Scuffing, Masking and Prepping for Paint

The first coat of primer sealer has been drying for a week now.  House of Kolor says once the primer has dried more than 24 hours it should be scuffed with a maroon pad then another coat of primer should be applied and that's what we will do.  In this picture the scuffing process is done in the foreground.  Extra care is needed on all edges and corners otherwise we'll scuff through to green primer.

Scuffing takes several hours, many of it laying on your back getting those hard to reach places.  While scuffing I am looking for any blemishes, runs, lint or debris.  By fixing these flaws between each coat it reduces the chance of a substandard paint job.  If we were using a filtered paint booth we wouldn't need to be this critical.

There's a spot on the nose that's been scuffed through to the green primer.  This was caused by one drop of sweat when I was spraying the primer.  I'll have to remember to wear a sweat band next time.

Because we're shooting Kandy, the entire car must be assembled before it gets painted.  That means the door jambs, hood jamb, headlight recesses, and the rear valance areas must be painted before we can assemble.  To do that we have to mask the car body.

I like to start the masking process with masking tape only.  I apply the tape right at the edge of the body and the jamb.

I then install masking paper over the width of the previously applied tape. 

Then we just keep adding masking paper as needed.

I don't want overspray anywhere on the body so I decided to mask/cover the whole car.  This is overkill but I don't care.

I used plastic sheeting to complete the job.

Everything that's exposed is scuffed, degreased, and ready for paint.  These areas will get a second coat of black primer sealer,  two coats of Lapis Blue base coat, 3 coats of Cobalt Blue Kandy then two clear coats.  All of this will happen in succession over a couple hours.  We'll do that in a week or so after I receive a fresh order of catalyst.
Catalyst has a very short shelf life once opened.  For this reason, I only purchase catalyst in small quantities and I only purchase it when I need it.  Because of it's chemical nature catalyst can only be shipped by ground transportation so it will take a few days to get here.

I do have enough catalyst to make some paint repairs to the doors though.  I'll explain why we have to make repairs in the next post.

As always, thanks for watching.

Paint - Black Primer Sealer

News Flash: Poll results are in.  We will paint our Corvette with the BLUE racing strip, panel B.  Thanks for voting!

It's time to prepare the body for primer sealer.  But before we do that we have to fix this last little stinking blemish.  One finger swipe of glazing compound did it.  With that, the body work is done, done, done (less the doors, hood, headlight buckets and rear valance).

Because the primer has been curing for several days the surface needs to be roughed up so the next coat of paint will stick.  House of Kolor recommends a maroon scuff pad and that's what we will use.  In addition we will use Dura-Block, a sanding block that has properties similar to that of heavy shoe leather.  The combination of the scuff pad and the sanding block will give us an even flatter/smoother surface.  This will take several hours.

If you look close you can see that the scuff pad can remove a lot of material.  You have to be very careful, especially along edges and corners.

When the scuffing was done I put the car on jack stands, removed the tires for access to the wheel wells, masked where needed, then wiped down the body with a post sanding cleaner.

We are using House of Kolor's black primer sealer called Ko-Seal II.  This primer sealer is used to prevent the topcoats (color and clear coat) from soaking into our green primer.   Without the primer sealer we would loose gloss over time.   The primer sealer also acts as a bonding agent between the primer and the topcoats.

The paint booth was put up and ventilation was established before I started painting.  I started painting in all the tough to reach places first.  We want at least two full coats when we're done.

Door jambs, hood jambs, headlight recesses, tail light recesses, wheel wells, the exhaust valance and the entire perimeter of the bottom of the car make up the tough-to-reach areas.  This was done using a SATA Mini-Jet spray gun, a small, high quality gun used for getting in tight spots. 

I used my full size SATA HLVP spray gun for the body.  OMG!  It worked great but boy did it tax the capabilities of my makeshift paint booth.  I am really glad I was wearing a respirator and paint suit.

When done I tore down the paint booth and put the wheels and tires back on.  Thankfully my garage survived.  No over spray anywhere... except for the camera.

It really looks nice.

Now I'll let it dry for at least a week.   While that's happening I'll spend some time cleaning the camera.

The green is gone!  Whoo hoo!

The Racing Stripe - Which One?

This is a sign blank I recently painted with 4 different colors for the racing stripe.  The large stripe in Panel A thru D are Black, Blue, White and Silver, respectively.  Panels C and D (the top 2 panels) are considered too bright and have already been excluded.

I'd like your opinion on the bottom 2 test panels, panels A and B.  Ignore the blemishes, nubs, runs or whatever.  I'd like you to look at the colors only.  I've provided two close up pictures of each, one with flash (daylight) and one without (evening).  Let me know which stripe you like by voting in the pole in the upper right corner of this blog.

This is the black strip in daylight.

This is the same black strip in the evening.

This is the blue stripe in daylight.

And the same blue stripe in the evening.

So what's your preference?  Do you like the black or the blue stripe?  I'll run the poll for 8 days so be sure to vote.  If you have a different recommendation let me know in the Comments section.  Thanks.

I am Sexy and I Know It

It took about 10 hours to remove the rest of the guide coat.  The good thing is it's done and the car looks really good.  The car is just about ready for it's next coat of primer.

But before we apply primer there is a lot of work that needs to be done first.  This includes masking, wiping down the car and building a paint booth to protect the floor and everything in the garage from over spray.  This pre-painting ritual is an all day ordeal.

But now it's done and the car is looking super sweet.  Check out the masking of the hood.  I am getting better.

I didn't do too bad masking the rear window either.

I found out there's a drawback to using the plastic sheeting.  Paint doesn't adhere to the plastic so when you come back to a previously painted area the spray gun disturbs the plastic which sends bits of dried paint airborne.  I think I'll just use masking paper in the future.

Check this out.  The body lines are gorgeous.  You'd never know those wheel wells had been cut out.

What more can I say.

Even the fake louvers look good.

As do the front fender louvers.

I double checked the point on the stinger.  It's straight as an arrow. 

That's just sexy.

Now we let the car sit for a good week or more to let it dry.   After that we will do some light sanding (no guide coat) followed by scuffing with a Scotch Brite pad.  More on that later.  In the mean time I think we will start working on the hood.

We should see color soon, even if it's only a black primer/sealer.

Thanks for watching.