corrosion.  I figured it would work nicely on the birdcage.

It worked great.  The nozzle on the end of the hose sprayed the paint very nice.

Be forewarned though.  This stuff goes everywhere.  It finds all the nooks and crannies and little screw holes too.  I like it a lot but be sure to wear full eye protection and old clothes.  It's messy!  The over spray, runs, and drips you see in this picture were cleaned up afterward.

What about that birdcage repairs from earlier?  The JB Weld was ground smooth, the internal surfaces were painted, then a little primer was sprayed on the outside.  It's nice and it will last a long, long time.

The body is basically ready for primer now.  While we wait for warmer weather we will continue to do odds and ends.  The interior floor still needs cleaning.  Maybe we will tackle that next.  But the next big thing is primer!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!