7. Painting finished
Ended up leaving the seam sealer a couple of days to go off. The Puraflex 40 says it takes 24 hours to cure at 3.5mm thick and had a couple of areas which were probably a bit more than this so was probably a sensible thing to do. I applied a couple coats of Upol Guard (stone chip) just to the wheel arch areas. The can comes with two nozzles, a thin and a thick nozzle. Used the thin for the first layer and then the thick nozzle for the second. Wasn’t completely sure how thick to put it on but ended up using two cans for just the arches.
Next was the two top coats of Hardtop AX. Managed to get a number of other parts painted at the same time. This stuff absolutely stinks, certainly was a mask and garage door open job. Leaves a very glossy finish with only minor brush marks so for underneath is perfect.
Yesterday I then tackled the engine bay and inside. I used spray paint for the engine bay as I wanted a slightly better finish, well at least smoother with no brush marks. For the engine bay I used Upol etch primer, gloss black top coat and clear coat. Wanted to use the clear coat as I thought it would give the paint a more durable finish, however it didn’t go on particularly well in some areas, certain areas went hazy after it dried. Wasn’t sure if i was applying the clear coat too thick or thin or if I hadn’t left long enough between coats. But seeing as most of it will be covered in the engine bay I wasn’t too bothered. Just made me nervous for using the clear coat for the inside.
Inside I used the same etch primer but as the colour of the etch primer was what we wanted, decided just to put clear straight over the top of the primer. Again a small problem with the clear coat. I found that during spraying the clear coat it was giving off a huge amount of dust. I had thoroughly cleaned the shell before painting (vacuumed, tac clothed and panel wiped), so initially I thought the clear coat was going cloudy again but in fact it was a layer of white dust coming from the spray. So before painting each small section I used a tac cloth to remove the dust before painting, so managed to recover the inside and now I’m really pleased with how it has turned out.
Was brilliant pulling all the masking tape off and finally getting the car off the roll over jig. Saying we are pleased is an understatement.
There‘s a couple of spots to touch up where the roll over jig fixtures were bolted on. Then on to fun jobs, frames and suspension up next.
Yesterday I then tackled the engine bay and inside. I used spray paint for the engine bay as I wanted a slightly better finish, well at least smoother with no brush marks. For the engine bay I used Upol etch primer, gloss black top coat and clear coat. Wanted to use the clear coat as I thought it would give the paint a more durable finish, however it didn’t go on particularly well in some areas, certain areas went hazy after it dried. Wasn’t sure if i was applying the clear coat too thick or thin or if I hadn’t left long enough between coats. But seeing as most of it will be covered in the engine bay I wasn’t too bothered. Just made me nervous for using the clear coat for the inside.
Inside I used the same etch primer but as the colour of the etch primer was what we wanted, decided just to put clear straight over the top of the primer. Again a small problem with the clear coat. I found that during spraying the clear coat it was giving off a huge amount of dust. I had thoroughly cleaned the shell before painting (vacuumed, tac clothed and panel wiped), so initially I thought the clear coat was going cloudy again but in fact it was a layer of white dust coming from the spray. So before painting each small section I used a tac cloth to remove the dust before painting, so managed to recover the inside and now I’m really pleased with how it has turned out.
Was brilliant pulling all the masking tape off and finally getting the car off the roll over jig. Saying we are pleased is an understatement.
There‘s a couple of spots to touch up where the roll over jig fixtures were bolted on. Then on to fun jobs, frames and suspension up next.
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