I located my barn find 27 Feb. 2004. I had a general idea of how I wanted it to end up. Being a novice builder, I made a lot of decisions as I went along. One good choice I made was to have Ray Zarick, Model T Shop, build my chassis. While waiting for the frame, I did the basic body work, patch panels, firewall, and some bed work. Then once I got the frame I concentrated on all the fabrication needed to build the car. The first things I did on the bed was to straighten the bed rails and replace the the rear T bed panel. Seven months later, I went back to work on the bed, getting rid of the rivets and working on the bottom parts.
Four years later after finishing about 90% of the Ts fabrication, I needed to complete the body, fender, and bed work. I made quite a few new decisions on the bed realizing that detailing paint around rivets wasn't something I wanted to do so I decided to get rid of all the rivets, fill the stake pocket holes, remove the pocket covers, and fill and re drill the rear fender mounting holes. One other thing I noticed was the poor factory fit of the stake pocket area so I decided to box the ends of the bed rails.
After grinding and sanding all the welds I sand blasted the areas. It was then I made another un-planed decision. The angled braces above the rear bed panel looked poor and hard to finish so I decided to box them in. I changed the angle a little to make them plane with the bed rails. So after more sanding and grinding and a little Bondo, I shot them with epoxy.
Nice work. Those beds are pretty rough from the factory, not to mention after years of use and abuse.
A couple days later after a lot of block and detail sanding, I sprayed a final coat of Feather Fill. By then I didn't have any finger prints left, but my efforts were starting to show results. The next day I shot some guide coat to get ready for a final blocking prior to primer surfacer.
Around this time I realized how much time and effort I wasted by failing to make a complete plan to re build my bed. Many times I had to fix work I'd already done. I should have done all the metal work, blasting, hammer-dolly, welding, etc before epoxy, bondo, and primers ever touched the bed. So, after a couple more days sanding, I finally sprayed the HOK KD3000 primer/surfacer/sealer on all the bed parts.
A couple months later just before New Years 2011, with new tires and a couch cushion seat, I took it for it's first drive. For the next two years I finished all the stuff that needed attention, spring rates, ride height, and all the other things needed to finish the car. Finally I was ready to disassemble and paint everything. I used KD3000 sealer, two coats of HOK Blue Blood color and three coats of Kosmic clear. Painting the bed started with wet sanding Once into my backyard booth, I masked everything but the bottom of the bed and the stake pockets.
The next day I masked the bottom and covered the stake pockets with a thin piece of Formica and shot the rest of the bed.
I finally got to the cut and buff stage. I can't say I was looking forward to all the sanding again, but I was glad to reach this point. I hadn't done any paint finish since the 70s on my old 57 Chevy with Lacquer. I did some reading and watched some U-Tube videos and jumped in with both feet. LOL I used 1000, 1500, and 2000 paper (wet) and 3M Perfect it compound. If it was worth all the effort, I guess only I can say.
I've seen this pick-up many times...NEVER walked past it. I'd probably make you nervous if I saw you on the road Blake.
The Jalopy Journal
