Kev's workshop projects

[Kegsti66]

Kev, a little advise. I would uncover your freshly painted shell once you have finished doing any other jobs.
Let it breathe if there is no dusty air about, like in the evening, weekends or generally when not making a mess for a few days just to be on the safe side till it has cured fully.
Dust can be cleaned/polished off. If the plastic sheet sticks it can mark your fresh paint.
Hope you don't mind me saying, I am sure you probably would anyway.

[KevJTD]

good advise mate, more than welcome
i'll let it breathe for a few days once it's painted before it gets covered over or worked on.
i'll only put a sheet over it for when i paint other bits or am doing sanding.
good tip mate

[Simonsud]

Yes plastic covers can get damp underneath and cause white cloudy marks on paint that don't polish out if you need to cover anything up for a long time breathable covers are best

[KevJTD]

didn't get much time up at the workshop yesterday but did manage to get the whole car re-masked up, essential for the paint process or the overspray dust from the priming stage gets blown onto the metalwork when you put the fresh paint on.

space in my little workshop is an issue so setting out the doors, bonnet and boot to paint at the same time isn't an option so settled for just doing the underside of the boot and will do the dorrs another time with the bonnet, once i've prepped it that is!

[KevJTD]

i usually try not to do anything much on sundays, having one day off a week and all that, unless i'm doing my own stuff of course...

anyway, as the weather is just about at its last weekend for decent dry and relatively warm weather i changed my rules and went down there this morning aiming to final prep the shell with panel wipe and tack rags then get some colour on it.

first coat to go on is what i call a dust coat, not sure what the proper name is?
it serves the purpose of giving a tacky surface for the following paint layers to stick to without running off, if you went straight in with a full wet coat it would run. at least it would in this instance without a full bake oven. my little heaters though made it toasty enough so the paint was going off nicely.

[KevJTD]

after that it got a fairly decent coat followed by 2 more really good ones, so should have enough depth to flat out the inevitable dust and smooth out any orange peel although if i do say so myself it's flowed in pretty well from the gun. for an amateur that is

[KevJTD]

the bottom of the sills still shows up the spot welds which i think makes it look more factory fresh, the underside edge and under the rear end also got painted

[KevJTD]

couple more shots just to finish off, shouldn't take too much work to get the paint nice and smooth

[York Sud]

Kev, there's a bloke in York over the moon with what he's seeing... It looks a peach! Fortunately smoother in texture.. Well done that man. If I could buy you a beer tonight that would certainly be on the agenda... Followed by another ..!

[Veesix75]

Looking good Kev!

I could help you get some white overspray in that unit after the blue, if you want ?

[KevJTD]

cheers guys, glad you like it rich

putting the paint on is definetly the best bit of the whole process, makes all those long hours in the preperation stakes seem worthwhile

still got the doors, bonnet and bootlid to do plus loads of little bits and pieces but i'll be able to do those easier once the shell is covered over

[Johnboy]

Kev that looks sweet chap great work man . If your going to wop it without telling you to suck eggs. Let the machine do the work . Don't lean on it so to speak . Or you could be doing that panel again . You need to teach shrew, as I hear he uses a catapult to paint cars

[Kegsti66]

Kev, that looks great.
As I said before, good job my boss doesn't come on here as he will be asking too many questions. I can see why Rich is happy. Top work .

[KevJTD]

it'll get flatted and machine polished mate.
also the paint fella hooked me up with a system which i can't now remember the name of but basically it's a stage between the flatting and the mopping. attachment onto a DA disc which you go over the panel with after flatting before you get the machine out, supposed to save a huge amount of time over going through all the compounds to bring the shine back.
i'll give it a go at the weekend.....

[Kegsti66]

Trizac discs ?

[KevJTD]

Trizac discs ?

sounds familiar mate.....any good?

[Kegsti66]

It does cut polishing time down. Use them wet after you have 1200/ 2000 flatted the paint.

[KevJTD]

yes, that's what he said. make sure to use plenty of water with them.
if it saves hours of polishing then i'm ready to try them

[KevJTD]

flatted off the car yesterday afternoon then used the trizac discs before a machine polish with the G3 compond.
still needs work to bring back the shine it had from out of the gun but with a bit more time and effort it'll come.
happy to say i got all the dust and blemishes out without much issue.

strange to make the finish worse by dulling it down before making it better again but it's the only way to get the paitn surface level and free from any dust.

[Kegsti66]

Luuvvley!!
Nice one Kev.

[alfachris]

Nice

[Johnboy]

Looking good Kev

[KevJTD]

question for you pro paint guys, what grade or product do you use after the G3 compound to bring back the shine?
is there another compound that's a finer grade that can be done with the machine polisher before putting any wax on?

just to get the full effect deep shine back

[York Sud]

Clerk of works visited today to review paintwork quality! fortunately everything was ok and she left very happy..

[Kegsti66]

Kev, the G3 should bring it to a high level of finish. I also use a 3M product called Finess-ite. Not sure of the exact spelling but it is a white creamy liquid that is a very fine compound. They also do one called hand glaze which is a mustard coloured liquid that is good on solid colour. I am sure your paint supplier will help, or have a similar product as we tend to stick with old technology. Nice soft cloth is also good.
Hope that is a help.
Car is looking great. Well done.

[KevJTD]

maybe i need another good pass over with the G3 kieth?
must admit i shy away from using it too much incase i make a hash with the polisher.
just wondered if there was a less harsh compond but i'll give it all another good pass over with the mop and G3.
good job i hung up my bin liner protective jacket to dry out, messy job

shines not too bad, just it always looks a little dull compared to what you start with, flatting off obviously dulls it down so the time is spent bringing the shine back up. i'll give it another pass over

i'll also ask the paint rep for some other product too mate, cheers for the advice

[KevJTD]

Clerk of works visited today to review paintwork quality! fortunately everything was ok and she left very happy..

glad the bean counter gave her approval mate

[KevJTD]

had Tuesday afternoon up at the fulvia, computer failure at home prevented any updates....


as it looked like being one of the last afternoons for doing any work outdoors I took the opportunity to sand down the bonnet to see what state it was in.
only found some filler around the front central lip and when it was taken out it revealed 2 holes which looked to have been drilled in....very odd. almost as if someone had affixed a badge of some sort there in the past. definitely weren't holes created by rust, proper man made stuff.


the paint on the outer skin was incredibly tough, it's been painted before on top of the original paint, but seemed to be like concrete! took a while to get it all back.
underside isn't in too bad shape either so more good news.

took the bonnet into the workshop then and welded up the 2 holes. no point in just filling over them as had been done before as the moisture will get into the filler and blister it out.
once welded it was ground smooth then a light skim sorted out the slight distortion.
a couple of smaller dents were tackled while I was at it.

as usual the next stage was to etch prime it all.
to save on heating the whole workshop which can be done pretty easily given it's size but does take time I simply put a little electric heater under the bonnet which warmed up the bonnet itself so the primer dried in decent time. cheap and simple, like me

[KevJTD]

mixed bag of tasks today

started off by priming the bonnet with the intention of next blocking off the front doors to paint them later on
bonnet primed ok but when I block sanded the doors there was a couple of places that took a bit more flatting out than I'd like to see so I sanded them well back to make sure all was flat and have now primed them again.

next job seeing as no shiny blue paint was to be brought out I thought i'd finally have a look at the last panels that remain untouched, the rear doors.

had already had a quick look at them some while back and declared them in decent order........the n/s one is but the drivers rear one appears like i'd better do some more welding

the corners at both end have some rot in them on the inside that the knotted wheel dug out and the outer faces look like they'll give some grief if not attacked now

so I've brought that door home with me so I can tackle it in my shed this coming week in the evenings as I didn't want the risk of any sparks from the welder or grinder going anywhere near the freshly painted shell

[Johnboy]

Good plan taking it home Kev. Grinding goes everywhere , did some grinding last week and it was hitting the hood of my jetski . Now it has rust spots from the splinters . School boy error always cover stuff up
This car is going to look amazing chap