Day 24
With the combination of the double holiday weekend (Passover and Easter) and my daughter’s 6th birthday party my time with the car was limited to say the least. A grand total of 2.5 hours was hardly enough time to make major progress. That said, I made the most of it.
I laid down another coat of primer and gave it a good old sand up to 400 and removed all of the formidable scratches.
While doing that I decided that my old oil lines which had been painted brown, white and dirt needed some attention if only to see what was under the accumulation. A brass wire wheel on the angle grinder and some 400 sandpaper has them looking vintage new. Sure, they’re not perfect but nothing on this car is and the wear and tear add to their…character…
A package arrived this week that I thought was going to be great news but it turns out that it’s just complicated the picture.
I ordered a gallon of pure white single stage paint from eastwood and a tin of Mixol universal dyes with the intention of color matching the white to my car and blending in the body work. I’m a fine art conservator by day, or at least when I’m not avoiding real work to play with the car which lives at my work studio. Part of my job is color matching so I’m extremely confident that I’d be able to hit the target if not the bullseye.
The issue is that I started to assess just how many areas I was going to have to blend and it was, uh, surprising; half the hood, the entire driver’s fender, half the driver’s door, both rockers, the tops of both rear fenders, the rear bumper area, the front of the passenger’s fender and a few more small spots…. It seems almost comical to attempt to blend in 50% of the car to paint that’s not quite great to begin with.
So, I think I’m repainting the whole damn thing. On one hand I’m pretty despondent that I didn’t’ decide on this from the get-go and strip the whole exterior and go all-in but what can you do, this was never supposed to be a years-long project- if you recall I gave myself 6-7 months to complete everything, and complete it I will.
But I’m a big boy and I’ve made this bed so I’m going to eat this cake.
I’m keeping the car white but changing the particular white. I think I’ll mix an off white- a lighter, less yellow version of chiffon white, something a bit warmer than grand prix or pure white but not so French vanilla.
Oh boy…