Roger will be giving you a call when the time comes for this truck. Mine won't be as shinny as yours! The photos you posted look nice. I agree with Dave it's a driver! Post some shots of the freshly painted test drive!
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Roger will be giving you a call when the time comes for this truck. Mine won't be as shinny as yours! The photos you posted look nice. I agree with Dave it's a driver! Post some shots of the freshly painted test drive!
I agree with all that's been said! If "we're" gonna drive'em they'll carry some scars for certain. Like you I have a gravel drive and I used to grimace every time I heard a stone bang around underneath.. Now, I only sigh... :LOL::LOL:
I still want to re-do mine... but in a different blue. We'll see, maybe in a few years..:)
Splash aprons - one of the reasons I built a lowboy. The other reason? Fenders. Less to fit, less to paint, less to wash, less to polish. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by rspears
Talking to my paint guy, he shared that if a sag or run is too big it's often best to just bite the bullet and re-spray the panel. He suggested that I try the repair on the worst part, buff it out with 1500 wet, compound and glaze and then see if the edges of the flaw still show. I of course, felt that I could salvage anything, and after spending several hours on the trunk and one splash apron I thought they were good until I moved outdoors and found that in the harsh sunlight I could clearly see the lines of each problem area:(:( So late today I opened the clear with 800 grit, and transformed the work area back to a spray booth. I had also sanded into the color coat on the edge of the hood, so I repaired that and re-cleared the hood, too. At the last minute I pulled the splash apron because it looked like I had gone through the clear coat, so tomorrow I'll sand it down, prime, color and clear it.
With the engine & tranny in I got the new clutch master installed and bled and lit it off to move the car out of the way. Again, when I got the car outside I noticed several "problem areas" in the finish :( I'll tell you, doing black as a first time paint experience is a baptism in fire!!:LOL::LOL: I've come to the conclusion that it'll look somewhat better than it did before, so life goes on!!**)**)
well i tried to tell you in a nice way so you would not wast time in post #338 .#340 others... but? sorry you had to learn the hard way. no one took the time to tell me. i painted 100.s of car.s and truck.s . some boats and plane .s work in many shop .s over the years . knew and know guys that paint like i did for a living pulling off a perfect blend is not going to happen less you have many hours with a gun in your hand and that no guarantee. thats why many painters drink or take some herb to level them outQuote:
Originally Posted by rspears
Sorry to hear of the "problem areas".. I'm certain it'll look a lot better than before.
Every time I look at mine I want to sand it all down and start anew...
But at least when I hear a rock hit it.. I don't care!!:eek::LOL::LOL:
I guess I didn't know enough to follow what you were saying, Pat.Quote:
Originally Posted by pat mccarthy
Yeah Mike, pulling the car out of the barn into the sunlight showed me in spades that I'm no painter!! Maybe if I'd chosen something other than black....Quote:
Originally Posted by 34_40
[QUOTE=rspears;496678]I guess I didn't know enough to follow what you were saying, Pat. ..... OUCH ...you really did not under stand post 338 and 340 ? :(
Roger - I've been reading some posts from you on other threads (including mine) for years, but just this evening found and read this thread! DUH!!:whacked: Anyway, nice build. As for your paint, I think it looks great. You really asked for headaches when you chose black for a first time painter. Black shows flaws/problems as if you put it under a magnifying glass.:HMMM:
I painted my first car when I was 17 and have been doing paint work ever since (I'm 65 now). When I hear of people paying $15,000 and more for a paint job it makes me choke.:eek: How ridiculous! I've never been afraid to pull the trigger on a spray gun. If I screwed it up, what's the worst that could happen? I had to sand it out and do it again; so what! I learned from my mistakes and still saved thousands of $$$. Good for you, Roger, nice job.:cool:
Some number of years ago, I was watching an older gent paint a black truck, it was single stage paint, he had gotten a run in the side, he put his spray gun down, grabbed a eight inch strip of two inch wide masking tape off the roll, using two hands form sort of a bow in front of him and stuck right to the run, pulled it back and it had a perfect id on the tape of the run, he waited about five minutes and hit that spot again with the spray gun and couldn`t tell where the run had been...
Thanks, Jim. Coming from you I consider that high praise. Lots of things on this build have been "a learning experience", but this paint has been a big one! I'd still do it again, though, and will!Quote:
Originally Posted by J. Robinson
Rich, I've heard of that before but I'd like to see it done before I try it! Of course, if a guy know's he's going to be sanding the panel down to re-coat anyway......., maybe it'd be worth a try!! Another arrow in the quiver?? :LOL:Quote:
Originally Posted by 406Rich
yep we did that if you put a run in some things or i use this more for plucking junk out . i had sewing needles that i used to hook junk out of paint or tweezers. many times i run the paint off the panel if on a lower .wash boy i was teaching him how to paint did this one time to show him what to do. i was painting a black car 30 year ago with my buddy we were shoooting cars together . his sisters car black single stage was teaching him how to paint in a dark shop he was having fun with me hanged a small run off the sports side mirror he kept on me about that damn drip .so he was painting in gym shorts ? so i looked at him said you know whats really funny ?no i do not.... so i painted to side of has leg black enamelQuote:
Originally Posted by 406Rich
Do those tricks for pulling a run, or plucking things off the surface work just as good for clear? I'd think the answer is yes, because clear coat is just single stage paint without any pigment in it. I may need to add a pair of tweezers & a big needle to my paint booth tools!;):LOL::LOL::LOL:
many times its just tape as it allways around the paint shop close by i used it folded over like a loop to scoop junk outQuote:
Originally Posted by rspears
OK, I'm becoming convinced that my experience painting is JINXED!! :LOL: My one splash apron was so bad I decided to sand it down and start over. Luckily I called my paint guy, and he told me that with the amount of material on there I needed to get all the clear off, and suggested working it down with thinner. Took a bit, but I finally got it down to base & primer again. I decided since I was going to be shooting from scratch, primer, base & clear, I might as well add the dash to the job so I pulled all the gauges and AC vents and got it ready for primer. Shot two coats of epoxy on both pieces, plus a couple of radiator brace brackets, and let them cure over night. This morning I got out there early and shot the base black & candy blue. Let that cure an hour, and got ready for clear. Shot the first coat, left to let it flash for ten or fifteen minutes and came back for the second coat. Did the brackets, then the dash, then finished with the splash apron. Everything looking great, good shine, no sags, no runs, and about that time I see a little tan worm, maybe 1/2" long & 1/16" around, inching up the bottom edge of the dash, right on the passenger corner!!:eek: A stinkin' WORM!! Where did a stinkin' WORM come from!!:LOL::LOL: By the time I turned, grabbed an awl nearby, and got back he was on the front corner, heading up!! :mad::LOL: I hooked him & flipped him to the floor, staring in dismay at the worm trail in the wet clear:( I grabbed the gun and gave it a quick hit, but then I remembered Rich's post, where he mentioned the old guy waiting five minutes, hitting it again and the run disappearing.;) Sooooo, I stood there counting seconds, watching the clock and at five minutes hit that corner a couple of shots. After about three or four minutes the worm trail was all but gone!! Easily sandable during cut & buff.;)
Rich, thanks big time for sharing that old story. It added an arrow to the quiver, and helped me save the dash spray job without piling on more clear while it was too wet!!**)
You poor beggar!
A worm!
Who would've believed it?
Ya know, I'm more than sure there's a fella sitting around looking over people's shoulders with a handful of spanners to throw in the works!
(Or in your case a worm!)
:eek: :HMMM: :( :confused:
i do every Pro painter knows very well you have to offer up some thing to the paint gods. nailing down one more coat is 101 in painting or what is also that we called flooding the the panle with another coat if that fails washing it all off with thinner if it pulls the primer then next setup is to throw the gun or go to the bar or both.. i never beat on my guns but i seen it .. worms no.... but i had many spiders or the years small flying things to bugs the size of a 747 that love to do the death march 1/2 the way threw a top panle for the world to see hood or deck lid then lay down in the clear . most the time a moth with them chalky white wings that stick down in the clear and it.s always a dark paint jobQuote:
Originally Posted by johnboy
In the process of putting the car back together I'm trying to solve known "issues" as I can. One thing I was unhappy with was that I had mounted the Edelbrock ECU to the back side of the firewall with a couple of strips of industrial velcro tape. It worked "OK", but several times I had found the ECU loose, likely due to the "pull" of the two big wire bundles. One of the beauties of working with a fiberglass body is that one can use bondo or construction adhesive as "glue" for most any material to install a base. Bondo sets quick and seems to be more permanent in my experience. I had envisioned a steel plate with a couple of tapped holes and a metal strap over the ECU, but one thing led to another and I ended up in the wood shop area with some old walnut panels that are at least 100 years old. The area is pretty tight, but I ended up with a base with a top overhang about 1/2" taller than the box, and a bottom support about 1/2" shorter with a 1/4x20 threaded insert inside. The top overhang has a rabbeted groove that the cover slips into, and then pinches the ECU with a polished socket head bolt. Left the bottom edge "natural" for grins. It's functional, and if anyone sticks their head under the dash the look's not too shabby for a quick banged together contraption :LOL:
Attachment 58212
Attachment 58211
That's a nice piece of wood! Now you can say you have a '33 Woody.
Very creative, nice job-you give a new meaning to "it gives me wood"-:)
I have been working in Wood for years, and have thought about how to integrate it in my build-with my "theme" I can't think of how to do it, but it fits well in you Car-looks good!
Roger---we used velcro to fasten lots of stuff on the Indy cars back in the 80s------
And the ceilings are held up with velcro on Boeings
was it the velcro came apart or the tape pulled off the fiberglass or module????and can you do a pic of the type velcro you used?????Maybe then I'll start a thread
Jerry,Quote:
Originally Posted by jerry clayton
I no longer have the package - got down to a foot remaining and tossed the box but from the backing it is Velcro Brand, and is their "Industrial Strength" product purchased in a bulk package from Lowe's, 1.875" wide and I think 5 feet long or more, link Industrial Strength VELCRO® Brand Tape, Coins, and Strips I now see from their website that they also have "Extreme Industrial", as well as "Low Profile Industrial" which might be cool.
I painted my fiberglass (and wood) surface(s) with fiberglass resin to provide a smooth surface, then attached the loop side with the adhesive backing on the tape. On this module the velcro remained attached to both surfaces, but the module would come loose (Velcro released) occasionally.
Starting a new thread for a "How To" on Velcro would be a great idea, but with all respect I'm not asking for that input here. The purpose of my post was to show the woodwork option, not to discuss why my Velcro didn't hold.
Well, two steps forward but then again, one big step backwards today. I re-sanded the doors & quarters this morning to get rid of a bit of funky surface reflection and polished them out again. As I cleaned things up I kept finding little spots that were kind of dull, so I attacked them with the foam polishing pad, too. Now a couple of days back I was really disheartened as I looked at the hood after it had been out in the sunshine for an hour or so - a bunch of little shallow low spots reflecting light every which way. I was about ready to take a long block to it to mark the lows but waited until morning and to my surprise the hood was perfectly flat!! Then after a few minutes in the hot sun I could see the lows forming. Seems that the inner panel, which has two wide ribs side to side, and the upper, exterior panel are pulling on each other as it heats in the sun, soooo I decided there's nothing I can do about it and I finished polishing it out. Now today, as I got all the interior back in and buttoned everything up I look at the hood and see a pair of ugly bubbles raised up near the back of the hood!! This is in the area where I ground down past the gel coat to glass in the extension in the back, filling the gap to the cowl, and after the heat I can clearly see that line where new glass meets old. Not sure what's off-gassing, but it looks like I'm going to be re-doing the hood sooner as opposed to later.... Not a happy camper today.
Here's a couple of shots after the cleanup.
Attachment 58229
Attachment 58228
Attachment 58230
But it's such a Damn Beautiful car!
I guess unless we're Chip Foose, we all become disheartened with our own work. I still have lots of "should haves" every day. You did a lot of work and ended up with a head-turner ride, Roger. Be proud of all you've accomplished. (BTW, black cars belong in the shade anyhow. ;) )
Ah, yes, Roger, "perfection" is a narrow and most challenging road to travel. My eyes & heart always want to go there but it seems my hands often make me take detours....:eek::LOL:
I guess the key is to find joy in the journey because even if you do make it perfect, somebody or something is going to come along and put a flaw in it!:CRY::3dSMILE:
The car definitely looks SWEET and we've all learned a lot and appreciated taking the trip with you! Thanks for the virtual ride now come and take us for a real one.....;)
That thing looks like it will run too fast for anybody to see any flaws in the paint anyway!:LOL::LOL:
Roger, The old "masking tape on the run" trick worked better on old Alkyd and Acrylic Enamels than it does on modern Urethanes, but it's still useful.:rolleyes: For small runs in the clear, I just let them harden completely and then "shave" them off. I have a piece of an old Vixen file about 1 1/2 inch long. I wrap each edge with a strip of masking tape and then shave the run down until nothing more is coming off. At that point, the remaining part of the run is only as thick as a piece of masking tape, so it sands and buffs easily.:cool:
As for the hood - where the old 'glass meets the new and shows up - that's called "read-out". I worked at Eckler's Corvette years ago; any area of a car or fiberglass part that had the gelcoat disturbed got re-gelcoated before final sanding and paint. If you didn't gelcoat the new 'glass work on the hood after you finished working on it, that could be the problem. If you gelcoated it and it's still showing, it could be a difference in the resins (whatever you used may be slightly chemically different than what the hood was made of) and the new and old 'glass have different shrink rates.:( My advice is leave it alone for about a year until the new 'glass is "seasoned". If it's still showing read-out then (or if it gets worse) and you decide you just can't live with it, strip the hood, give the whole thing a fresh coat of gelcoat, and repaint it.:o
many years ago i pick up one of them vixen files sold by stec ? made for paint drips came mounted in a small wooded block .i did not like it. still in the top of my tool box .i use to take a razor blade single strait blade and round the corners off and use that. they work good and what we call... a snot block ..it was like 1200 girt in a small block that you could sand to form it to the shape of panle you where sanding what was nice about the block as it was soild grit it could be sanded if it started to load upQuote:
Originally Posted by J. Robinson
use to do alot of SMC and used fiber gell made by swiss had very good hold out . the good old days alkyd and enamels with no kicker will weed out the good painters fast :)
Pat - I have one of those little blocks, but mine has teeth like a Bastard file. I don't like it either. It leaves scratches that are as difficult to deal with as the run I'm trying to remove!:eek: I've seen other painters shave a run with a razor blade, but when I try that it always digs in and leaves a divot in the paint that has to be sanded and repainted.:mad: I guess I don't have "the touch" needed to make it work. I've never seen what you call the "snot block". Do you know where it came from? I'd like to try one.
You're right about old-time enamel. I remember old Dupont Dulux; no hardener, no cross-linker, just paint and reducer. If you could spray that stuff and get a good gloss with no runs, you were a MASTER PAINTER!:D Life in the paint booth was suddenly much easier when acrylic enamel hit the market...:rolleyes:
Jim,
I like your tip with the short section of a file. I use the razor blade in much the same way, with a couple of pieces of tape on the ends to limit the cut, as long as the blade remains upright in a scraping action. My "paint guy" gave me that tip, and I've found it works good but the tape does get cut down pretty quickly and needs to be changed as needed or the whole blade starts cutting.
Attachment 58268
I also found that rounding the corners of the blade, like Pat mentioned, is not a bad idea, as they can punch through and dig in quickly on inside curves.
I think what Pat is calling a "snot block" is pumice stone that's kept soaking in water. Meguire's made mine, called a Uni-grit Sanding Block - comes in 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit.
Attachment 58269
It's about 1x1x2.5", and as you use it grooves wear into the surface and it has to be "re-surfaced". A piece of adhesive backed sand paper on a piece of glass works great for this, but they wear quickly. This is mine, in 2000 grit now 1/4" thick, after using it a bunch.
Attachment 58267
I'm interested in the gel-coat information, Jim, and really appreciate your insight. I did not know that the gel-coat could be re-applied to blend repairs - thought it was only an initial layer inside the mold, which then got the fiberglass laid in on top. I'll have to look into the option of a new top coat of gel-coat if that's what it takes. I'll definitely be re-painting the hood in the Fall/Winter, as I have two (at this point) bubbles that I need to puncture and glue down with super glue in a syringe. After the summer fun I'll look at working down those areas, prepping the whole hood and re-spraying primer, color and clear.
I can't seem to find my little piece of Vixen file or I would post a pic of it. For anyone reading this who doesn't know what a Vixen file is (cometimes called a Vixen rasp), it's a flexible file with big curved teeth (8 teeth per inch) normally used for doing sheet metal straightening and shaping lead. Eastwood and other auto repair suppliers sell them. I attached a pic of one. I had a piece cut off about 1 1/2 inches long.
We used two kinds of gelcoat when I worked at Eckler's. They stocked a sprayable gelcoat in quarts and gallons and we also made our own sometimes by mixing body filler with resin (more about that later). The surface being gelcoated had to be bare fiberglass or gelcoat; there could be absolutely no paint or primer on the surface. We prepared it by sanding it with 80 grit. The commercial stuff was a polyester resin based product that contained talc (like primer). It had to be mixed with liquid hardener, just like regular resin. If the gelcoat needed to be thinned, it was reduced with liquid styrene. A small area could be applied with a brush, but the application was smoother if it was sprayed. If spraying, it had to be done immediately before it set up in the gun. After hardening, the gelcoat was sanded to final paint-readiness. If we sanded through the gel anyplace, it had to be prepped and gelcoated again!:whacked:
For small areas (like your hood edges), we sometimes used a mixture of ordinary body filler and polyester resin (It's advisable to use regular body filler, not the lightweight stuff that contains glass beads). We would put a blob of body filler in a cup (butter tubs work good for this) and stir in resin until we had a brushable mixture. Then add the liquid hardener, stir it up and brush it on the prepared area.
Whichever method you choose, make sure you blend it onto the existing gelcoat far enough that it can be "feathered out" and apply it thick enough you can sand without going too thin or breaking through. If you're going to spray the commercial stuff, get a cheap gun that you won't use for anything else ($9 at Harbor Freight?) because if the stuff kicks in the gun you'll have to throw it away.:HMMM:
Roger, I sanded through the gelcoat on my '34 in many different places. I did not apply a new gelcoat, but I did use a catalyzed sealer before priming. Nothing lifted or bubled where I added body filler or fiberglass.
Jack,Quote:
Originally Posted by Henry Rifle
Mine got two coats of catalyzed epoxy primer and a guide coat, then blocked to ID low's which were filed with body filler & finish sanded. Once "ready" it got two coats of epoxy primer, blocked w/ 500grit, then base & clear. I thought the epoxy primer would do the trick, and when I talked to the guy who made the body about extending the hood he never mentioned needing to gel-coat new glass, even when I called him after it revealed the edges.
i will dig my vixen paint drip file up and shoot a photo of it it was a vixen type file and i think the company that made it was stec ...still have some of my body metal / lead files left over from body work. Roger yes them are the block.s but 2000 is way to fine for a drip i know a guy that still sand out color paint to top coat clear over it with 400 grit wet. use to make up sanding blocks out of paint sticks cut them down round the corners off and use 600 wet then go up to 1000. finish to 1200 or 1500 and buff
should not need to re gell like said all it is as a polyester resin (most are) with a filler much like body filler but you can spray gell . many of the old vet guys loved the Ever Coat feather fill i used it but was to much $$ for me .i used the PPG DZ primers till the K2s came out . sounds like to me you had a issue with thiners driveing in and then coming up and out of the finish . that.s were you get rings from. i done alot or glass/SMC over the years for race cars and the air planes stuff for Jon and i block most the gell off many parts never had to much things go side ways less the parts did not have good product on them from the start. just bad gell . did alot of glass parts were they were raw NO gell and hold out was not bad as one would think for the air planes were they needed to look good and be very lite for the aerobatics planes Jon allways watch how much paint was put on so fast cover colors were a plus to keep the weight down
After getting over the initial anger of a pair of bubbles and some movement in the outer hood surface I'm going to let it cook in the Kansas summer sun and then evaluate it in the Fall regarding how to go. Everyone I've talked to says that a couple of months should have been plenty of time for total cure, regardless what temperatures it was during that time, but then something "cooked off" to cause some bubbles. Not the end of the world. Better to be looking at re-coating the hood than the top :eek::D:LOL::LOL::LOL:
Roger, just catching up and reading what's going on since my last post, I must say you are the poster boy for perseverance. I'm learning so much from you sharing before I paint my Coupe. Thank you for not giving up and staying with this. You are inspirational! Your car looks awesome as is!
to fix it will not to be re gell coated . part of it may be it is a black car and most air set resins start to move around 130 or so you have to post cure some stuff or glass needs to be very thick if air cured glass to hold up to the suns heat . i sanded most gell off as this is the first spayed in the mold if the glass part made that way many times there is void were there is not glass up to the gell then if not checked for voids. if you do not then they will pop up in the finish.i did a jegs drag 34 chevy roadster that young blood did the art for? went over every inch of the body with a nail and pop all the voids of before i started blocking it all out found many voids. i had to fill with glass filler.most voids were off the body lines . on turbo teds waymans grand national buick that was all VFN glass but the rear clip was steel and was black pick up a second place at cobo in detroit in the class were that car was placed in . on just the hood we stop counting hours of time past 40 hours in just the hood many hours on the partsQuote:
Originally Posted by rspears
I, too, have worked fiberglass many times without repairing the gelcoat and got away with no read-out. Nine times out of ten, no problem. But when I worked at Eckler's, anything that got 'glassed got re-gelcoated. The boss didn't want that one-time-out-of-ten chance of read-out ruining the finish on a $40,000 custom Corvette (40K was a lot of money in 1981!). I'm glad all these folks have had remarkable luck with their 'glass work and we can argue about this all week, but if you've already had read-out problems once and you do everything the same way again, you will more than likely have them again in the same places. Albert Einstein once said,"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result!":whacked: When you finally get around to stripping and repainting your hood next winter, why not add that little bit of extra assurance by brushing on some gelcoat over the problem areas? An extra hour or two may save some further grief. :cool:
I'm with Jim on the gel coat!!! Had a Merc body in 'glass that was the "1 out of 10"... Did some gelcoat on the bare glass areas, no more problems....
Or, the common sense rationale; If 'glass doesn't need gel coat, why do all the companies making 'glass bodies go to the extra time and expense of using it?
