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I'm a bit of a slacker myself, I see I started this project 6 years ago, oy!
There can be no clock in the garage. We spent 7 years building the 66 GTO, at least 5 on the Vette. We had a 31 Chevy we messed with for 10 years, then stripped it & sold it off in parts.
The point is.... there is no time limit. It takes as long as it takes. Some are quick, some are slow. They are ALL a "work in progress".
Earlier I mentioned I needed to add fill to the tricky area where the passenger side mid quarter panel character line meets the wheel opening. As you can see in the picture I only applied filler to a small part of the quarter panel:
The tricky thing about doing this, is if you have the rest of the panel at the level you want, it is tough to just sand the newly added filler down to the same level as the surrounding panel. Even if you block it, there will be a tendency to sand outside the area where you applied new filler and that makes little dips in the panel at the outside edge of the new filler. You can be super careful and minimize this, but if you really want to get everything as smooth as possible you need to apply fresh filler to the entire panel so there aren't different levels of filler as you sand it down.
I've since covered the passenger side completely in filler and sanded it down another 3 times or so. Part of that was I didn't remove enough paint and had filler over the paint at the area shown by the blue arrow below:
By the time I had sanded away the filler over the paint and the paint itself I had a ledge where the blue line is in the picture above and so it needed more filling The picture below shows how much vette panel adhesive/filler I mixed up in order to be able to cover most of the passenger side quarter panel:
You can see on the driver's side below I also hadn't removed enough paint. The blue arrow in the picture below shows the original brown paint under the filler as I was sanding away the filler to get to the paint. The filler is under the paint line at the arrow and the bare SMC is above.
Previously I discussed the dip in the quarter panels which I wrongly figured was roughly in the area of the blue rectangle below :
I said I had the driver side quarter panel done but there was not enough filler in upper right corner of the panel. As I was sanding away the filler I was able to see the true shape of the dip in the quarter panel and it is more of a "U" or "V" shape (shown by the blue line) than the rectangle I previously drew:
I again thought I had the driver's side quarter panel done. Later I tried to get a picture of it covered in water to show how smooth it is:
Here's the passenger side:
I had been focused on getting the mid quarter panel horizontal character line right on each quarter panel and hadn't noticed the area above the line was different between passenger and driver's side. A straight edge showed the dip in the driver's side quarter panel was about 1/8" deeper than it was on the passenger side. I think you can see that in the pictures above with the water on each panel.
I tried sanding down the filler in the dip on the passenger side quarter panel to get it to match the driver's side. I was not able to sand down as far as the driver's side as I could see I was sanding farther into the gel coat on the 70-73 ACI rear clip than was a good idea. The blue arrow below shows the dark line where the mold sections joined and white gel coat was completely sanded away. This line got wider as I tried to sand the dip deeper showing I was sanding too far down past the gel coat.
I'm not sure why the dip ended up deeper on the driver's side, whether it was that the ACI clip came with different curves or if when I forced the slightly different panels together on the passenger side it distorted the shape more than the driver's side.
So at this point I've been sanding the quarter panels with 120 grit in anticipation of primer going on next. I've got both quarter panels looking nice and smooth but they are not the same. I debated for a couple of days about leaving it like that out of concern for removing even more material from the driver's side SMC as I re-sand with 80 grit to add more filler. After a couple of days I decided I can't accept the difference so I'm going to add filler yet again to the driver's side to make it look closer to the passenger side. I'm not sure I'll get another 1/8 inch of filler in the dip on the driver's side but at least I want to get the two quarter panels closer in shape, if not identical.
I started adding filler to the rear deck where I joined the two panels so I can better blend the quarter panels into the rear deck:
This looks like its going to be the hardest area to get right with its concave surfaces. You can't really spray it with water to see how smooth it as as the water pools on the panel and is too thick to show high and low areas. You also can't really sand with something flat to get that concave shape. At this point I'm not sure how I'm going to do it, perhaps just with 60 grit with the palm of my hand which is very slow going and probably will be pretty wavy. I've sanded down that first application of filler and am putting on another to get enough thickness that hopefully I can shape it right without going back down to the fiberglass. Wish me luck!
There is a "Paint/Body" section under "Corvette General Topics".
Many paint and body pros seem to hang out there.
You might get some good feedback and tips by asking your questions there.
Priya...it took me a while to cut cardboard and corrugated plastic craft sheets. I chose the best looking panel and cut the templates to match the panel.
I cut horizontal templates AND Vertical templates
Then I held the template (s) against the problem-panel and marked all the low spots/high spots.
It was a lot easier to match the panels in appearance doing that method.
I am doing the same for the front fenders/cap also.
It was a slight pain in the ............ to make the templates, UT it was well worth the time.
I've got this curved sanding block (bottom of the three) which will work well for parallel to the ducktail:
The really tricky area is going to be in the blue circle in the picture below:
That's where the deck panel rises to the lower corner of the rear window. At that point you've got a bulging area that has to be merged into the flatter/concave surfaces down and to the right of the bulge. I don't think the rounded sanding block is going to work there as it will be too long to use diagonally (it's about 1' long) and sand the smaller concave areas. I could cut 4" or so off the sanding block, but I hate to do that because I'll eventually need the full length. I was thinking maybe something the size of a soup can although an actual soup can won't work because the rims at the top and bottom stick out farther than the body of the can.
What if you used one of those style of can openers that cut off the lip of the can when you use it.
Once both lips are removed you could fill the can with something to keep it's original shape while sanding.
What if you used one of those style of can openers that cut off the lip of the can when you use it.
Once both lips are removed you could fill the can with something to keep it's original shape while sanding.
Interesting idea, that might work! Although I'm not sure where I can find such a can opener.
Hubby says he's going to try to find me a sheet rock sanding sponge before he comes home tonight.
What if you used one of those style of can openers that cut off the lip of the can when you use it.
Not allowed, bad karma, such did not exist when this car rolled if the assembly line. But the idea could be easily replicated with period correct material
[QUOTE=Priya;1604461630]Interesting idea, that might work! Although I'm not sure where I can find such a can opener.
I don't know the brand, but I think you can get them from Amazon and very common.
My wife shops there for everything and its probably where she purchased ours.
