[roger1]

Originally Posted by Shiny

Understand but your body work looks fantastic and after all that effort and commitment to quality, I'm sure every minor ding would jump out at you.
..but to me as a bystander with zero skills, it looks a couple hundred notches above crap in the black primer.
Very nice work and if your welded seams get perfected by that amount of filler, you are really good at keeping them straight.

Again, thank you!
I like going with black epoxy primer in this stage for a couple of reasons and the first one is showing me where the high and low spots are so I can address them. The second is that the next primers that go on will be gray and having black epoxy underneath makes it easier to see if you sand through them.

The seamed areas will still need some polyester primer which is really just a sprayable filler. I'm hoping just 2 or 3 coats in those areas. Once that gets sanded, I'll seal with black epoxy again and spray a 2K urethane gray over the entire car. When that's sanded, hopefully it will very, very close to perfect.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by dataway

So glad you posted those pics, exactly what mine was looking like when I was doing the filler .... I was thinking no one else's car ever seems to look this way Then the next coat of primer things get better, a bit more filler work and more primer an they get even better.
Course mine has a few "character" dings that I missed and decided to leave in ... cause you know, I don't want it TOO perfect it wouldn't fit my personality
Shame your not a neighbor so I could hang out and watch.

Originally Posted by dataway

BTW ... thank you a ton for the personal help you gave me on my work. Your recommendations worked out great.

Glad I could be of help to you. I'm really glad I picked up on the fact that you were originally going to leave out the sealer step. That one may have cost you. You are right that using epoxy primer has some rules to it's use that are different than other primers but I think it's benefits are unarguably worth it.
Anyway, your results look great and am really happy for you it turned out the way you wanted.

[MUSLCAH]

Best way to get body work “Perfect “ is to put a paper shop towel over your hand and “Feel “ the body work with your hand. Run your hand every which way on every panel. The application of a black chaulk guide coat powder will get you in the ball park ,when blocking….But the sense of touch will out perform that procedure and get you to the end zone.

[indymanjoe]

Another great thread to follow. Love it! I would be afraid to drive it when done lol

[MUSLCAH]

Another tip if you plan on driving this car....disregard if a trailer queen. When aligning the door to fender gap....I find that cheating in that door a wee bit....will save that leading edge from stone bruises......and that also goes for the lower rear door to 1/4 gap..to be out a wee bit out.....to save the lower leading edge of the 1/4 panel ...lower front of wheel edge from road rash. JMHO

[Scarebird]

Originally Posted by MUSLCAH

...I find that cheating in that door a wee bit....will save that leading edge from stone bruises...

GM body manual shows exactly that, more for edge clearance.

[roger1]

Spent a few days filling all the door and hail dings I could find. I also block sanded the entire car with 180 grit. I then used a bit of filler in places to help with panel level matching.





Yesterday, I sprayed 2 more coats of epoxy primer on the entire car.



And today I sprayed Slick Sand polyester primer on all the metal worked areas and to help level panel transitions. Heavier in the areas of the patch panels.







Then this afternoon, I set the car back down on the wheels. Panels will move a bit when the car is on jack stands so it's better to block sand everything in when it's on it's wheels. I also re-installed the front bumper.



I started sanding the driver side quarter with a long board and 80 grit and I can already see it's going to need another application of the polyester primer here. You can see where I sanded through to the epoxy primer.

[roger1]

It's been a relatively long time since an update but I'm slow on this part of the process.
After sanding all the polyester primer that I showed in that last update, there were still a few areas that needed another application of it and I sprayed that on last week. After sanding that, I discovered that I still had issues in the shape of the top of the quarter panel wheel openings. I just didn't have both sides looking the same shape. I had sanded the driver side a little too flat in the middle of the opening. And I discovered I had a bit of a bulge in behind the center top of the passenger side opening and this was a bit of a setback as I knew I was going to have remove all the primer build to move that in. I wished I had noticed it earlier in the process.



This high spot was caused from over planishing the welding shrinkage when I installed the patch panels. I used a pick and file to knock it in. I have found the best way to do that is with a pick hammer held against the metal and tapping it with another hammer. You can see all the dots where it was hit. For a file I used 80 grit on a firm sanding block. I also used ink for a guide coating in that process.
After a couple coats of epoxy (yesterday) and an application of spot filler this morning:



And after applying polyester primer to both sides:





Hopefully, I can get these quarters sanded and get them shaped properly now. I am really going to take my time and pay attention to my sanding technique.

The good news is that the rest of the car is ready to move on to spraying with 2K primer for the final finesse block sanding. I'm only using epoxy to sand in the front bumper and I've got that nearly perfect now. I sprayed more epoxy on that the top part yesterday.

[Andretti]

Great to see it coming back together. I know when you bought it their were no wheel well moldings installed. Are you planning on adding them as now's a good time for trial fitting.

[roger1]

Thanks. Yup, I have been trial fitting them. I didn't want any surprises later.
The seller gave me the set he took off. They have some dings in them here and there but I think I will be able to restore them all.

[roger1]

So after blocking both quarters, I was very happy with them and ready to move on and get it prepped for a complete application of epoxy primer followed by the 2K urethane primer.
I sprayed the epoxy yesterday. I used red oxide this time only because I had more of it on hand than black. My intention was to only spray one coat but I saw a couple of areas where it didn't reflect quite right so I sprayed a second coat just on those areas so I could lightly block them before spraying the 2K. One spot was high up on the p/s quarter over the wheel opening and on the p/s of the hood towards the middle.

After spraying the epoxy yesterday:





This morning I blocked the areas where it didn't reflect well and could see that would be correctable very easily with the 2K. It doesn't take much of a low or high spot to make a panel not reflect well. I used sanding blocks and just barely moved it over the panels just to reveal any flaws I might have missed. I did find a few and used just a small amount of spot putty on them.

I sprayed on the 2K urethane primer this afternoon. I'm using the SPI's Turbo Primer which their fast curing one. I put 2 coats on the entire car and then a 3rd coat only on areas that I thought might need a little extra build. I taped off the bumper. It's looking very good to me at this point. I'll start blocking it tomorrow with 180 grit.

[keith k]

Originally Posted by roger1

I'll start blocking it tomorrow with 180 grit.

Looking fantastic!

I've observed that paint materials seem to have a lot less solids in them these days (enviro regs?), and shrink a lot more over time than they used to. As you're getting close to final surface finishing, I would let the primer cure/shrink for longer than a day before taking the abrasives to it. A week would be better, IMO.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by keith k

Looking fantastic!
I've observed that paint materials seem to have a lot less solids in them these days (enviro regs?), and shrink a lot more over time than they used to. As you're getting close to final surface finishing, I would let the primer cure/shrink for longer than a day before taking the abrasives to it. A week would be better, IMO.

Thanks!
I've used this product before. It may interest you. It has special curing resins and it doesn't shrink after 3 hours of cure time.

https://www.southernpolyurethanes.com/turbo-2k-primer

[MUSLCAH]

Originally Posted by keith k

Looking fantastic!

I've observed that paint materials seem to have a lot less solids in them these days (enviro regs?), and shrink a lot more over time than they used to. As you're getting close to final surface finishing, I would let the primer cure/shrink for longer than a day before taking the abrasives to it. A week would be better, IMO.

X2 on that

[Brewster]

X 3

[Greg Reid]

Hey, I'm getting bored with this thread... Just one perfect step after another. Can't you screw something up every once in a while? 8'))

[Scarebird]

As much as Greg is kidding he does have a point; seeing pitfalls in builds warns others of issues.

An example was I saw nowhere the issue of putting the hardlines on after the front suspension - the other way is far easier!

[dataway]

I think it was Shakespeare who said "He is all fault who hath no fault at all"

So Roger beware of a great delamination event in the future
Actually I think you will prove Shakespeare wrong, and you are creating the Hamlet of Pontiacs (without the tragic parts of course)

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by Scarebird

As much as Greg is kidding he does have a point; seeing pitfalls in builds warns others of issues.

An example was I saw nowhere the issue of putting the hardlines on after the front suspension - the other way is far easier!

You make a valid point but just for the record, l was absolutely kidding.

[dataway]

I'm guessing there have been a lot of engineering tragedies in the world that could have been avoided if Roger was the project manager.