Chapter VII -- Paint, Cut and Polish the Body
It is now late may and we have already experienced temperatures very close to 100 deg. I am seriously trying to get the car painted before it gets too hot. I finally did get it ready and back in the booth for paint. The first day, I started with the body shell, the doors and, at the last minute, I decided there was room to get the fascia in. Early in the morning on a Saturday, I applied two seal coats with the epoxy primer reduced about 50% which was just enough to make it all one color again. Sorry, no photos of the primer as I didn't want to spend the time. Instead, I went home for an early lunch and a break. After a couple of hours, I returned to the shop, lightly sanded to whole thing to remove any garbage that might have settled in and applied 4 wet coats of the final primrose paint. The photos show the result. The first two really show the excellent color match with the Anchor industrial paint on all but the outer skin. Please excuse the green cast. The shop lights seem to sometimes confuse my phone camera.
I did remove all the masking Sunday then spent Monday shop time getting the common area,
where the paint booth is located, cleaned and all my stuff back in my own area. I thought
the safest place to keep the doors was back on the body. Some of the bolts are difficult to
reach and by the time I got them mounted, with Dick's help, it was already well into Tuesday.
It then took the rest of that day and most of Wednesday to get the masking done on the rest
of the pieces. So finally, Thursday was paint day. Again I did two seal coats as before then
4 top coats in the same day. This photo shows the only major flaw, or accident, in the whole
thing. That photo is where I started and the very first shot of the first seal coat developed
a sag that was really almost an actual run. Yes, I did shoot a test pattern before starting
and the rest of the primer was done with the same adjustments. I don't know how it happened
but I did spot it almost immediately. I tried, with limited success, to wipe it off with a
clean rag then reshot it. I added a second heavier coat, still trying to hide it. You can
see the flaw in the paint toward the front and a little below the top where the diagonal
light reflection is.
Again after a couple of hours break and drying time, I went back to apply the four top coats. When knocking off the dust nibs before painting, I actually sanded the flaw as much as I thought possible; The epoxy was still somewhat soft and did not sand well. Although there was ample room in the booth to get to everything, I still left a few dry streaks and the orange peel, though not too bad, is still not what I would like. These photos were taken after paint but while still in the booth. If everything had come out as good as the nose, I think color sanding would not have been necessary, just straight to compound and polishing. In fact, you can actually see my reflection taking the shot.
A little over a week later, it was time to start color sanding the first painting batch. I decided to start with 1000 grit on the body and doors. There was too much texture to start smoother but not enough to justify 600. That first pass of sanding the body is slow since so much of it is close to the floor. I did jack it up, one side at a time, but it is still not comfortable. It would have been a lot easier if I took the doors back off but getting to some of those bolts dissuaded me from that thought. I will do at least the 1000 grit on the other pieces before reinstalling them.
Now two weeks later the entire car is sanded to 1000 grit. I still managed to get the paint on a little too dry. I guess I am more afraid of sags and runs than I am of all that extra sanding. Eventually I hope to figure it out. That sag in the wing that I caught while painting managed to hide completely. Unfortunately, there were a couple more that I did not notice. There was a rather large drip near the top of the near side A post, again in the seal coat, that I just painted over and it sanded through, leaving a spot almost the size of a dime to be repaired. I will try a touch up but it may require a re-spray. There are a couple of small drips on the wings that I may leave. Also, we sanded through a couple of edges on the fascia and one wing. I think I can repair those with a brush.
Before going on to 1500, I wanted to do as many repairs as I could find. Painting the wings on my saw horses as shown above put the bottom fronts too close to the floor and hard to see. As a result, they didn't get enough paint. I resprayed them from the side lights down, laying on the table and got it much better. The one back edge on the off side wing where I sanded through just a tiny bit became much more of a problem. After 2 or 3 tries with a brush, I finally got the gun back out and sprayed that corner. It now looks good. At this time everything has been sanded to 1500 then 2000. It looks so good now that I briefly considered skipping the 2500 and go directly to the 3000 with D/A as my paint vendor suggested. Since I can see an obvious difference between 1500 and 2000, I think I will spend one more day hand sanding and do the 2500 after all.
So I did spend the extra day hand sanding to 2500 on everything. I think that was Friday. Then Monday I finally got away from hand work and got the D/A out for the 3000 grit final sanding. It really starts to look good after that. Well, it turns out you just can't sand any more than that. Then it's time to go back to the heavy buffer and cutting compound. I did a full pass with the wool bonnet and Wizards Cutting Compound. This combination claims to remove up to 1200 sanding marks so 3000 is a relative "piece of cake." Therefore, I was able to follow that with the same compound on the #1 foam pad the same day. The following day, I finished up with Wizards Polish on the #2 the the #3 ultra fine foam pads. By that time, my arms and especially back were pretty well used up. Good thing it was Friday and I get a weekend break.
So Monday came and I finally finished polishing. In fact, I will call this the last step for this chapter. I have a Meguiar's ultra fine soft finishing foam pad that attaches to the 6 inch D/A by velcro. This thing with the Wizard's polish makes for a really clean finish. These photos are of the various pieces painted, cut and polished. The next step is final assembly and driving. See chapter 8 below.
I had to reopen this chapter. While casually walking by the car, Dick spotted a small spot of
white primer peeking through the yellow paint. I determined the only way to repair it was to
repaint that section. I tried taking a before photo but it did not show up. These photos are
of the wet paint with masking still on and the final result after cut and polish. This time I
was able to start sanding with 1500 so it went quicker. Now everything is both painted and
polished so ...