Donovan, the car is so close awesome. Glad you are still employed, my Daughter's boyfriend works at Flaman Rental's in the shop. Same situation, shop guys will be the last lay offs. Check out my rant in the Coronavirus thread. Get this done!
BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Never gets boring reading about your work on the car, just makes us want to do more to our own. Or worst, ship our cars to you to have them done to your level.
Donovan... appreciate all your work but I'd like to know about the 'spot priming'
As you stated you won't do the whole panel. So my question is won't that make the surface uneven? Just trying to wrap my head around it....
And thank you for your work and taking the time to document all of this.
As you stated you won't do the whole panel. So my question is won't that make the surface uneven? Just trying to wrap my head around it....
And thank you for your work and taking the time to document all of this.
Definitely challenging times.the olds looks AWSUME.
What's the story behind the two cutouts on front fender.
Been curious from introduction.
What's the story behind the two cutouts on front fender.
Been curious from introduction.
Donovan, I'm glad to see your updates. I can only speak for myself here, but I never tire of seeing the photos that you post, nor reading the description of what you're doing. I was kind of slow to get into your thread here, but since I've started following it, I find myself looking forward to your updates.
I'm sorry to hear that your hours are getting cut back, but that appears to be the reality of the current situation. I work for a transit company, and so far at least, we're being considered as an essential service, so I'm still working. The precautions that we have to take at work these days are getting kind of silly, and it was getting stressful, so I'm on a week's vacation now, just to relax a bit.
I was checking out the photos that you've posted, and in a couple of the photos, there is a reflection of one of your shop lights in the front fender. Is there any sealer on that fender, or is that just as a result of the grade of sandpaper that you're using, combined with your block sanding efforts so far?
I'm sorry to hear that your hours are getting cut back, but that appears to be the reality of the current situation. I work for a transit company, and so far at least, we're being considered as an essential service, so I'm still working. The precautions that we have to take at work these days are getting kind of silly, and it was getting stressful, so I'm on a week's vacation now, just to relax a bit.
I was checking out the photos that you've posted, and in a couple of the photos, there is a reflection of one of your shop lights in the front fender. Is there any sealer on that fender, or is that just as a result of the grade of sandpaper that you're using, combined with your block sanding efforts so far?
Great comments and questions guys, thanks.
Let’s see if I can’t answer them for ya one at a time.
Tony, it won’t make the surface uneven with the proper application and technique after its combined with proper block sanding. Take for example this tiny spot on the lower drivers side door that I got primed today. It’s one of four areas on the door that needed attention:
This was caused by the heel of my hand pushing in on the lower door while Mike was snugging up the hinge bolts. It was very minor and very shallow, to the point where most of it actually almost blocked out. But there was still a shallow depression, so it needed filling.
Now I probably could have just spot primed it and blocked it out again and that likely would’ve fixed it, but the only way it was visible was because it still had a little bit of black guide coat on it in the low area:
So rather than take a chance that the next round of primer and blocking would take care of it, I instead masked off about a 2” perimeter around the depression, lightly sanded the guidecoat off, gave it a light skim with finishing putty and sanded that. So it looked like the first picture above when I was done. Doing it this way also gave me a visual idea of where the repair was, since it would’ve visually disappeared once I sanded the guidecoat off.
You can’t paint directly over putty, so next it needed primer. I had the three other spots to re-prime on the door as well, so rather than masking off each area individually, I just masked off the entire door. Now we get to the part you’re interested in.
Once I had the primer mixed up and my spray pattern set, I began priming all 4 areas. Given the location of the repair we’re discussing, the first coat goes on just the puttied area with the gun at 90 degrees to the surface. After flash off, the next coat went on from the edge of the door at 90 degrees to the surface, then extended PAST the puttied area 2-3”, then you use the technique of “fanning” off the end of the pass. This can take a little practice to get used to, but at the end of a pass you ease up on the trigger while twisting your wrist away from the surface.
This has the effect of dispersing the primer material gradually and imperceptibly so that you don’t have a hard “stop” line where you finished the pass.
This technique combined with making each subsequent pass bigger than the last makes the repair invisible and easy to feather sand in to the initial surface. Because the 4 coats of primer have been staggered, overlapped and fanned out, when you block sand it, it all levels out perfectly and is imperceptible to where the initial repair was.
The 4 areas that I had to prime today were basically in the 4 corners of the door, in these 2 pictures you can see just how far into the door they extended by the time I was done. (The fuzzy looking area in the center is the original blocked primer, the rest is new from today.)
I hope this explanation helps, it’s about the best way I can think of to explain it.
D.
Let’s see if I can’t answer them for ya one at a time.
Tony, it won’t make the surface uneven with the proper application and technique after its combined with proper block sanding. Take for example this tiny spot on the lower drivers side door that I got primed today. It’s one of four areas on the door that needed attention:
This was caused by the heel of my hand pushing in on the lower door while Mike was snugging up the hinge bolts. It was very minor and very shallow, to the point where most of it actually almost blocked out. But there was still a shallow depression, so it needed filling.
Now I probably could have just spot primed it and blocked it out again and that likely would’ve fixed it, but the only way it was visible was because it still had a little bit of black guide coat on it in the low area:
So rather than take a chance that the next round of primer and blocking would take care of it, I instead masked off about a 2” perimeter around the depression, lightly sanded the guidecoat off, gave it a light skim with finishing putty and sanded that. So it looked like the first picture above when I was done. Doing it this way also gave me a visual idea of where the repair was, since it would’ve visually disappeared once I sanded the guidecoat off.
You can’t paint directly over putty, so next it needed primer. I had the three other spots to re-prime on the door as well, so rather than masking off each area individually, I just masked off the entire door. Now we get to the part you’re interested in.
Once I had the primer mixed up and my spray pattern set, I began priming all 4 areas. Given the location of the repair we’re discussing, the first coat goes on just the puttied area with the gun at 90 degrees to the surface. After flash off, the next coat went on from the edge of the door at 90 degrees to the surface, then extended PAST the puttied area 2-3”, then you use the technique of “fanning” off the end of the pass. This can take a little practice to get used to, but at the end of a pass you ease up on the trigger while twisting your wrist away from the surface.
This has the effect of dispersing the primer material gradually and imperceptibly so that you don’t have a hard “stop” line where you finished the pass.
This technique combined with making each subsequent pass bigger than the last makes the repair invisible and easy to feather sand in to the initial surface. Because the 4 coats of primer have been staggered, overlapped and fanned out, when you block sand it, it all levels out perfectly and is imperceptible to where the initial repair was.
The 4 areas that I had to prime today were basically in the 4 corners of the door, in these 2 pictures you can see just how far into the door they extended by the time I was done. (The fuzzy looking area in the center is the original blocked primer, the rest is new from today.)
I hope this explanation helps, it’s about the best way I can think of to explain it.
D.
I’ve been wondering why you used 2k rather than a spray polyester primer? The spray polyester has a lot less shrinkage than the 2k. The drawback is that you have to spray 2k over it before painting.
I left a 1” think puck of each, spray poly and 2k, sitting on a window sill for a few months. When I checked it the spray poly was the same size, the 2k was less than half and it cracked. I was pretty impressed.
I left a 1” think puck of each, spray poly and 2k, sitting on a window sill for a few months. When I checked it the spray poly was the same size, the 2k was less than half and it cracked. I was pretty impressed.
Those are for my custom made flush mount marker lights. The information on what I did is in the thread here, but basically I started with this stock:
Removed the chrome bezel, cut out the area and welded in my own patch with integrated studs to mount the lights, then bodyworked it inside and out.
Lots of test fitting and contoured the lights to match, polish them back up, and prime the fenders.
End result. How GM should’ve done it in the first place IMO!
Thanks Jeff.
Your question is one of the easier ones to answer here today.
Posting those pictures with some gloss on them from the wax and grease remover was so that you can see how flat and straight the panels are now. There is no sealer on anything yet, that’s just straight high build primer that’s been properly block sanded flat in 220. That’s it.
220 is still a fairly coarse and aggressive grit, but that’s what you need to start with IMO to really get everything flat and straight. It’ll continue to get better and better, smoother and smoother as I work up in finer grits. I still have 320 and 400 left to go on the entire car after everything’s been repaired. I was going to go all the way to 600 grit wet, but I’ve since decided that I’m going to spray a wet on wet sealer coat in the booth just before paint with reduced white epoxy to give me a solid ground coat and protection from any exposed layers or burn throughs.
Thanks for commenting!
Short answer?
I’m old school and don’t have a lot of experience with it for one, and I don’t own a gun with a big enough tip to spray something that thick for another. I’ve also seen a lot of compatibility issues in recent times between the polyester spray filler and the 2K people try to apply over it.
So I figured I’d just stick with what I know that works. In hindsight, I probably would’ve had to do a lot less blocking and re-priming if I had’ve used a spray filler, but it is what it is at this point.
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