So quite a bit of work has been done on the hood since last posting, even though at first blush it may not look like it needed anything to the average layman.
First of all, after the pictures in the previous post were taken, the Evercoat Slick Sand polyester spray filler was thoroughly blocked out with 120 grit on my flexible “Big Kid Blocks” long board. I have to say, I am extremely impressed with this sprayable filler product. It applies like a very thick high build primer surfacer, offers extremely high film build, fills minor pinholes, and sands absolutely beautifully. I wish I had’ve been turned on to this years ago.
As far as how the surface itself blocked out, maybe I should have more faith in my skills. I probably could’ve gotten away with applying high build primer rather than the spray filler. It literally blocked out that nicely.
However, all was not perfect.
In my attempt to reshape the driver’s side of the scoop section and add the missing curvature to it, I had inadvertently added too much material to the header panel and the front of the hood. It was quite noticeable, and ended up being close to 3/16” too much. In addition, I had lost some of the definition of the outside radiuses of the raised scoop edges through multiple blocking rounds. The radiuses on both sides got lazy and “softer” than they should’ve been in the middle between the header panel and the overhang over the windshield.
So it was back to reworking and refining it further.
Starting with the excessive material on the driver’s side of the header and hood, careful block sanding with 40 grit on the long board commenced. This was labor intensive, hard physical work that took several hours. I wasn’t going in blind and randomly removing material however, I had a plan to make sure it matched the passenger’s side perfectly.
Working from the passenger’s side, I laid a long piece of shirt cardboard on edge on the top of the rad support with the hood open, and traced the profile of the header panel both top and bottom. This gave me a cross section view of the header. I cut this profile out, flipped it around, and, using the bottom of the header on the driver’s side as a datum point, taped the cardboard profile in place:
With the cardboard profile in place, it became very evident of just how much material had to be removed. Using a bright yellow high visibility color spray bomb, I painted the edge of the header panel over top of the cardboard. This gave me a very clear and easily checked way of monitoring the amount of material that was coming off as I was sanding, and a defined stopping point:
I wasn’t concerned with the overspray, this was all coming off anyways. Several hours and about a gallon of sweat later, I finally had the excess material removed, and without altering the overall shape. Here’s the end result:
One of the other things I had to address at this time, was to correct my wandering, wavy center hood peak line.
To do this, I attached the magnetic base of my laser level to one of my overhead lights, and shone it straight down onto the hood. I aligned the hood underneath the line with my front and rear center measurements, and traced the line with pencil at several points to establish the proper line. I then laid down strips of masking tape either side of this line and block sanded both sides consistently and evenly up to the tape until it was straight.
Strike another thing off the list, two down, one to go. Addressing the soft outside radiuses. This was simply a matter of adding a little bit of additional material to the affected areas and carefully and slowly sanding it to the correct shape.
As you can see, not a lot of material needed to be added here.
Last night was a busy one, sweeping up and blowing out the shop, thoroughly cleaning the hood and header panel, masking and covering up the car. That left tonight free to spray some more Slick Sand.
The bare metal and exposed filler areas got 2 coats of PPG DPLV epoxy primer followed by one hour of dry time as per the tech sheet. I then mixed up a quart of the Slick Sand, and applied it to the raised scoop sections and the driver’s side of the header panel. The alterations and corrections performed are very apparent, and well worth all the time and effort. It looks MUCH better if you know what you’re looking at.
Center hood peak line is looking waaay better.
It doesn’t take a meandering wander through the woods anymore:
Driver’s side profile shot to show that the excess material removal wasn’t detrimental to the overall shape like I was worried about:
These next two show the nice crisp, consistent radiuses from front to back now.
Overall, it was a very successful night spraying tonight, and worth the effort expended. These seemingly minor imperfections would’ve been greatly amplified and glaring flaws once it is in paint.
I’ll let it cure for the next day or two, then unmask and resume block sanding again. This time, it should be one light round with 120 grit again, then another more thorough round with 220. If there’s no further deficiencies found at that point, it’ll get masked one more time and shot with standard high build primer surfacer. Then that’ll be it until final sanding of the whole car for paint.
Almost there!
D.
