That could be bad I guess.

Any more progress pics? looks good.

I know Steve has more pics he will probably post. He is going to work on feathering in the flares as well and hopefully updates the thread.

We ran into trouble on the rear flares. The Right Rear had been repaired with quite a bit of filler. Steve ground away a clean line for me to cut/weld on but not without covering my garage with bondo dust. This made fitting that flare pretty tough. Lots of slow progress of small cuts, tac welds, some even recuts. Wound up turning out great in the end, but not without work.

Hey Chris, go buy some flares and call me.

I think you were lucky. I heard they were cracking down on flare smugglers.

Larry,

The picture of your car in your avatar looks awesome. Any other pics of your car to share with us? I assume those are steel flares. What's the engine displacement?

Had a chance to get out to the shop today
ground down the welds, looked great, except the rr fender
this quarter was hit by a bunch of drunk kids long ago
and had lots of work into it from the previous repair
so there is one high spot an a few low spots
but the other quarters look fairly darn clean

Looks great. Did you guys use the easy grind type of wire? and was it .023? or .030? Also the only car I've had a chance to check out the front fender seems to be more to the rear than centered but that fit the rockers he had. I am concerned that the front fender might need to be moved a little forward and the rockers lengthened to fit. Any thoughts?

.023 Easy Grind.

Click to view attachment
Put a few hours into metal work....well may more than a few,
spray with filler, sand, paint, sand, buff and look what you get.

i believe dan has the answer to the for-aft of the front fenders....

Dan,

Thanks for sharing your technique, tack at the bottom and then cut and tack your way up and around. That is a really clever method. How did you ever come up with that?

With this method you are centering the flare, fore and aft, relative to the existing wheel opening, correct?

Is there any issue vertically, for example where the top of the flare blends with the top of the fender?

The top of the flare is below the top of the fender, so that's not a problem. I wish I had used this method. I clmped them in place and then cut out the entire unit. Then I needed to use cleo clamps to hold it in place while tacking.

Yup, the biggest thing is getting the bottom edges all lined up perfectly. It really helps to have a couple of pairs of hands. I am usually doing it myself putting the smallest of tacs on so I could place the flare, cut, then eventually even cut through the original tac. With Steve there he was able to hold the flare while I cut and then tacked. Made things go faster that way.

Then Troy showed up and all hell broke loose.

the bugger drank all my beer

And you where suprised? You need to spend more time with Troy. He is all about the barley pops.

not me.... i'm all for the distilled libations!

here is a shot of the car with a bit of filler on it...
I should let you know, this is the first time i have EVER attempted body work of this magnitude....
the rear driver quarter has taken the most work this far!

once i got most of the shaping done, with many guide coats and much blocking, i decided to prime with a heavy ppg k201.
After letting it cure i will block and clean up any other imperfections.....and there are more than just a few

Nice work! keep it up.

for all the taping and prep i could have almost painted the entire car...
i am re painting the targa, duck tail, front hood, bumpers,valences and the centers on the fuches as well. she will look like a different machine when i am done!

Great job Steve! Man, from here, it looks like a million bucks! Keep the progress going and pictures coming.

Looks awesome Steve

thanks....but
don't be deceived...there is still a lot of details that need to be taken care of on those quarters.. after this is all done i will be installing some more flourecents in this area of the shop!! i think that will alow me to see highs and lows with a bit more light bouncing around.

Wow Steve! I love the learn as you go approach. I will be starting work on a tub next year and I will be stripping and cleaning up body work as I go too. I have all of the tools I have just never used them. You have inspired me!

How did the underside turn out? Are you planning on coating it with anything?

i sprayed the welds with etch coat, and k201, next i will shoot it flat black
opps after the k201 i will put a couple layers of under coat on the top side
in case i ever run stickies

Looking good Steve!

Great job Steve it look perfect

pardon me..the primer was a PPG k38
the primer was not fully cured due to the cold
but damn that stuff can cover,
i blocked the two worst quarters today, they turned out way better than expected
i will shoot one more coat of primer, block it and then color
outside it was minus 10, with a windchill of minus 18....i am damn thankful for the heater in the shop...to celebrate i had a beer, it was slushy.

trust the touch of your hand and the guide coat more than your eye. sanding is your friend [this is supposed to be steve sanding]

I don't agree. (but some of it's just in the wording)

Don't trust your hand. (unless you are a major pro)

Only trust the guide coat sanding if you have a straight sanding board and are doing the sanding real lightly. You should just "glide" over the high points.

The one thing I recommend is to get a shop light and direct it down along the surface, not directly at it! Then turn off all the other garage lights. You can then see the hills and valleys on the surface.

Wes Vann

Great thread!! You guys make it look too easy. Makes us want to do ours too.
Thanks.

my opinions on the sanding so far...it is tough to use a board for the sanding
a round sanding block is necessary, and hard and soft block as well
the touch method works well
as well as a guide coat
but blocking a semigloss primer is great as well, the low spots shine out
and blowing of the dust every now and again reveals the lows
and you just keep blocking out the highs until the lows are "flat"
depending on how low you are you can shoot a guide
and check it again....by blocking it off
plus i have 2 500 watt lights, which really help highlighting
......................
i am determined to do this without the help of a pro
i think the whole idea of hotrodding is to do as much as you possibly can yourself or with the help of other like minded individuals...like Dan and the rest of you guys

new year

You're doing it all right Steve. Anytime you have a radius you should use a round block. Using a hard edge block will actually cut grooves into the bondo/primer as you move across it. Sand in a criss cross pattern,ALWAYS guide coat, keep the panel clean so you can keep an eye on your guide coat, and re guide coat if you have any doubts. Run your hand lengthwise ( fingers to heel ) not cross ways, to feel the panel, also slide your hand in long strokes, short strokes will not do you much good.

i am planning to do the final block with 800 wet
Is there any problem with blocking the color with 1200 wet in between coats of color??

Assuming it is a solid color 600-1000 tops. The higher grade you sand it to the less the clear has to adhere to, the easier it is to run the clear. NEVER EVER sand a metallic base, you WILL ruin it. I see no need in all honesty in sandiong the base anyway unless there is something in it. You'll get a better result wet sanding the clear then reclearing it

for the little work I have done.

I guess I missed it did you guys try some flared rockers to see how they lined up to start with? The curves of the flares and fenders are the easy parts. It's the almost flat areas that are tough. It takes good lighting and the experience to know how to use the angles of the lighting to pick up the very long minute waves. You can't stand back and look too much, always be looking and feeling for waves. On the last guide coat I like to put water on the surface to get it as shiney as possible to check the surfaces. If you are going to remove all the orange peel it will show every wave you miss on the final guide coat. Also the darker the color the more the waves will show up. I close my eyes when I am trying to determine where a small imperfection in the surface is and start with long sweeps of my hand till I feel something then keeping it centered in the sweeps get them shorter and shorter till I can either see or mark the spot. The closer you can get the filler to perfect the less guide coats you will need and the less shrinkage you will see in a coupla years. Also the final finish of the filler should be about 220 grit so as to not have deep scratches to fill with the primer as that can also shrink and show up when the hot solvents sink in from the top coats. If you try to level spots with clear they will usually shrink and show up later. If you use a lot of top coat it will take several months to get fully dry. Try to put a dent in it where it won't show with your fingernail (under a fender lip) a few months down the road and see how far it dents. Usually the dent will come out over time.

When the last coat of clear is on and wet you will know how good of a job you did and whether you might need to leave a little orange peel or not when you are leveling and buffing. If you don't have a real good setup to paint top coats you might want to use some fisheye eliminator. It prevents small oil specks from making pimples in the paint. Urethanes being sortof like plastic don't melt into each other as each coat goes on. If you get through and see a dryspot that looks rough and will need extra leveling you can use some ppg blending solvent to melt the paint down. Be careful and just dust it on and see how it goes, you can add more but too much and it will run or sag. It looks like magic but it will help level overspray or dryspots really well.

When you are color sanding if you go through the clear you can put some more on that spot and use the blending solvent on the edge of the new clear to melt the little overspray drops in before you resand it. Be sure and use a tack rag as the blending solvent also has clear it it.

When you sand clear between coats to remove nibs or lint, some clears will lift or wrinkle if they are not fully dry especially on the edge where you sand through. Clear is a weak paint and will delaminate easily if you leave to smooth of a surface for it to adhere to I use 400 or a gray scotchbrite pad to scuff the surface real well. It will try to seperate where you are bolting something on it or flexing it.

Also something I try to remember when I am spraying top coats is that they are highly prone to attract dust as the electrostatic charge is always there. I have used a jumper cable connected to the underside of the body to try and ground the body to stop it as much as possible. I'm not sure that it helps because of the multiple coats and the filler but I do it anyway.

i have finished blocking the second layer of primer...
now it is time to double check all painting surfaces
i will shoot the undercoating on the inners
clean the shop up with a vaccum
triple check
and paint next week, probably fri.
i have trial fitted the rockers and done a bunch of glass work on them
to make them work, good thing glass is so easy to work with....because there where a lot of fitment issues with them, as far as lining up goes.
the glass bumpers and valences will be painted black
and then it is on to painting the centers on the wheels.
eights out back, sevens up front

Hose the floor down, and if at all possible wet the walls. This will do LOADS to keep the dust out of the paint.

Thanks scotty...i was going to do that as well....

Well i got a little farther today
sprayed a layer of undercoat in the innner fenders
and got a three layers of base on

this is the quarater that caused the most trouble due to previous damage
but this one turned out good

and here is my big bad...can't even look at scotty b in eyes
i guesse i am going to have to wet sand the base...
i am guessing 800 and then another layer of base ...eh?
and then clear....

All of this would not be possible without Sher talking her parents into taking Our four year old for the day,
With Sher on bed rest, it makes it a lot tougher to get out to the shop and work....
so i got her some of these

Great job Pete, I can't wait to see it!

Don't invite PanelBilly up, it will add many hours.

So what was the toughest part of the project so far?

toughest part so far is the filling,puttying and blocking of the quarters
i enjoy the painting part....except for the runs...
but i enjoy the solitude working in the shop!

The shaping/blocking is very tough for me, I think I'm finished and the next night I'm starting over ( maybe it's the ).

The solitude is the best part, (although it is very dusty solitude) many hours to think.

Keep at it.