Alright STOP, liner time

The ’52 Ford fenders spent a little more time in the booth today to get the bedliner sprayed today. We masked off the areas that we did not want to spray then Jordan went to work. After the bedliner was sprayed and dried, we sanded back over the fenders one more time to prep them up for epoxy and slick sand. This will happen Monday. We just ran out of time today.

Its Friday, get your grill on

Today we were able to put in some time on the Chevelle. We installed the left fender extension, all new bulbs and the grill. We also installed the hood latch and grill support. It really is starting to take shape here.  A few more minor adjustments here and there, and install the front bumper and this one will be just about wrapped up.

Carolina Girl

Remember this muscle car? This is the ’71 Chevelle that we have been working on for a while now.  The owner took the car to his mechanic to get the last few mechanical things buttoned up. It came back today for us to finish up the last few things we need to do. Today we installed the hood and started building the front end. Keep an eye on this one as we wrap it up. Its is a real head turner.

All sealed up

Back on the the ’52 today, we got messy. We chose to POR the inside of the rear fenders before we applied the spray in bedliner. We chose to brush it on instead of spraying it. This allowed us to get it in all the seams and around the lower lip. Ford put a flexible rod in the lower lip before rolling the end over to keep it from crushing. It also allows water to sit in there along with dirt. This is a great formula for rust. So, in an effort to keep rust at bay we also seam sealed the entire lip. Hopefully, these will never rust again. This is where we stopped today. Tomorrow we hope to get the bedliner sprayed on these. Next week we will spray the epoxy and slick sand  on the outside. Then, the block party starts.

Fender mender

As we get parts in from the blaster, we try to get moving on them as soon as possible. Today, the fenders for the ’52 Ford came in and we got right to work. Here you can see Jordan working on smoothing the surface from sandblasting. We sand the entire outside of the fender with 80 grit with a DA sander. We did find some very small pin holes around the lower areas of the fenders. We welded those up and ground them back down to make the area smooth again. This is a tedious process. Care must be taken to be sure we got them all. Once the holes were all fixed up, I used a hammer and dolly to start the straightening of the fenders. This smooths up the low and high places to get the metal a little closer to straight. This will save a little bit of time during the body work steps of these parts. We did get these all ready for primer today but first we will tackle the inside. Tomorrow we plan on applying a coat of POR15 on the insides of these fenders before we use a spray in bedliner to finish off the inside. Once all that dries, a coat of epoxy and 3 coats of slick sand will go on the outsides. This will provide a good amount of material to start blocking to get the outside good and straight.

Pick up, isle 2

This SanteFe was the victim of a side swipe. The damage was pretty bad, but could have been a lot worse. In the previous post we show the repair process here we show painting process and clear coat. We also put up a couple of finished pictures. We painted this yesterday and put it all back together this morning. We then sent it over to clean up so the owner would be picking up a clean vehicle tomorrow.

Side swiping

 

 This brand new Hyundai was side swiped the other day. Though the damage wasn’t really all that severe, it was in a tricky spot. Chris pulled the handle and belt molding and lower cladding to make the repair a little easier. Lots of time was spent on the metal work to keep the body filler to a minimum. Once all the body work was complete we masked off the areas to be primed and applied 4 good coats of urethane primer. Tomorrow we will get the primer blocked out and hopefully get the panels prepped for paint. We are waiting on a wheel that was sent out for repair as well. Hopefully that will be back by early afternoon.

Bed time II

 Back in the booth today to paint the remaining parts of the bed. This completes all the painting for the bed parts. We will let these sit for a while then wet sand and buff them. We hope to get more parts back from the blaster to keep this project moving. I will say, its not often we have a whole section of a vehicle painted in the first few weeks.

Bed time

Ahh, isn’t that better? The bed panels that were prepped yesterday got their turn in the booth today. The owner picked this very vibrant red for her hot rod. I think it fits quite nicely. We hung these parts up first thing this morning then prepped them and the booth for paint. Once they were prepped, we sprayed a coat of urethane sealer over the panels to ensure uniform coverage. Once that product had dried, we sprayed a few coats of the knock your eyes out red. Once that had sufficient drying time, 3 coats of PPG high solids clear coat was sprayed. These panels turned out very nicely. Tomorrow we will paint the rest of the bed panels that would not fit in the booth today. Next week these panels will get the High Performance Finish touch. These panels will get wet sanded and buffed to provide the customer with the ultimate gloss.

Prepping for color

  Today we spent the afternoon prepping these parts for color. The owner has picked her color and we plan on shooting a few of them tomorrow. Since we have about 6 pieces ready we will have to paint them in batches because there just isnt enough room to hang them all up at one time. If you remember we have prepped these by applying a coat of epoxy primer to the bare metal. Once that was dry we sprayed a couple of coats of urethane primer. Since these panels were new, there wasn’t much work to be done to them. We sanded all the flat areas first, then used a dual action sander to go over the big areas. All the little nooks and crannies were sanded by hand. This all ensures proper adhesion of the top coats. Stay tuned tomorrow to see what color these will be. Its a big day!