Making the bed

Just out of the booth after spraying in the Raptor Liner, the ol’ girl is looking sharp.

We put the  Raptor Liner on the floor and left the walls of the bed in paint.

In the booth

This 1969 El Camino is in the shop for a little TLC.

The first picture shows the car … um, truck … er, vehicle after the body has been primed and blocked to remove any slight imperfections in the body work so the paint looks its best.

In the second photo you can see that the black and red color layers have been applied. In case you are wondering how different color paints are applied, it is really very simple.

You mask off the vehicle for one color, say the red, and apply that color. After the paint dries, you remove the masking, remask for the other color, and repeat.

Most people are surprised at how flat the color layer is until the clear coat is applied. That’s the next step.

You can’t have too much protection

If I asked you to tell me the first thing you think of when I say, “British car,” one of the things that probably comes to mind is rust. While a problem in the past, with the materials available today, rust is no longer an issue.

I sprayed Raptor Liner, the bed-liner material we use here at JMC AutoworX, on all the interior surfaces and in the fender wells. Raptor Liner forms a tough, water proof, rust proof barrier to protect the metal from damage.

Tinted red, to match the car, the Raptor Liner coating will blend in and be almost unnoticeable.

Prime time

After all the dents are hammered out, the car is coated with an acid etching primer. The etching primer, which appears as a greenish-gold in these photos, bonds to the metal and gives the subsequent layers something to stick to.

The etching primer is followed by an epoxy primer, not shown in this series of photos. The epoxy primer binds to the etching primer and seals the car to prevent rust.

The epoxy primer is followed by a high builds primer. The high builds primer, which is gray, dries to a hard finish that is then sanded away by a process called blocking.

As the car is blocked, any slight ripples or imperfections in the metal are filled leaving a perfectly smooth and flat surface to paint over. It is the smoothness of this surface that allows a High Performance Finish, which this car will receive, to really pop.

G’day Gov’nor

The owner of this 1961 MG A is doing the bulk of the restore himself but he needed a little help with the paint. We here at JMC AutoworX are ready to help.

The car was first sent away for media-blasting to remove the old paint to give us a good foundation for laying on the paint. Media-blasting is the process of removing paint, rust and crud by spraying tiny plastic beads against a surface with a high pressure stream of air. It is just like sand-blasting except the plastic beads don’t chew up the metal the way sand would.

The body of the car is in terrific shape. After the paint was removed we tackled the little bit of metal work this car needed.