An iconic pony car

Pony car. Muscle car. Call it what you will, but one of the iconic cars of the 1960’s is the Chevrolet Camaro.

Resplendent in its Liquid Red paint and famous nose stripe, this 40 year old beauty is standing tall, fresh from its make over in the JMC AutoworX shop.

They sure don’t make ’em like this any more.

It’s becoming clear now

We’re coming into the home stretch now. The doors, hood, fenders and deck lid are all done. Now it is time to paint the car itself.

The paint looks pretty good after the clear is applied, setting here in the paint booth, but after a wet sand and buff to turn this good finish into a High Performance Finish, it will look even better.

Time for a dash of color

Here I am putting some color on the Camaro. We changed the color of this car from a sickly green to this vibrant red … a change for the better I think.

I got a late start today, so I will have to do the clear tomorrow.

Workin’ the body

Now that all the removable pieces of the car have been painted, it is time to start on the vehicle proper.

The steps are the same has always, acid etching primer to bond to the metal and to provide a surface for the remaining layers to stick to, epoxy primer to seal the car and high build primer to provide that ultra smooth surface required for a mirror like finish.

You can see each of these steps in this series of photographs. The etching primer is visible in the first two photos as a gold color.

The epoxy primer can be seen as the black color in the third photo.

Finally the gray high builds primer is visible in the last three photos.

After the car is sanded to remove any imperfections in the metal, it will be time for the big payoff … paint.

Hey! Somebody get the door

Here is a good example of the lengths we go at JMC AutoworX to ensure you get a finish that is as durable as it is beautiful.

The first photo shows a bare metal door. To ensure that all subsequent layers adhere properly, the metal is treated with an acid etching primer that bonds to the metal and provides a surface that the primers can stick to. The etching primer can be seen as the golden color in the second photograph.

After the etching primer comes the epoxy primer, seen as black in the third photo. Epoxy is a glue, and this primer is designed to stick to the etching primer, seal the car against moisture to prevent rust, and to provide a bonding  surface for the next layer.

The last two photos show the high builds primer. The high builds primer function is to fill and smooth any small imperfections so the paint is laid on a perfectly smooth surface to give that ultra high gloss look that everyone likes so well. Most of the high build primer will be sanded away leaving only small amounts here and there as filler for the waves and ripples in the car’s metal.

It’s all about preparation

We at JMC AutoworX take our surface preparation very seriously. Just like a house needs a solid foundation, for paint to be durable and to look its best it too requires a good foundation.

Take these fenders, hood and trunk lid as an example. The metal is first etched with an acid etching primer to bind to the metal so following layers have something to stick too. This is the gold colored coating in the first pictures.

Over the etching primer we spray an epoxy primer to seal the car to protect the metal from rust. This is the black coating you see on the hood and fender.

The epoxy primer is followed by a high build primer, the gray primer in the last set of pictures, which fills any tiny imperfection and ripples in the metal to provide that perfectly flat and smooth surface for the paint.

All this preparation is expensive, time consuming, and down right hard work, but it is the only way to produce a finish that goes beyond merely good to become great, and is durable to boot.

Every petrolhead’s dream

This 1968 Camaro SS is something special. With less than 30,000 original miles and perfect original sheet metal, you don’t find a car like this just every day. Prepping this car for paint will involve a media-blast and prime … and not much else.

Here the car is back from having its paint removed by media-blasting. Media-blasting uses tiny plastic beads propelled by high pressure air as a gentle abrasive to remove paint and rust. The concept is the same as sandblasting, but the plastic beads are far less damaging to the metal surface than sand would be.