Just hanging around

The ’57 is getting its doors. After installing the door and trunk rubber we are ready to get these back on where they should feel right at home. Lining up the left door went pretty smoothly. We still have some fine tuning before moving to the other side. We will be installing the latches and catches once we are happy with the fitment.

Straightening the curves

The body work on the ’55 is coming right along. We have been blocking the car out to find what needs to be straightened and what we can straighten with blocking and priming. This car has had some nice work done in the past but we will be fine tuning what they started. As you can see it does have several places that need attention and about that many more that we haven’t gotten to yet. Next week we should be able to start spraying some primer on these repairs. Once that happens another good blocking to make sure we didn’t miss anything then start prepping for paint.

Painting the trim

Painting continues for the ’57. Today Paul sprayed the batch of interior parts he worked on yesterday. These parts are interior trim parts that were pretty much stripped and repainted. We started out by applying a coat of PPG’s DPLV epoxy primer. Once that was dry we were able to go straight to the Tropical Turquoise color. Once that was dry Paul sprayed 2 coats of PPG’s DC 3000 clear. These parts should look nice for years and years to come.

Trim time

While Jordan and I worked on the VW, Paul was busy sanding and prepping about a dozen or so interior trim parts for the ’57. Most of these parts were stripped because the factory only applied a couple of coats of paint and did so directly over the bare metal. This isnt going to cut it for todays quality. When trying to sand these parts the paint just flakes right off so stripping them wasnt really hard, just a bit time consuming because of the number of parts. Looks like he has them pretty close. We hope tomorrow evening they will look as good as the car does.

Back in the saddle

After many weeks of going full tilt on collision cars, we have opened up some breathing room and are back on the oldie goldies. We spent some time off and on block sanding this ’57 but the past couple of days have been pretty prosperous. Block sanding a vehicle with this much surface area was pretty time consuming as well as hard on the shoulders and elbows. The firewall was another area that was pretty tedious. Now, most of that is done and we really just have a few corners and channels to sand and a few places in the trunk before its ready for paint. It should be a real looker when we have all the color on it.

Body work is complete

The body work on the ’57 is now complete! After a solid week of bodywork, blocking, sanding and priming, the body is now ready for its final sanding. If the finial blocking comes out nice, the body will be ready for paint. This will really only leave a few trim parts and some interior parts that need painting. The straightening of these panels actually went very smoothly. Jordan and Cole get all the credit for that hard work. These guys worked really hard getting the body nice. Paul, then took his turn masking it off and spraying a few coats of high solids primer on here, twice. Its a dirty job and hard work, but the rewards worth every bit of it.

Doing the trim

We have been prepping these parts for the past few days. We started by blocking them then going back over them with a soft pad on a DA. We then sanded the nooks and crannies to make sure out pant sticks in all the right places. Today was a pretty good for progress. We were able to get the insides of the hood and fenders painted and they turned out great! Tomorrow we will flip these parts over sand over the outside again to smooth them up one final time and lay down some slick paint on them.

Time for some color

Last week we pulled out a few parts for the ’57 Bel-Air and prepped them for paint. Paul blocked out the trunk and the doors to ensure they were straight and smooth. We then sanded these parts all on the inside for trim out. Once the were all sanded up, we cleaned them meticulously to ensure a clean paint job. We then sprayed a coat of urethane sealer on the parts to provide uniform color and increase adhesion of the base color coats. 3 coats of Tropical Turquoise was then sprayed once the sealer was dry followed by 3 coats of high solids PPG clear coat. These parts really turned out nice. Its a great sneak peak of what the car will look like. The finished product is going to be very impressive.

One clean ’57

Its been crazy around here the past few weeks. We have been very busy with deer hits and general accidents. We sent the ’57 over to the blasters a few weeks ago and got it back last week and we were very impressed with what we have. This is a very solid car. We immediately began sanding it in preparation for primer. We sanded every single square inch of this car to ensure good adhesion of the primer. We then dug out all of the old seam sealer in the car and slid it in the booth this afternoon. We then meticulously wiped the car down to be sure we had the metal as clean as possible. Before spraying we masked off the frame, floor, and rear inner fender wells. We applied 2 coats of PPG’s high build epoxy from their Vibrance line. Things are looking really good. Tomorrow the wheels go back on and it waits for its turn over at Kelly’s place to get the new right quarter installed.

’57 Chevy block party

The progress is coming along. Here you can see we have the hood, doors and trunk ready for epoxy primer and filler. First thing we did after sanding them all down inside and out, was get a couple of coats of epoxy primer on these parts. All parts were sanded inside and once that was dry, we started doing the body work. We did find that this car has had a bump up or two. The door on the right side has a pretty good size dent in it as well as a rust repair where a patch panel was installed. It would be neat to hear the stories this car could tell. Next week the body work will continue and hopefully we can get these parts in primer.