Painting/Filling a Header Panel

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Tony_SS

Royal Smart Person
Oct 14, 2006
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Missouri
www.mac-ink.com
I'm switching over to an 81 header panel, and the one I have needs to be redone. I need to paint it black and in no way am I looking for perfection. It'll be up against a weather worn factory black paint job.

What's a good procedure for prep, filling the hood emblem hole and final paint?

I'm thinking a single stage black, but am open to ideas. Also, they have what looks to be a decent cheapie gravity fed paint gun at Harbor Freight for $40. Will that work?
 
My BIL just put some fiberglass in the hole and covered with bondo. It looks alright, but you can kinda make out where it is. Whether or not you want to go with this route is up to you.
 
yeah i dunno but make sure you fill it in smooth. guy who painted my car did a bad job at that
 
I will post my method for perfection. First off, take a whiz wheel and grind down the paint to bare fiberglass in the hole, and for about an inch surrounding it. You may also want to take a die grinder and rough the inside of the bolt hole as well for even better adhesion. Follow this up with sanding the surrounding paint with about a 60-80 grit paper, so that the filler will stick if you go outside the intended area. Then, put a piece of tape on the bottom side of the hole to seal it up. Now, take some Bondo Glass and Fill the hole, and spread to the surrounding area. This is where grinding that little bit beyond the edges of the emblem hole will help you. Once the filler dries, peel off the tape on the back end as it was just there to keep the filler from falling through the hole while it was setting up. Now, you will need to sand it smooth, starting with 80 grit paper. Now, mist a light contrasting guide coat of black spray paint over the area being worked. You should be able to see through it and it will be like overspray. Next, using about a 3-4 in ( needs to be wider than the area being worked) piece of cut down paint stirring stick wrapped in 220 grit paper, smooth it out until there are no low spots left, as indicated by the lack of black paint left in the low spots. Now, you are ready to cover it in some primer-surfacer, which you will then guide coat and block with 400 grit paper. This is the end of the blended repair, and if you did it right, it will be indistinguishable from the original surface. Just remember that the idea is to properly blend the area around the hole, not just fill the hole by itself. Using fiberglass filler means it will have some structure to it and be less likely to break through. Feathering out the surrounding area means that filler bridges the transition between the two materials, and it will not crack around where the depression was.

Be sure to use at minimum a dust mask while doing this, as breathing in fiberglass dust is very bad for your lungs. The $40 one is a bit expensive, I would use the $10 siphon feed touch up gun they have on sale from time to time for this. I like them because they waste less material, and are cheap enough that if a catalyzed paint kicks in it, you can afford to throw it away. Gravity feed guns require complete disassembly after each use so that paint does not have anywhere to hide. I clan them with Q tips, then flush them with thinner. I use a touch up gun for my primer applications, and also sometimes to do the front of the door jambs where they meet the hinge post. The smaller size helps you get in tight areas.
 
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