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.

We Gather Here to Join this Body and Frame... Forever

This body bolt is one of 12 used to fasten the body to the frame.  It took a whole day of measuring, shimming and torquing to complete the installation.  A total of 12 Grade-8 bolts were used.  When it was all done, 10 locations required no shims and 2 required 2 shims each.

Switching topics, I removed the chrome American Racing Torq-Thrust D wheels from the Corvette.  The replacement wheels are American Racing Torq-Thrust D's in grey spoke.  The gray spoke wheels were very popular in the 60's and we feel they're more appropriate.  At Dennis K's recommendation we also put the raised letters to the inside.  Raised white letters were popular but the word Radial was not.

The picture does not do the wheels justice.  You'll have to trust me that they look awesome.

We put the chrome wheels on our newly acquired Nomad.  Bob D, my brother Jim and I have owned this car for the last 40+ years.   We just keep handing it off every 12 years or so.  The old Cragars are finally gone and the new wheels and tires look great.

We had three open issues from a recent post.  One was to replace the universal joint bearing caps with the correct U-bolts used in 63.  All 4 U-bolts have been installed and we even gave the rear cover of the differential a new paint job.

Another open item was to replace the transmission shift forks.  In this photo the new forks are installed.  They are made in the USA and are substantially beefier than the ones removed.  Lets hope they work.

Getting the transmission back together was a bit of a chore because of limited space in the tunnel.

We also purchased and installed a clutch fork push rod for the 1963 ball-and-socket clutch fork.

That about wraps up the mechanical work which means I'll be block sanding the body soon.  Either that or I could paint a test panel to figure out what color racing strip we want to use.  I think I like that.

Stay tuned and thanks for watching.   

Installing the Body - Finally

It's been a long time coming.  The body is finally being installed, permanently.  It will be bolted down and will hopefully stay that way for many many years.

I am using a $65 12-volt electric hoist bought at Harbor Freight to lift the body.  This hoist has been a real work horse over the last couple years and it has never failed me.  A friend even borrowed it to move a small shed in his yard.  He said it worked great.

Without the doors the straps have a potential for putting a lot of stress on the body.  I used softeners (towels) at all contact points.  They worked great with no issues.

Although I've never heard of anyone doing this I decided to cover the rolling chassis with plastic before installing the body.  The theory is it will act as secondary protection when we paint the car.  It should be easy to remove when the time comes (I think).  As the body is lowered we have to pay particular attention to the distributor and the gas tank.  Experience tells us these two items can easily get hung up and the distributor will scratch the firewall if we're not careful.

Touchdown!

Nothing scratched and the body to frame holes all line up nicely.

I couldn't have wrapped the motor better.  If nothing else it will keep the dust off while we finish sanding.

I am impressed.

How sweet is that!

Next we crawl under the car and start shimming and bolting the body.