Early Car Paint Work

outlaw912 · 01-02-2008, 08:05 PM

Stripped the rear bumper today. Not easy. Tomorrow I'll weld up the rest of the deco trim holes and the exhaust slot. Then its off for epoxy primer....and the rest of the car. Paint shop jobber says the only formula for burgandy red is Glasurit...pricey

Suggestions?

Axiom · 01-02-2008, 09:23 PM

You will be surprised of how expensive paints are, and on top of that we have hardeners and reducers. some do decide to go with a lower quality paint because of the price.

Nice work by the way.

outlaw912 · 01-05-2008, 05:38 PM

One fender and rear bumper finally in primer. Its a little cold (52°) here in LA and I was a bit concerned about the primer curing properly in the cold weather but its only going to get colder so I decided to gamble and primer rather then risk exposing the bare metal until it warms up.

There is a little orange peel in the primer. Is this normal or are my gun settings wrong?

Prepping the bumper to weld up the exhaust hole:

Weld Finished and cleaned up. It was hell getting the fit right.... Front bumper was the donor metal:

Bumper in Primer, I think that will be ok...thoughts?

Erik

rw7810 · rw7810's Garage

From what I know and understand, you should have used your body filler on that welded area before the primer. FWIW. Some people will go on top of primer with filler and it will work, but profesional body folks prefer bare metal.

outlaw912 · 01-07-2008, 09:20 AM

Thanks bob-
I ended up sanding most of the primer off for the filler work. Several people emailed me with similar concerns. I'm a newbie so I'm definitely figuring this out as I go along.

outlaw912 · 01-07-2008, 08:15 PM

Spent all day applying and sanding filler on the rear bumpers. I sanded the primer off the weld areas and applied several coats of filler. Lots of sanding later I was able to shape a proper curved surface over the patch. Take a look, comments are welcome!

Axiom · 01-07-2008, 08:26 PM

Looks good, I like your choice of products, except for that green tube of putty, I stopped using that stuff in the 80's.

I also like that Ipod speakers.

outlaw912 · 01-07-2008, 08:33 PM

Yeah, I was quickly warned about the green putty. I went out and bought some metal glaze catalyzed putty. The 3m stuff is now a paper weight to hold down my p-sheets

Axiom · 01-07-2008, 08:38 PM

Good!!! if the metal glaze becomes a little too pricey, ask your store to get you some half time, it is good and it goes a longer way that metal glaze.

outlaw912 · 01-07-2008, 08:39 PM

Noticed today that some of the epoxy primer never cured on the rear center panel where the paint went on kind of thick. At first I thought it was just cold, but now I'm thinking it may have been something else. I know I need to get rid of it, but what to do? Should I wire wheel it all away? Sand? All of the above?....

Dennis Kalma · Dennis Kalma's Garage

I am a little late, and I can't be entirely sure from the pictures, but I would have hammer and dollied the patch a bit more to get the contour closer to the desired contour before applying filler. I worry that there is a bit of vibration on that kind of panel (albeit the high crown ought to help out) so sometimes you get the filler coming loose or cracking a bit. Personally anything more than about 1/16th of filler is the maximum final thickness and even then I get worried if there is any chance of vibration.

You don't need to get it perfect, but it is amazing what a bit of time with a pick hammer and a bit of gentle tapping will do to get the contour out there, particularly on that kind of shape...

Maybe not so much for this part, but maybe on the next one...

Dennis

outlaw912 · 01-07-2008, 09:56 PM

Thanks dennis-
There is about a 1/8 of filler in the thickest part. I too am a little concerned. I spent 5 hours hammering/dollying the patch and it was the best fit I felt I could get. Its my first time shaping sheet metal in this way so I was figuring it out as I was going. Not perfect your right. This particular part of the bumper is a pretty complex curve.

Of course I tackled the most complex patch/weld job of the project first....I hope it will work out in the long term.

Axiom · 01-08-2008, 06:11 AM

What kind of primer surfacer are you planing on using?

Dennis Kalma · Dennis Kalma's Garage

I suspect everyone does this, but if you want to learn a bit of pick and file stuff, just take a sheet of metal and try and build a dome out of it. Ron Fournier describes it in his book on metal shaping and it is surprising how well it works. The thing I found I had to learn was that the small, relatively light taps with the pick, used in conjunction with a dolly would eventually stretch things out, but it took a long time. It was sort of "tap tap tap ..... insert about 100 taps tap tap" and then you could see things form. More of a myriad of very small dents eventually combining to form the desired shape.

In any event, I think it is great you are taking this on, there is no other way to learn except by doing.....

Dennis

outlaw912 · 01-08-2008, 10:37 AM

I'm using PCL primer surfacer, My paint shop was out of PPG and the PCL was 30 bucks cheaper a gallon. The jobber says its completely compatible... Haven't shot any yet so we'll see.

-Erik

outlaw912 · 01-08-2008, 04:52 PM

Finished the filler work on the entire rear bumper today and shot a heavy coat of epoxy primer to seal it all up. I'm very satisfied with how it all came out, especially the weld area.

It appears the previous owner did a complete bare metal respray on the car when she changed the color as I haven't found any origional lacquer left on any of the panels I've stripped thus far. Therefore following the suggestions of some other pelicanites and am going to stop bare metal stripping and instead will focus on fixing my rust and chip issues. I'll block sand the finish to the top coat of primer.

I found some headlight ring rust thats a little more aggressive then the rust on the other fender. Any suggestions on how to procede? I spent about 40 min with a wire wheel trying to get it all out but I couldn't get all the rust removed. The pictures speak for themselves.

Bumper in Primer!

Headlight ring rust.

Axiom · 01-08-2008, 09:08 PM

Very nice work Erik: I do have one suggestion, epoxy primer is not meant to be shot heavy, it is reomended to be two light coats, before surfacer is applied.

rw7810 · rw7810's Garage

If you have a little sand blaster or can borrow one, that will clean those areas up nicely I suspect. I recommend a little hopper type set-up with a syphon gun.

Dennis Kalma · Dennis Kalma's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by rw7810

If you have a little sand blaster or can borrow one, that will clean those areas up nicely I suspect. I recommend a little hopper type set-up with a syphon gun.

Excellent idea, just don't use sand as there is some risk of distorting/eroding the metal. Glass beads are probably your best media but there are others that will work as well (e.g. plastic, soda etc)

Dennis

Axiom · 01-09-2008, 07:15 AM

Blasting could be messy if you are doing it in your garage, Erik, you may have to do it by hand, fold a piece of 36 grit paper and work the area then follow by 80 grit, after that, if you have some POR 15 paint, apply a little, let it dry and then prime. that would be my suggestion.