Body work is complete
The body work on the ’57 is now complete! After a solid week of bodywork, blocking, sanding and priming, the body is now ready for its final sanding. If the finial blocking comes out nice, the body will be ready for paint. This will really only leave a few trim parts and some interior parts that need painting. The straightening of these panels actually went very smoothly. Jordan and Cole get all the credit for that hard work. These guys worked really hard getting the body nice. Paul, then took his turn masking it off and spraying a few coats of high solids primer on here, twice. Its a dirty job and hard work, but the rewards worth every bit of it.
Time for bed
We have been working pretty hard and heavy on the the C-10 these past few weeks and its paying off. The hood is completely finished and ready for paint. The next time it gets sanded, it will be painted. The body work on the outside of the bedsides are done and in their second priming. We will block those out one more time and prime them once more to ensure they are straight. The body work on the inside of the bedsides was finished up today and they were primed as well. All in all, quite a bit of work getting done on this one. Next we finish the outsides of the beds then its on to the cab and doors.
Lining the fender wells
Last week while we were spraying so much bedliner, we thought we would go ahead and spray the fender wells on the 70 Beetle we’ve been working on. This is so much better than undercoating because its tougher, looks better and is a true urethane product. We started by sanding the areas with 80 grit paper that we wanted to spray. We then masked off the areas that didnt get liner. Prepped it all up, and sprayed 2 coats of liner on here. Once it was dry, we untapped it and as you can see, it looks great. This car is really starting to look good.
Straightening the curves
Now that the outside of the bedsides are straight, its time for the insides. Same steps here as the outsides. Block out the primer to find the highs and lows, tap the highs down and fill the lows. Since this truck is 45 years old, it has some wear and tear. We are going to go ahead and also fill the pitting that has occurred from years of use along with the spot welds to make the insides of these smooth as silk. Its little things like that that make it a little different than the others.
Its a block party!
In the words of Ice Cube, today was a good day. Lots of body work was completed on the quarters, the bottom of the hood and bottom portion of the bed floor was sprayed with epoxy. Once the epoxy was dry the bed floor was sprayed with bed liner. Tomorrow we plan on flipping the bed floor over, spraying epoxy on it and bed lining it as well. We will also spray the top side of the hood with high build epoxy and I hope to re-prime the bedsides. Its a tall order but we are really close to finishing up the body work on the bedsides.
Let the fun begin
Here you can see we have gotten started on the bodywork on the ’71 C10. This truck will be restoration with a few twists to make it more fun to drive and look better than when it was new. Paul worked on sanding the bottom of the bed in preparation for its epoxy coating followed by Raptor liner bed liner. The top side will also receive the same treatment. While Paul was working on that, Jordan and I was straightening out the bedsides. This truck has seen its days as a work truck. The beds are not in horrible shape but do need quite a bit of straightening out. All the molding holes have already been welded up as well as the side marker lights. These areas must now be straightened. We primed these panels a few weeks ago using PPG’s Vibrance line of high build epoxy. We then blocked the bedsides out with 80 grit sandpaper and started the body work you see here. Once the outsides of these bedsides are straight, we will prime these 2 more times to be sure they are nice and straight. This will ensure a slick paint job that you can also use as a mirror. Cole worked the hood over really good. Cleaning the pits of rust out and sanding it so we can apply epoxy to it as well. We also metal worked the hood out at this time to minimize filler. Tomorrow we plan on spraying some primer and bedliner so stay tuned.
Big day for the Bug
Today was a good day for the Beetle. We knew we would be finished up with our collision work on Thursday this week so we took some time to finish sanding the Bug and started prepping it for paint. This morning we slid it in the booth wiped it all down and started spraying it. After a good coat of sealer, several coats of base coat was sprayed inside and out on the body. We then let that all sit and dry thoroughly until after lunch. Once back, we followed the base with a couple coats of PPG’s high solids clear coat. As you can see it turned out pretty nice. We still have to find fenders and paint them as the original ones are just a bit too far gone to fix and a couple of other little parts need spraying. Once this body is good and dry it will go back on the chassis. We hope that happens late next week.
Bed time
Over the past few days we have been working on the C10 project, you may have seen the first post a few weeks back. We decided to blow this bed back apart to make sure we get paint and primer in all the nooks and crannies. It hard enough to do apart but together its impossible. We also welded in a patch in an ugly area on the inside lip of the bed rail. Looks like someone in the past put a hook there to strap down some cargo and it messed the lip up. What you see here is 3 good coats of PPG’s Vibrance line high build epoxy. We sanded and cleaned the metal multiple times to ensure the surface was as clean as possible. Paul then applied the primer allowing the product to dry in between coats. The next step for these panels will be a good blocking out with 80 grit. We will then be able to see all of our low and high spots. We will do our body work right over this product. Once they are straight, another coat of epoxy followed by several coats of urethane high build primer. These are the most important steps in the paint process.
Doing the trim
We have been prepping these parts for the past few days. We started by blocking them then going back over them with a soft pad on a DA. We then sanded the nooks and crannies to make sure out pant sticks in all the right places. Today was a pretty good for progress. We were able to get the insides of the hood and fenders painted and they turned out great! Tomorrow we will flip these parts over sand over the outside again to smooth them up one final time and lay down some slick paint on them.
