Oh deer

A deer wanted to get an up close and personal look at this Ford Edge. Unfortunately for him and the owner, he got a little too close. This repair consists of  a new rear door and a repair on the front door and quarter panel. Yesterday we trimmed out the rear door and did all the repair work on the front door and quarter. This morning we installed the door and sanded the panels in preparation for paint. Chris even took a selfie us sanding it. The next set of pictures show the Edge in the booth with the base coat color applied and two with clear. Tomorrow the plan is to put it all back together and get it all ready for delivery.

Good day tater

Success!  We were able to get the bedside painted from yesterday. We started early this morning dressing the welds and  smoothing them up. We primed it right before lunch which made perfect timing for paint this afternoon. Since it is  a two-tone truck, we painted the bottom color first because its much easier to tape up the smaller amount. Once the silver was dry, we masked it off and sprayed the green. We then sprayed the green. Once the green was dry we un-taped the lower color and applied the clear. Tomorrow, re-assembly

Those darn yellow poles.

We’ve all seen them. Those pesky yellow polls that protect the corners of buildings.  Some people have even seen them move!  That’s right, they do move. Well, at least this one did. The owner of this truck doesn’t really drive it all that often. She normally drives a much smaller car. But over the weekend she had to haul some things and hopped in to run some errands. Unfortunately she forgot she wasn’t driving her small car and cut it a bit too close to one of those pesky yellow poles and it jumped right out there in her path. It did quite a bit of damage but we are going to get it fixed up for her. Since the metal is stretched out of shape over such a large area, we will be replacing this bedside. This means the bed must be removed, that was step one this morning. Once the bed was off we had a blast drilling out the 4057 spot welds that held this panel on.  Not really, but we told ourselves that in hopes that we may enjoy it. Once those were all drilled we were then able to start pulling, prying and bending that old panel off. The next step was to drill all the holes in the new panel so we can plug weld this one back on. Lastly we fit the new panel and welded it back on. Not too bad for a days work. Tomorrow we will make sure all of our welds are repaired and the insides get corrosion protection.  If tomorrow goes as good as today, it may get painted.

Color me red

Another milestone reached today on the ’52 Ford. After all the hard work of getting the rear fenders straight, they were painted this afternoon. Chris and I spent the morning blocking out the final primer coat that was sprayed on last week. Once that was done, we went over the panels with a DA sander with a soft interface pad to remove the blocking scratches. Once the sanding was done, we put the panels in the booth, masked off the back side of them to keep the red paint off of the bedliner then sprayed a coat of urethane sealer on them. After the sealer was dry, 3 coats of red was sprayed. After those coats were dry, 3 coats of clear were laid down nice and slick. The clear coat will be sanded in a week or so and buffed back out to a super high gloss. This process makes the paint look a mile deep and provides the ultimate in reflection.

Bits and pieces

These are custom parts for the ’52 Ford. They are designed to fill in the area around the radiator to provide a finished smoothed up look when the hood is opened. Chris started by grinding down all the welds and smoothing up some edges. Then he repaired the top side of the large cover to hide all the welded areas.  Once that was done, they were hung up in the booth and a coat of epoxy was sprayed on both sides of the parts. This coating is water proof and really adheres to bare metal. Once the epoxy had dried we seam sealed all the welded places up on the back side to keep water from getting in the welds. Lastly 3 good coats of urethane primer was sprayed on the bigger parts that will be seen. The other parts are basically brackets and braces. These pieces will be painted a flat black so the extra priming steps are not needed here. The grey primer parts will be body color and will look as good as the outside of the truck. Next week, we keep plugging along on this one. Have a great weekend!!

Prime time

After spending a few days on these fenders, Chris has gotten them ready for primer. The body work has been moving along nicely on them of the past few days. Its a tedious process of applying filler, blocking the filler ensure a flat smooth surface and repeating those steps where necessary.  Towards the end of the day today, we primed them. Tomorrow we will block out this primer, fix any places we missed and prime them yet again. Yes, its a lot of steps but its necessary to ensure a quality repair.

Here a dent, there a dent

These are the rear fenders for the 1952 Ford pick up. So far we have applied an epoxy primer and 3 coats of slick sand to the outside. The inside of these fenders have been coated in POR 15 and has a couple of coats of Raptor liner. Today we sanded the Slick sand and started the body work process. The darker areas of the fender are low, or where there are dents.  Yes, there are quite a few of them. Chris got right to work first thing this morning. He started by sanding the panel to show the low and high spots.  Once those were all located, he started spreading the filler. Once filler was in the spots the block party started. A block was used to flatten out the high spots and fill in the low. This process will be repeated until the panel is perfectly straight. When the bodywork is all done, we will prime them again with a urethane primer. Tomorrow we continue the body work on these.

New, but old.

This old rat rod has been up fitted with a brand new paint job today. Yes, I said brand new. We pulled out all the stops and used up a whole bag of tricks to get make this paint look as old as possible and I think we pulled it off. After spraying several layers of browns, black, green and some white, the truck was sanded to to get a good mix and a good blend of “old”.  Once the look was achieved we sprayed a flat clear over the truck to keep it that way. If you look closely to the right door, you can see an old logo in the paint. This was not our normal paint job, but it was very fun to do and looks amazing.

I’m coming home

Today, Carolina Girl went home. The final touches were performed which included the installation of the front and back glass, emblems and a final detail.  Keep your eyes open for this one. As nice as it turned out, he will be driving it when the weather permits.

Finishing touches

This Chevelle is approaching the end of the line. We have been working all week on the finishing touches and fine tuning some things. Tomorrow the windshield and back glass go in and all that will really leave is a final buff and polish. We will put the grand finale pictures up when we finish up. We hope this car will be at the Reidsville car show and Fall Festival on October the 11th.  Come on out, its fun for the whole family.