Alright gents, as promised finally an update on this damn back window filler panel I’ve been working on.
It’s a long sordid tale, so bear with me and I’ll try and relate it as succinctly as I can. Let’s just say that I learned a lot along the way.
It started off innocently enough as most CF’s do, the plan was to final sand and paint it so that I could apply the pinstripes. This was necessary because the rear flange that bolts to the car is covered by the trunk lid and inaccessible once it’s installed on the car. I also wanted to do it because I really wanted to see it finished out with the third color I had picked for the pinstripes.
So here’s what I started with. Wanting to use what I already had on hand, I blew in the white on the ends with the single stage paint I already had after it was sanded down to 400 dry:
Once that was done, next I guide coated the whole thing, wet sanded it down with 600 grit, then masked off where I thought the two tone break was gonna be:
This masking part is where I made my first mistake. I had picked an arbitrary location that I thought was gonna look good, and ran with it. Unfortunately I rushed this particular step as you’ll see in a bit.
Next I mixed up some of the Sterling grey (again, single stage that I already had on hand) and blew that on:
It looked really nice, I love this color under bright lights and in the sun.
After unmasking, the break was nice and clean, and looked really good:
Back to wet sanding, this time to knock the gloss off the grey and mask it up for the pinstripes:
The plan here again was to use paint materials I already had on hand. I had the white and grey in single stage, but the pinstripe color I only had in basecoat. This meant that I’d have to have the white and grey already sanded, then blow in the pinstripes in base, then clear over everything. This is more or less how I had planned on painting the car as well, except I’d be using basecoat for all three colors.
Anyways, I had this old basecoat left over from a motorcycle I painted several years back, and it just screamed that it was the perfect color to use for the pinstripes. It’s a Honda color called “Bordeaux Red Mica”. Which is very fitting because it’s the color of red wine and has a ton of metallic and a hint of pearl to it:
This matches my interior color to a tee, so it was a natural decision and planned for from inception. I got the base blown in next, and figured I was away to the races!
This however, is where things started to go off the rails. In my haste to pick the two tone break line, I hadn’t followed it back onto the trunk lid far enough to realize it wasn’t going to look right around the taillight cutouts, and I had even laid my tape on the wrong side of my marks on the driver’s side!! Plus, to add insult to injury, I didn’t like how it looked with a white stripe between the grey and first pinstripe line, and the basecoat even bled through underneath the tape. Horrible!!!
Alright, mulligan time. Time to slow down, rethink this and plan it out a little better. I reached out to InjectedCutty who helped me plan this thing way back in the beginning, and we agreed that the first pinstripe line had to butt up against the grey to look right. He was gracious enough to send me a couple of different options on the pinstripe placement via photoshopping a picture I had already sent him.
We unanimously decided this would look the best:
Meanwhile on my side of things, I started running fineline tape to simulate where the pinstripe lines should be, all the way down on the trunk and a bit around the taillights. The corners will get a radius put in them, but it served to help visualize where it had to be.
This is what it all boiled down to: the separation line between the grey and first pinstripe line had to move an 1/8” to the outside, the pinstripe needed to move over 5/16” to the inside, and the crooked ones on the driver’s side had to be redone altogether too.
Soooo, it was wet sand it all back off and start again.
This time however, I wasn’t gonna screw around with single stage for the white and grey and base for the stripes, I actually needed the exact opposite of what I had. I needed white and grey BASECOAT, and single stage BURGUNDY.
Why single stage for the pinstripes? This is where I learned the next valuable lesson: Laying out pinstripe lines is very meticulous and time consuming work. I’m only alotting myself two days in the booth, and I don’t want to waste one of them just masking for the pinstripes. I had originally planned on clear coating over all three colors, but that’s simply going to take too long for the time I have in the booth.
Obviously I can do some small painting jobs in my garage, so I’ll base/clear the two main colors in the booth, then do the pinstripes in single stage at home when I’m not rushed and can make sure it’s right.
So, after hashing all this out in my head and overthinking the crap out of it, I ordered the paints in the opposite of what I already had and started over.
Where I rushed it and skipped this step the first time, this time around I reinstalled the panel to lay out the break line after spraying the white in base:
Right placement this time, and actually straight too! Novel concept ya dummy!!
Then repeat as before, spray the grey and unmask, but this time with 4 coats of clear, some leftover Concept 2021 I’ve been hanging onto.
Continued...>>>
