Taking it to the Edge

This Ford Edge arrived at the shop with a scratch down the left side, a dandy of one too. If you look closely in the first four photos you can kind of, sort of, almost see it. This is the kind of damage that has to be frustrating to an owner … this scratch is only one step beyond the ability to buff it out.

But buff out it won’t, so the next two photos, numbers five and six, show how to make that ugly blemish disappear … sandpaper. We sanded the damaged area down to rough the paint so the new paint has something to grab onto and to make sure the new paint lays down in a nice even coat.

Pictures seven and eight show the car in the booth after the painting process. With the scratch sanded smooth, the new paint is sprayed on and allowed to dry overnight.

After drying overnight the car is ready for assembly the next morning. The last two photos, numbers nine and ten, are of the completed car, assembled and ready to return to the owner.

After the repair you can get as close to the Edge as you like … and never know know anything was ever amiss.

A coat of many colors

Today … today we painted this 1962 Chevrolet pickup. Today we took a truck that was already looking a little frayed around the edges … and made it look worse. And I think it looks fantastic! The owner of this truck wanted a specific look. His words to me were, “… the worse the better …” Okay … let me see what I can do.

Normally my customers want their car to look its absolute best. That is best expressed in our High Performance Finish where we pay a lot of attention and spend a lot of hours making the metal laser straight. Later, we spend even more hours polishing the paint to bring up the shine until the paint all but explodes off the car. But not today. Today I did something a little different.

Because we only want the truck to look like it is on its last legs, all the metal is well protected so it won’t actually rust. But we covered the metal with a couple of different colored primers, as if the owner was painting it with whatever he had on hand at the moment.

We started with the red oxide primer. I gave the truck a liberal dose of that, both over the bare metal, and then anywhere else I thought a dash of red would add character. I was careful not to do too good a job putting the primer on, not worrying about full coverage or overspray. Remember, the key words here are the worse the better. While the glass and chrome are protected from overspray, the rest of the paint … well, in this case a little over spray never hurt anyone.

After the red primer had dried, I came back with a black primer … just for some contrast. Not only did I hit all the metal that wasn’t completely covered, I also made sure that the patches of red primer weren’t to large. I wanted the truck to look like it had been worked on over the course of many years and that some areas had been worked on more than once.

Finally after the black had dried, it was time for a few spots of white … just because.

Normally when I am painting a car I use one, sometimes two, colors … and I strive to lay down the smoothest, glossiest, coat of paint I can. But not today, and not on this truck. But I did find out one thing today I didn’t expect.

It’s a lot of work to make a truck this bad. But it’s worth it.

Wide whites

This 1962 Chevy rat rod pickup is beginning to come together. The wheels we painted black on Friday have been mounted with some 3-inch white wall tires for that classic rat rod look.

I’m not sure … can a rat rod be a rat rod without wide whites?

Hope to see you there

JMC AutoworX is once again a proud sponsor of the annual Mustangs of Burlington Charity Car Show. JMC AutoworX will be premiering Cassie & Karl’s fabulous 1969 Ford Mustang Mach I at the event. Trust me … if you like Mustangs, this is a car you will want to see.

The show is May 19, 2012 from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm at the Burlington Square/Holly Hill Mall in Burlington North Carolina. For directions to the mall, click here. If you are interested in showing a car, you can download an entry form here.

The show is open to all makes and models, so come on down, see some great looking Mustangs, along with a slew of classic cars of all makes and models. If you do make it to the show, stop by the JMC AutoworX and say hello. I hope to see you there.

A Titan among trucks

This Nissan Titan is back together with a factory replacement bumper and new end cap. There wasn’t much damage,  but I think it looks better without the dent in the bumper.

All that is left is to return the truck to the customer.

Wheeler dealer

Today we did a little wheeling and dealing. The Chevy rat rod project we have in the shop is to have black wheels instead of the gray that was on the truck before. After receiving the wheels back from the sandblaster, we set about getting them painted black.

Even though the wheels had been sandblasted clean, they still had to be sanded. As I have said many times in the past, every paint project starts with sanding. In this case, the sanding is to smooth the surface after the sandblast so that the paint can lay down with a nice even finish. You can see one of the sanded wheels in the first photo.

The second photo shows the primer being shot onto the wheels. Just like rattle can spray paint won’t adhere well to bare metal, automotive paint won’t either. The primer binds to the metal and gives the paint something to sink its teeth into for good adhesion.

The last photo shows the finished wheel. This is one of the rare cases where we used a single stage paint … a paint that doesn’t use a base/color and clear coat. The wheel was shot with a 70% gloss paint to give the wheels a nice semi-gloss appearance that will look better on a rat rod than wheels with an ultra-high gloss would.

We’ll let the paint fully cure over the weekend then we can send the wheels out to be shod in some new tires … because even a rat likes new shoes.

On the hook

A couple of weeks ago we painted the frame of Terry’s ’69 El Camino. There is only so much room in the booth, and only so many hooks to hang stuff from. Because we ran out of space, and hooks, we weren’t able to paint everything that needed painting then. Today, we finished the job.

The first picture shows Mike and I hanging the various bumper brackets, suspension parts and the transmission cross member in the booth.

The last two photos show the various parts after the application of the POR Chassis Saver. The pieces will hang out in the booth over the weekend then we will get them to Murphy Rod & Custom Monday evening so they can be put on the frame.

This completes the paint work, I think, on the chassis. But if not … I got some hooks in the paint booth just waiting to be used.

A great ending

The repair pieces for the Titan bumper arrived today. We put the end cap for the front bumper it in the booth to give it some color. I think a nice red is called for since I didn’t think gray would look very good on a red truck.

The the first picture is the raw  trim piece, sanded and ready to begin the paint process. The second photo shows the cap after the sealer has been applied. Each base coat color specifies one of seven shades of gray, from nearly white to nearly black, to give the base coat the desired color. The sealer also provides a good bonding layer for the base coat that follows.

The third picture shows the end cap painted in the red base coat. The base coat dries to a nearly flat finish and it is the clear coat, shown in the last photograph, that gives the paint its depth and luster.

After the paint dries, we will be able to put the ends on the new bumper and this Titan will once again be good as new.

Bumper trucks

These two trucks, both with damaged front bumpers, arrived at the shop yesterday for a little bumper remediation. Damaged in separate and unrelated incidents, I decided to combine both repairs into one entry because of the similar, and relative minor, nature of the damage.

The first truck, the Red Nissan Titan, was the slightly worse off of the two. You can see in the first picture the Titan with it’s face removed and the damaged front bumper and end cap in the second and third picture. The end caps, the damaged left one shown in the third picture, slots over the ends of the bumper to provide a bit of body color to the otherwise chrome front bumper.

The last picture is of a Ford F250, also with it’s face removed. Like the Nissan Titan above, it too simply needs a replacement bumper. This truck, though, was damaged less than the Titan. While the damage is visible to the naked eye, trying to get a picture of the damaged area proved to be an exercise in frustration and futility.

Both of these trucks are quick and easy repairs that shouldn’t take us long to complete. That is one of the nice things about these full size trucks … they can take a quite a lick and shrug it off with little more than a scratch.

Call it good

Last week we painted the side of this Altima to repair a bit of minor damage.  The owners picked up the car on Thursday but I have been a little slack in updating the site the past few days. Hey, everyone should get a day off every now and then right?

The owners were very happy with the repair and excited to get their car back. Another quality repair … another happy customer.  I say call it good.