Project Boondoggle (or, so I went and bought a Z!)

[charliekwin]

My original compressor is a 10 gallon oiled HF unit. I did the epoxy with that compressor and the purple HF gun.

For the high build primer, I used a better HF gun and the same compressor. That was a struggle, but barely passable. That compressor couldn't even do a small test pass with the Devilbiss gun.

The second compressor I picked up is the 21 gallon oiled one from HF.

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[charliekwin]

Another productive day of painting; finally in the home stretch. I got the fenders, doors, and the top of the hood and hatch done today.

 

I think I did a better job overall on the shell than I did on these pieces, which I wouldn't have expected. I could never get a nice flat coat on the hood, and something weird happened on one spot on the top of a fender. But I did a respectable job on all my body work (phew!) and I'm planning to do a cut and buff on everything anyway, so I think it'll look good once fixed.

All that's left to paint now is the cowl, inspection panels, gas cover, and the bottom of the hood and hatch.

 

And an outside shot of the shell to show the color. This is pretty true to life. I maybe should have gone just a little bit darker and a little less saturated, but I like it.

[charliekwin]

A little bit of a step backwards since the last update.

 

I moved the fenders inside to make room in the garage and when one of them caught the light I saw a flat spot/dent on a headlight bucket that I (somehow!) managed to overlook all this time. Uugghhh.

Thought (okay, hoped) I might get lucky and be able to hammer it back into shape. Nope. Thought (with less hope) maybe it wouldn't be too obvious installed on the car with the hood. Also nope. I've put too much into it so far to cut corners now, so I had to fix it.

 

The body work was easy enough, but advice about blending paint seemed to range from "it might work if you have the all the right materials and really know what you're doing, but probably not even then" to "bet on the Browns to win the Super Bowl first." But I gave it a shot (two shots, actually) anyway. The first attempt I tried to blend it in and ended up with a halo. Second attempt I just laid it on, which left an obvious edge that wouldn't sand out. So both failed, and I've come to accept that I just need to sand the whole fender and re-shoot it. 

 

So that's a bummer --I just want to be done painting-- but I'm making some lemonade: now I have a test panel I can use to practice color sanding and buffing. I've used 1500, 2000, and 3000 and Meguiars M105 and M205. It does seem like I'll need to go all the way up to 3000 to get out the scratches, since the polisher is less aggressive than I thought it would be. I'm more confident that I won't screw things up terribly now, which will definitely won't regret thinking in a couple weeks.

 

I'm making a real effort to keep my expectations reasonable here and not compare my paint job to that of the show cars I saw last week. For even a quick job, it looks pretty good at standing distance; I should be happy with that.

 

[Patcon]

Yes, you should!!!

You shot single stage, didn't you? It is harder to touch up, than two stage. The halo you got, was the color good on that repair area? If so you might could have wet sanded the halo out. Then cut and polish

[charliekwin]

Yeah, I shot single stage. I tried wet sanding but it didn't seem to help a whole lot and I was worried about going through too much of the paint. Oh well.

I did the hatch this afternoon. Before -> 1500 -> 2000 -> 3000 -> M105 -> M205

I have to share the hangups, too. Turns out the hatch edges had less paint on them than my fender I practiced on. I should have been more careful with wet sanding and I have a couple areas where the sealer is peeking through. Those will be my reminders to tape up the edges everywhere else.

And the paint's definitely not perfect. I can get a pretty nice shot if I let the camera focus on the reflection, but the flaws are there with manual.

So it doesn't hold up to intense scrutiny, but does look plenty nice sitting here in my office, and I think I'm as likely to make things worse as I am better if I mess with it much more. I'll look at it in the sun tomorrow before moving on for good.

Meanwhile, the amount of all the other stuff still left to do is coming into focus. Over the weekend, I fixed one of the door hinges, cleaned them all up a bit, along with the hood torsion rods, and painted everything with a bit of Rustoleum so they look nicer. (Side note: I love my little Harbor Freight detail gun that came in the two pack!) I got the rods and hood hinges installed. That's also something I hope not to have to do again.  Boy, the unpainted bits really stand out now.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

[Patcon]

You have done really well, considering you are learning on the fly!

I try to make a point of shooting the edges really well when I paint. Edges like that always seem to be thin. I don't really know what causes that but I tend to intuitively add paint there when possible. Single stage is a more correct paint for these classic cars, but it can be more difficult to repair flaws.

You paint looks really good after the cut & polish!

[charliekwin]

Thanks for the kind words! The experience has been instructive: a lot of lessons learned that I can carry to the next project (whatever it is and whenever I can convince my wife that I need a new one).

And I have even more appreciation now for the work and skill that goes into the flawless, top-quality paint jobs out there.

[Patcon]

49 minutes ago, charliekwin said:

Thanks for the kind words! The experience has been instructive: a lot of lessons learned that I can carry to the next project (whatever it is and whenever I can convince my wife that I need a new one).

And I have even more appreciation now for the work and skill that goes into the flawless, top-quality paint jobs out there.

Yes, there is nothing like DIY paint. It will teach you alot.

Good luck convincing the wife.

I am not super fast at body work, but I have a huge appreciation for what it makes to produce perfect paint. When I go to car shows and see a boat of a car that has beautiful straight reflective lines down it, I know it took hundreds of hours to get there. Those hours translate to thousands of dollars. Which is why I end up DIY. Not only does it take a lot of time it takes a lot of experience to get it that perfect before you lay down color.

[charliekwin]

Did the body today, and the roof twice.

Worried about sanding through the paint again, and over-corrected instead by not sanding enough. After polishing, I put it outside and decided that it just wasn't good enough.

 

Second time around isn't perfect, but it looks loads better, even without the polish yet.

Now I'll probably want to go back and clean up the B pillars and maybe the shoulder part of the rear quarters.

Finally getting the hang of the DA polisher, too.

[wheee!]

You are doing it right. Sand, polish, check. Repeat. You can always sand a little more, never a little less....

[Patcon]

Your second cut looks much better.

Wheee! is right sand then check, then sand some more. After a while you can tell by how your sanded panel looks if you have it smooth enough. It looks like guide coating does. There will be tiny round spots that are not the whitish color that the high spots are. When those are pretty much all gone then it's ready to cut & polish. You can use wax & grease remover to wipe down the panel and it flashes off quickly.

[Jaymanbikes]

I just don’t have luck cutting and buffing with anything other than a wool pad on conventional buffer with 3M compound.  Maybe I’m  just not  using the right pads on my DA buffer-polisher.  Interested to know what pads and compounds you all use.