Not a whole lot to report on The Juggernaut this time around, but what is worth reporting is significant.
Sunday, Mike came over and I quickly put him to work on yet another new task:
Cleaning up the inner wheelwells I’ve had stashed away in the shed for a few years now. What’s interesting about these is that they are
metal, not plastic. They’re very early ‘78 Grand Prix wheelwells, and while they’re not going to be a direct fit to the Cutlass fenders, we all know that isn’t going to be an issue for me with my penchant for modifying steel.
Mike’s task was daunting, years of accumulated dirt, crud and rust, along with thick undercoating on the underside. But he persevered and did very well, even the undercoat eventually gave way with some liberal use of heat and a durable putty knife. Once he had that licked, he then immediately dove into stripping off all the old original paint.
Here he is in his element:
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Poor bugger. But he always comes through for me no matter what I give him. That’s a true friend.
While he was slugging through that, I was busy with the remaining bodywork on the driver’s front fender. I didn’t think I was going to be able to pull it off, but I actually managed to finish it right at the very end of the day. It’s ready for a couple coats of spray filler and more blocking, but I’ll hold off on that until the passenger’s side is done to this same point.
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It doesn’t look like much at this point, but they seldom do at this stage. You might notice that I tied into the front edge of the door as well, this was intentional as I’m trying something a little different on this build: Shooting for zero dive between panels. Panel dive is common and normal on production cars due to the way the panels are manufactured in giant presses, but the show car scene has continually upped the ante and now zero panel dive is starting to become the norm.
This is going to be a new technique for me, so wish me luck. I hope I can pull it off, if I can it’ll definitely be worth the extra effort.
Monday at work was slow, so I took the afternoon off and stopped by my local autobody supply shop. I needed a few things, but also wanted to have a look through some paint chips and see if I couldn’t pick my upper color for The Juggernaut’s two tone. I wanted an extremely dark gray tone, nearly black but without being black.
I decided on this factory production color for a brand of Japanese import car that shall remain nameless due to my extreme dislike of them. It looks all but black in low and indirect lighting…
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…but under direct sunlight it is most definitely grey. Just exactly what I wanted:
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I’ll be experimenting and playing around with this color on a couple of sprayout cards and if I like what I see, I’ll shoot the mirrors to see it on larger surfaces before I completely commit to it.
Very big news, I have a large and expensive new purchase that I’m very excited about on the way, it should be here in the next couple days. Stay tuned for that! (Guesses will be entertained here up until it arrives, so give it your best shot!)
D.