All hands on deck

Great progress was made on the C-10 project today. Cole and I worked a good portion of the day blocking out the roof and fixing dents. We worked some on the inside of the cab as well as the left door jamb. The fire wall is pretty close to being finished as well. Tomorrow we plan on attacking it like we did today and hopefully that will put us pretty close to priming it again.

Introducing the 1955 Chvey

This little beauty has been brought to us to finish up a long ago started restoration. Its a ’55 Chevy 2 door post car, one of my favorites. Tons of work has already been completed on the car a few goodies include rack and pinion steering, coil over shocks, big V8 and several other things. The owner wanted to dechrome the car so the first thing we did was weld up all of the molding holes. You may notice that we didnt have to weld up the ones in the quarters. Those panels have already been replace years ago and the new panels didnt have molding holes. Once the holes were welded up we started repairing the areas and blocking out the entire car just to see how the body looked. Not too bad. We do have some work to do but it should go along pretty smoothly. The car will be painted the green that you see here when its finished.

Slicky slicky

Still working on the ’57 to wrap up the week. Today we were able to get the doors and deck lid sanded down for buffing. Jordan started on the deck lid then moved to the doors. Paul couldn’t resist the fun and quickly helped Jordan out. Once they had the truck ready, Paul started the buffing process while Jordan sanded the doors. Just like the sanding process, the buffing process consists of 3 steps. First step is a cutting compound. This process removes the sanding scratches but leaves its on scratches from the process. The next step is a polishing compound that removes the scratches left by the first, but it too leaves really fine swirl marks. The final step removes the really fine swirls and leaves the paint super smooth and scratch free. Its a long process but very worth it when only the best will do. We didnt quite get done with the buffing, but the last picture shows what the paint looks like after one round of step 2. Yes, sometimes you have to go over it a few times to get it right but its worth it in the end.

It all hinges on this

Yesterday started off with a little sand blasting. Jordan blasted the hood hinges and the door hinges for the ’57 Chevy. Once they were done, Cole took his turn sanding them back down smooth. Once that was finished up, Paul cleaned them up and sprayed a coat of DP epoxy on them and followed that with the appropriate colors for the parts. The hood hinges were painted a soft silver color with a flat clear coat and the door hinges were painted the factory Tropical Turquoise then cleared with a high gloss clear. Today we started the wet sanding process. This part of the paint job separates the men from the boys. This is where the super smooth, mirror like finish comes from. Jordan started with 1000 grit sand paper and carefully sanded the clear coat to remove what little orange peel was there. He then went back over that with 2000 grit paper and followed that will 3000. This process will provide a super high gloss and an ultra flat surface. You will easily be able to shave using this paint as a mirror.