C-10 Cab

After many hours of blocking a filling, the cab on the C-10 is pretty close to being straight. Yes, this one lived the life of a truck but glory days are in its future. With all the body work fairly close to being finished we will next turn our attention to the floor and bottom of the cab. Just like the rest of the underside on this truck it will get a bedliner both inside and out. We will then once more make sure the bodywork is complete before priming. Because of the extensive body work, we will most likely prime it twice to be sure its good to go.

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.

Tubs are painted

Last week the work continued with the C-10. Paul sprayed the engine compartment sides of the wheel houses and did a spray in bedliner on the wheel house side of them They really look nice. Paul also was able to get the epoxy high build primer on the doors and fenders last week. Jordan got to work blocking them today. He did have a couple of places appear on the right fender so he went ahead and fixed that while he was at it. These will continue to be blocked out tomorrow and hopefully these parts will soon be in their final urethane primer in a couple of days

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.

’57 is up next

The ’57 is ready for its turn in the booth. The past couple of weeks we have been working on getting it ready for paint and Monday is the day. We have meticulously sanded this vehicle and spent quite a bit of time blowing out all the nooks and crannies where dust can hide. We have changed the booth filters and washed it down. Monday we will finish prepping the booth and finish masking off the car. We will start by applying a coat of sealer over the entire car. We will then paint the roof white and when that is dry, we will mask it off and paint the body the Tropical Turquoise. We will then follow that up with 3 coats of PPG’s 2021 high solids clear. Its been a long while coming but this ’57 will be looking good again in a few more days.

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.

Time for bed

We have been working pretty hard and heavy on the the C-10 these past few weeks and its paying off. The hood is completely finished and ready for paint. The next time it gets sanded, it will be painted.  The body work on the outside of the bedsides are done and in their second priming. We will block those out one more time and prime them once more to ensure they are straight. The body work on the inside of the bedsides was finished up today and they were primed as well. All in all, quite a bit of work getting done on this one. Next we finish the outsides of the beds then its on to the cab and doors.

Straightening the curves

Now that the outside of the bedsides are straight, its time for the insides. Same steps here as the outsides. Block out the primer to find the highs and lows, tap the highs down and fill the lows. Since this truck is 45 years old, it has some wear and tear. We are going to go ahead and also fill the pitting that has occurred from years of use along with the spot welds to make the insides of these smooth as silk. Its little things like that that make it a little different than the others.

Bed liner and hood primer

Big day for the Bug

Today was a good day for the Beetle. We knew we would be finished up with our collision work on Thursday this week so we took some time to finish sanding the Bug and started prepping it for paint. This morning we slid it in the booth wiped it all down and started spraying it. After a good coat of sealer, several coats of base coat was sprayed inside and out on the body. We then let that all sit and dry thoroughly until after lunch. Once back, we followed the base with a couple coats of PPG’s high solids clear coat. As you can see it turned out pretty nice. We still have to find fenders and paint them as the original ones are just a bit too far gone to fix and a couple of other little parts need spraying. Once this body is good and dry it will go back on the chassis. We hope that happens late next week.