Id still set the strips off with a thin pinstrip of a contrasting color (like the red youre doing above the rockers).

 

if I use the heritage stripes I already bought, the black pinstripe is already built into them. I could experiement with laying a red stripes in between the black heritage pinstripe and the main body of the large stripe, and have a black/red/black look. that might look nice

 

thats what i was envisioning in my head. i guess i just didnt explain it very well. but yea, filling in the space between the large strip and small stripe with red would look good.

 

I'll see how the large decal lays down, and then get some small pinstripe to go in the void. Might be cool.. might be too busy... don't know yet

 

OMG. now that I actually have the paint, I'm dying to put it on!

the problem is I still have a ton of work left to do, including:
take apart the doors to get the mirrors, door handles, locks and sweeps out.
A little body work on the passenger side door
filling some hail dents on various parts of the car, sanding that down, using high build primer ( at least 2 coats), blocking that down
spraying the edges of the new front clip i'm going to put on
putting the front clip on
spraying the whole car with epoxy right before I paint
and THEN I get to put the base coat and clear on

I'm hoping to be painting by august, and then have the car ready to go by october 15.... I don't want to rush this, you know what happens when you rush a job

by the way, my car is almost totally sanded down to primer... and I STILL had a guy pull up next to me a couple days ago and ask me if I was interested in selling... I told him no

there's something special about these cars...

 

ok, I was slowed down for a bit when my other car went down for about 10 days, but I got it going again, so I'm off to the races. Yesterday I dropped insurance on the car, so I can't drive it anyway, so there's nothing stopping me from taking it apart now to start the nitty gritty of painting it.

I spent two hours the other night just prepping a chin spoiler, and I'm still not done. The labor it takes to do a car right is just astronomical. I can see why people charge six to ten thousand dollars to restore a car.

remind me when I go to buy a third gen for my son to pay more to get one that doesn't need a repaint. I'm not going to want to do this again any time soon

 

wheres all the pictures??!? lol your coming along nicely mark. cant wait to see the finished product

 

it's so ugly I hate to post any, but here's a one anyway....

I don't have to sand down the front clip because I have a replacement one I'm prepping for installation

 

im sorry but it still looks good IMO but your coming along

 

thanks, LOL. I can't stand to look at it like that. makes me want to paint it TODAY

 

A couple of suggestions:
-Pull the headliner and attempt to remove the hail damage from the inside. Other places are more difficult to get to, but the roof is easy. It keeps the amount of filler in the car to a minimum.
-Prime and block it at least twice. If you purchased a gallon of primer there should be enough to do just that.
-It looks like your using a spraybomb etch prime to cover the bare spots.(correct me if I'm wrong) If you are, be careful, the etch prime could "lift" the surrounding paint and it'll be more of a PITA than it's worth. If you're using an epoxy primer, it'll work just fine over those small bare metal spots.

 

thanks, the hail damage on the roof is very minor. it's the kind you cant even see unless the roof is at a full gloss. I think just a little filler will be ok.

I'm going to fill, epoxy, epoxy again (because I know the filler soaks up a bunch) two coats high build, block it down, one or two more coats high build, block it, and then do another coat of exoxy to seal everything up right before I apply base

the etch was just a temp thing to protect the car until I'm ready to fill... It's all coming off

sound like a good plan?

 

I like it. There's no reason to strip the etch, I understand why you did it. Just beware of the outer area where the etch meets the existing paint. Make sure that the paint isn't wrinkled, which is the sign of it lifting. If you see it, just strip the exiting paint or sand it back till it feathers in that area. You doing BC/CC?

 

yes, SPI epoxy, SPI 2K primer, pro-spray base, and SPI universal clear.

I heard from so many people about the quality of those product that I decided to up my budget and purchase them. Not that the kirker would have been bad, I heard good things about that too, but SPI and prospray seem to be universally loved

 

i didn't clean and prep properly before putting the etch on... it's just a light coat, so it's easy to take off. no biggie. since I bought the epoxy, I don't need it

 

Excellent choice of materials.

 

thanks! I should have also mentioned that I plan on leaving the car outside to cure the primer before I start blocking it. that should help prevent any shrinkage problems

 

Yet another good idea. Painting assembled or apart?

 

good question.... this is the plan right now...
I'm thinking of spraying the underside of the hood before hand, to practice and set up the gun. I might also spray the edges of the bumpers and fenders I have to put on, just to get them close to the correct color. I also mihgt spray and clear the jams at this time. Haven't quite decided how i'm going to tackle that, as well as the area around the weather stripping in the hatch area. that needs repainting too, so at some point it has to come off. I might use foam to protect the jams from overspray once they are done.

then I'm thinking of putting the parts together, and spraying the car like that, with the exception of maybe having the hood on saw horses next to the car, so I can spray and clear the tops of the fenders in the engine bay at the same time

as far as panel spraying... I'm afraid of three things... the color not matching, and scratching up the paint trying to get it all back together, and in the case of the chin spoiler, the part flexing so much the paint cracks

I am going to remove the door handles and locks though. Unlike my 1958 impala, there isn't a whole lot of other trim to remove. (I already removed the body side moldings)

 

Hah. You've done this before. I'm guessing you're shooting a metallic and those can be tricky if the car isn't assembled, simple spray patterns can make the paint appear a shade off even though it came out of the same container. Your concerns are spot on. I'll suggest "cutting in" (term for spraying the door jambs/deck lid/hood, fender, bumper cover edges) with base apart, assemble for entire vehicle base, then disassemble and clear everything. It's a HUGE pain in the *** to do this, but every possible hard to get spot will be covered in color and clear yielding the best coverage one could get. But again, this process falls in line with your concerns. Check to see how long your base stays "open" (the amount of time the manufacturer recommends before clearing) This will make some decisions more difficult as the base may only stay "open" for a few hours. Regardless of your process, it sounds like you have this well in hand.


Edit: Gotta see a pic of the Imp.

 

Thanks. The 58 was/is a ground up, but it was done in lacquer, so it was a whole different ballgame. Here's a website about my experience with it

http://ourimpala.com

This will be my first bc/cc job, but i've been reading a ton, trying to learn as much as I can before hand. Most people say if I can spray cut and buff metallic lacquer to show quality, modern paint will be easy

 

That's a great story Mark. Love the father and son projects.

The base coat in a BC/CC job is exactly like lacquer, but without the buffing. The clear is a bit more difficult as you need to maintain the shine with each pass. Methods vary, but I like a tack coat followed by several medium coats after. (temp, humidity, and speed of reducer play a part in the coat thickness) Good luck....I think you'll be fine.

 

the hardest part about lacquer, which took me practice to get past, was learning how to lay it down so when I color sanded the metallics didn't tiger stripe. I started doing it the way my dad told me to do, which was slow and thick, bordering on sags. I fought that battle with him until we ran out of his precious supply ofDupont paint he had been storing for 20 years. Once he finally conceded and I had to prove to him that there was a better way of doing it, we had to have the paint matched as close as possible from TCPglobal, and I did it MY WAY, (that I learned by talking to a lot of experienced painters) and it worked fine.

It frustrating we had to use up all of that paint, because there was no comparison to the quality of paint between the two

 

It's very easy to tiger stripe bases as well. The problem with tiger striping a base is that you typically don't see it till you clear and by then it's too late. I always recommend practicing on something else first.

 

I'm going to start on the underside of the hood, and work my way to more important parts.

Today I finished fixing a couple cracks in the rear bumper, finished prepping the chin spoiler, did a little body work, and used the evercoat z-grip filler I bought in one spot. I wsa shocked it bacame solid so fast while I was working with it. Next time I'm going to have to use less hardener

if I can get myself out to the garage early enough tomorrow, I'm going to sand the etch primer off the roof and fill the small imperfections up there. I hope to be ready for primer in a couple weeks at the latest.

 

here's my roof after putting on the filler. I took all the areas around the hail damage down to bare metal, and then used a wire brush to get into the dents.

I love this filler, it sets fast, but sands easy. It's like frosting a cake

by the way... that's 91 dents.. I counted

 

keep goin man. it is going to look great when you are finished.

 

That's a lot of dents. Next time skim coat the entire roof, you'll find it'd be easier.

 

I meant to, but the filler sets so darn fast. I'm thinking of sanding it all down smooth, and then using a little less hardener and skimming the whole thing

 

that sounds like a plan.

 

an hour of sanding got me this...



next i'll do a skim coat

 

I think I'd shoot a coat of primer and block it first. You may not need the second skim coat of filler.

 

Looking good Mark.

 

Hello,
I knew you were doing this & have been doing this! BUT somehow I missed this thread

SUBSCRIBED NOW....................

 

Welcome to the party Robbie!

Today I finshed messing with the filler (thank GOD) and went to remove the bumper cover. It went ok, but I was cussing GM for those one way clips the use to hold the middle of the cover to the bumper support. I had to destroy at least a dozen of them to get them off. I'll have to find a better option when it's time to put it all back together.

There's so much to do, when does it feel like i'm getting something s
done? My to do list is so long I haven't even bothered making one...

Pics from this morning

 

Subscribed!

 

Yea those clips suck, but atleast theyre cheap...

 

i'm not going to buy new ones. I'm going to try to figure out what size of bolt I can put in there to hold it. there has to be something that will thread into the hole

 

Mark this looks like a really big job, now i know why they charge so much for a paint job! I know when you get it finished there will be great pride in the hard work put into it! I am looking forward to seeing the finished job! I hope it comes out great!

 

me too! If after all this I screw up the actual painting, I'm not going to be be a happy dude. I have plenty of paint to practice with, so I'm not going to spray the car until I'm pretty sure I have the gun set correctly and my technique is satisfactory

but yes, I can see why people charge so much, this is so time consuming!

 

its a labor of love...atleast you dont have to patch any holes in your roof like i do =/, i definately aint looking foward to doing that. I have aluminum tape covering the holes for now.

 

The majority of the costs involved in a paint job is all the prep work. If you can do all that yourself then take it to a shop to have it painted, it will cut the costs down considerably. Its a great option for people who arent scared to play with bondo, but are scared to pick up a gun. Cant wait to see you lay down some paint Mark.

 

I figured out I didn't need to destroy those bumper clips. There's a way to remove them without mutilating them like I did. I just ordered another package of 25 to replace what I messed up.

I removed the rear bumper support today. For some reason it's the only part of my car that's rusty, but it's very rusty. I'm going to see if I can find one in better condition to replace it with before I do any work to try to restore mine. Some thigns just aren't worth the time it would take to fix them.

It's coming along though.,.. got several small things done today

 

I've got a pro-painter that said he would paint it for me for a very reasonable price (phenominal price) if I did all the prep. all he would have to do is just spray it, and that's it.

I'm going to test some panels, and see what the results are. If I don't think I can do a respectable job, I'll probably pay him to do it. Of course I'd rather do it myself, not just because of the money, but for the experience, and to have the ability to go back and re-do panels if needed later

 

got a good bit done today. I took the door handles off and the lock cylinders, as well as the striker bolt. the exterior parts had a lot of cracking and nasty crap that had built up there over the last 22 years and at least one repaint, and I don't think they were ever removed for that.

I also have brand new handles to replace them with. no more rattly, floppy handles!

I touched up a couple more spots on the body, and continued taping the door weatherstrip for painting. My goal is by next monday to be all ready to start spraying high build primer.,a nd then once it cures, i'll start blocking it down. I'm getting the larger compressor over the weekend, so this project is about to take a huge leap forward.

 

spraying an entire car with a small compressor sucks...trust me

 

I've going to borrow my dads 33 gallon craftsman this weekend so I can prime. For the base and the clear I think a buddy is going to let me use his 60 gallon one.

Im using a lvlp gun, so the craftsman may be ok, i'll know in a week

 

a 33 gal compressor would have been nice to use for me

 

Ouch man! What were you trying to use?

 

not what I was trying to use, what I USED. I had a 13 gallon 5hp compressor from my dad, but the motor was fried on it and he didnt know when he brought it over. So I got a little rinky 5gal 2hp compressor from a friend....and I was using an HVLP gun.


I made it happen