Thanks again Rog- if I had your combination of energy and patience I might have tried to work out the door fit a little better, but I started this thing just to put a proper paint finish on the car so if I can get there I'll be quite happy. Your car, on the other hand, will be what a C3 Corvette would have looked like had it been built by Rolls-Royce!

And I don't know about those NV judges, but you guys have a senator who's a real piece of work!!

 

David, thanks for the kind remarks. I think I mentioned way back at the beginning of this thread that I'm painting it the original Donnybrooke Green, not so much because I love that color but because it's a pretty original car with the exception of the 4-speed so it will help hold the value up a bit if I go with the OEM color.

Not sure what I'll do with it afterwards; I've been kinda itching to get something different like an old British roadster or maybe an Alfa GTA, but I might just fall in love with this thing again once it's 'done'. The brakes are really misbehaving also so I'm gonna have to work on those as soon as it's back on the road, but one thing at a time...

 

Yepper, ... My tongue/cheek comment was at our horrible boxing judges...

Rogman

 

...While taking the nose apart awhile back I was thoroughly disgusted by the nasty corrodedness of the little plate that holds the headlight relays in place and the relays themselves.(before)
So I took out my trusty catbox, put some muriatic acid in it ("liquid beadblast") and threw the mounting plate and relays in there. I just painted the mount plate black after a coat of self-etch prime, but the relays got treated to an application of Eastwood's super-cheesy "Ghetto Cad" do-it-yourself at-home faux cadmium plating system (eat your heart out, Alan!)
I also scrubbed 42 years worth of scuzz off the vacuum hoses and smeared them down with Armor All, then screwed it back together (after)
Yah, yah, I know it's kinda dorky, but the way the !*!!?!% greenies have screwed up the plating business here in SoCal it's such a PITA to go out and get this stuff done right that for my money this is the best way to go. If I was doing a Bloomington Gold show queen then that would be something else, but I'm not, so all you purists just BACK OFF, OK?

Cheers!

 

Looks great, Dave!!! Does not even look like the same parts... You gonna shoot a coat of black on the nose support???

Rogman

 

Roger, as you probably know this is now part of the eternal "while-I'm-at-it-itis" dillema. In a way it's probably mentally easier to do a project like yours, where EVERYTHING gets called into scrutiny. With mine, everytime I make one thing look better it makes everything around it look like crap!

So, to answer your question, I'll probably strip that rusty strut and clean it up, but I'm definitely gonna draw the line somewhere. I have to admit it was a little tempting to go ahead and pull the body off the frame; there were only eight bolts left to go and some minor electrical connections, but there's just not anywhere to put everything and then there's all the stuff that I'd have to fix that would cost real $$$ if I did go that route...new brake lines, gas lines, a bunch of bushings, etc., etc.- better to just go the route that I'm going.

 

After several weeks of non-activity I FINALLY got back out to the garage. So far this summer has been consumed by our gearhead son (wonder where he got that from?) wrenching on his or his friends' cars nearly every day, dragging me into it with him to the point that between work and fixing HIS car there just wasn't any time left for MY car. Finally, last week we rode back to Texas in his worked-on-all-summer car......about as far as you could possibly get from something a sensible person would ride 1300 miles to Texas in. After 2 whole days of kidney and ear abuse we arrived, and three days later I flew back to CA to clean up the wreckage in my garage...

THAT SAID, I cleaned up the garage (again) and finished sanding the Corvette today, rolled it out of the garage,

and began shooting primer with my shiny new DeVilbiss paint gun...






My gun kit came with two guns and three tips, a 1.3, 1.5, and 1.8mm, and I was using a 'PCL' Polyprimer through the 1.8mm tip which seemed to work pretty well. For those of you that are asking "why the RED primer?"...well...the car came from the factory with red primer on it so that's what I decided to put back...hopefully it won't take too many coats of Donnybrooke Green to cover the red primer! As it was I only shot a few parts, little details with the exception of the hood, just so I could get a feel for the new gun and not waste a gallon of paint in the process. I'm gonna let these dry good and solid for a few days then wet-sand them to a 320 finish which will then be ready for color. The fiberglass parts were all lightly sanded with 120 grit paper (not quite 80 as recommended but IMO should still provide enough of a 'tooth' for the paint to stick to), then washed with some newfangled Palmolive dish soap and air-dried in the sun prior to paint application.

I did learn that I am going to have to cover my entire garage floor before I start shooting the rest of the car or the overspray is going to destroy my garage, but all in all it was a good return to action after a couple months of non-activity and I really am looking forward to the 'big push' to finally get color on everything and head down the homestretch...

Toodles!...

 

Excellent work - I have this in my future and like you haven't painted in years. I did 10 or 12 cars back in the days of Centari and Imron, but trying to catch up on the latest. Enjoying your progress.

 

Looks great Dave!!! I just hung some plastic around my shooting area and wet the floor... After I was finished spraying and the floor dried (which didn't take very long), I was able to vacuum all the K36 overspray... Wasn't an issue at all...

Did you shoot the car as well or just the pieces???



Rogman

 

Roger, all I shot were the few pieces shown; the hood and wiper door/ headlight surrounds/ little grille thingies. I think I'll do the doors next, the headlight doors, the roof panels/ side grilles, and then finally the main body of the car.

I must say it really felt good to FINALLY shoot SOMETHING out of a paint gun after so many months of grueling work...I mean, I'm really not that far away from actually having color back on the car again. I'm actually getting slightly excited about it!

 

'Murica

 

birdsmith: your garage looks about like mine right now. I'm in the process of shooting clear on various pieces. I didn't read the whole post so maybe this has been covered but here is my two cents. I think I noticed that you are shooting a metallic. It is really important to shoot the base color on the panel in the orientation it will be on the car. Here's the rig I put together to shoot the doors, which should be vertical.



They are hanging on hooks, so when I shoot the clear I can lay it on a little more thickly by propping up the doors horizontally. I shot a metallic red car with the doors horizontally for color and when we put them back on the car they were a completely different color.

My other tip is lighting, lots of it. I put some foil coated foam insulation 4x8 sheets outside my garage to reflect sunlight in and got lots of light on the lower part of the body that way. All my base color came out perfectly. Besides direct light, it is really good to see something light reflected off each panel as the paint is going down. That was my only screwup with this job as I got a couple of runs in the clear because I neglected to set up one panel's lighting correctly. Fortunately I was able to sand out the runs but it took a whole day, not to mention a couple of days waiting for the runs to harden. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks much...that's what I'm really hoping for with this thread is ideas...I don't do that much painting so I'll gladly listen to any and all advice.

I'm planning on shooting color onto all the jambs fist, then loosely bolting the car together and spraying it as a unit. After that I'll take everything back apart and shoot the clear...if this sounds crazy my feelings won't be hurt if you say so; once the paint is on it'll bee too late!

Thanks for looking in and giving your .02...always appreciated.

 

Obviously an IMPOSTER!!!

 

With all the assembly and disassembly you want to make sure you meet the paint product's maximum time for applying the clearcoat. For instance, for PPG Deltron it is 24 hours maximum. My front fender was repaired and repainted by someone who probably couldn't be bothered to read the instructions and the clearcoat came off with some masking tape.

 

That was a real cause for concern....I was thinking shoot the base on Saturday morning and if I have to wait that long shoot the clear on Sunday morning, but if I can do the assembly/disassembly quickly enough I might be able to shoot the clear the same day....

 

Spent Saturday servicing transmission on friend's DD, then did honey-do's yesterday morning. Finally about 2 pm yesterday got the cars out of the garage so I could shoot some more parts. One of the doors had a few gouges in it from shaving the paint off, which I had forgotten about, so I wound up spending half of the remaining afternoon bondo-ing up the little gouges, but I did manage to get the doors, rear valance, roof panels, and a few interior trim parts primed.






All that is left now as far as primer goes are the side grilles and the headlight doors; both of which will involve some pretty careful masking, which I didn't really have time for yesterday. After those are done it's wash and mask the car body, then roll it in and prime it. Shouldn't really take that long since it's completely apart. I started with a gallon of the polyprime and it looks like I'll have plenty; there's still probably 3 quarts left.

I partially sanded out the wiper door and the cowl vent grille, and did notice a fair amount of orange peel with this primer. I had been reducing it about 10-15% with acetone, but I think I could go a LOT more...I tried shooting a 'wash coat' of near-straight acetone over the wet primer in a couple spots and that seemed to help some. I also got smart this time and covered my garage floor with plastic...no fun scrubbing garage floor in 95 degree heat!

Ignatz, if you're watching still, I did mention earlier that I'm going to try and spray the main body of the car with the doors on, that is, shoot color on all the jambs first, the loosely assemble everything and spray the rest of the car as a unit. It will be a LOT of work masking, de-masking, putting together, taking apart, and re-masking but I think that's going to be the best way to get uniform color on everything. Once color is on everything I will then (very carefully, of course) disassemble everything and shoot clear.

Thanks as always for the looks and comments...

 

I am indeed following this. Shot my last coat of clear yesterday. My strategy was to shoot all three coats of basecolor with the doors off and hanging on the rig I posted, all from the same gun at the same time same can same pressure same everything. That way I got the jambs as well without having to open and close anything. Then a coat of clear on everything at the end of the day to get a firm grip on the base. That was a long stressful day but not a single run in the base (yea!). Another coat of clear the next day. Let everything harden, then wet sanded out some orange peel and runs with 1000 grit. Then two more coats of clear at a more leisurely pace. And a couple more runs (boo!). The next adventure is sanding and buffing. Am using 3M products and their recommendations.

As an aside, when I watch these car restoration shows on TV, the painter goes a whole lot faster than me with the gun and with what looks to be a lighter touch with the material and very close to the surface. I have a Binks HVLP but I am probably still shooting a lot like my old siphon gun. Not sure my technique is the best but I do have a decent amount of material on the car to work with.

Plan on twice as long as you think it will take. I was going to be done end of July and here we are in September. And I'm retired too. Maybe I'll take some pictures today. I did post a picture in the silver C3 thread of just the base. Take a look there.

I'll be watching your post, good luck.

 

Yesterday I emptied the garage, put the Corvette in the middle of it,



Seam sealed the door hinges and jambs,



Jacked it up, removed the wheels, and commenced masking for 4 hours,



And piled about a 1/2 gallon of primer onto it...





...all at age 54, in 95 degree, 70% humidity weather, with thunder and spitting rain outside. I must have downed a gallon of water and sweated it all out. BUT the WHOLE car is now in primer, ready for final sanding (320). All that's left to purchase is some reducer and clearcoat; I picked up 3 quarts of Donnybrooke Green basecoat last week so we're getting close now...


Cheers!!

 

Hi Bird,
I'm still watching too.
A whole lot of WORK showing in your pictures. This all should turn out REALLY well.
It's interesting to see what can go into a paint job once you get beyond the "I'll put Rust-o-lium on with a roller" school of thought.
I enjoy your pictures!
Regards,
Alan