Scored a COMPLETE 27 T roadster for a whopping,..$800 bucks! Cound in northeast PA, so it has some minor issues. Of course it needs some of the usual patch panels,..but the question here is the pitting. In some areas its not bad,...in others, they are BB sized and, all over the top of cowl, and some other areas of the body. Its interesting to see how thick the old metal was and how amazingly resilient and strong it still is!! So its not like this has weakened the metal much at all,....its just cosmetic...thank God!! Having said this,...I am looking to blast it all, take it apart and smooth her out...(3 small dents,..that's it!!) I'm looking into the traditional idea of doing a skim coat of bondo(I'd be using Evercoat's Rage Extreme as I've used it before with great results over several years),...then hitting it with about a coat or two of PPG high-build primer and so on. OR,...is it possible to lead the entire thing,with a SKIM COAT or lead,...filling in the dimples left by the pitting?? Then this would organically stay all metal,...which is appealing to me personally for personal reasons. Would like to hear from those who know,...thanks and thank you for all your time,& help as always!
Paint it first with fiberglass resin to seal it off from the air then skim coat it with whatever you like. I personally like the lead idea but that'll melt the resin which may not be a bad thing. Or else it might.
Have you ever done lead work? How about on thin, flat metal? If no, then ask someone who has how HARD that would be to do the whole car. Go with the bondo. Or naked, and wear your pits proudly. And, Bondo (tm) is traditional. When did Blackjack come out? Late 50's?
What about just not doing the resin,...and just hitting it with lead? yeah, personally i like the lead idea much better also, much more,...ahem,..TRADITIONAL
well, we're talkin just to fill in the pits, nothing horribly deep,..well, not to bad! No i havent done any leading yet, but a friemnd has and does. its al about careful finesse between temp, and use of tooling, lead, etc. It can be done, so hard work is what i'm used to. So blackjackcame out in the late 50s? hmm,..never knew that....
that is the old argunent, but not something i'm even considering,...its not even a viable topic when you already know the hazards and how to use it and what not to do,...I've worked with lead before,..just not in the auto world,... theres nothing to even discuss...but thank you.
Coal...sorry, couldn't resist that one...!!! Even tho bondo came out in the '50's...it was used sparingly...cuz working it was as tuff as working lead... lead being the primary part of bodywork...I used to watch my Dad work lead...it's not the easiest thing to do...and then you have to level it...and that's tuff to do... Anyway, I bought a '64 Bel-Air from someone that lived in Ohio and moved to Denver...it was pitted badly on the quarters...with big ugly rust areas around the wheel wells. The pits were not thru the metal, but big pits just the same...about dime and a quarter sized...I simply ground it down with 80 grit, shot on a good coat of PPG DP 40 (epoxy), used a sealer...and then did the bondo trick on top of that (used Rage Gold, best there is), then shot that with DP40 again...and then shot high build primer (PPG NCP250) over that...blocked it all and painted it...came out good and is still holding on fine...and that was six years ago... R-
I do work with lead once in a while (see my post on how-to do leadwork a few weeks ago). In short, it's not a good application for lead. Longer story, first you need to scruplessly clean the surface of all contamination. Paint, oil, grease, RUST. That's going to be pretty hard to do with pitted areas. Granted, you can, with some sort of blasting, but sand is a bit dangerous, in regard to sand warping the flat panels. glass beads would be better, but not economical to say the least! Acids, and other treatments probably would work better, but it's tough to clean up the residue enough for lead. Next, the rust removers , and pitting will leave the steel thinner, and weaker than before. Again, not desireable for lead. The combination of flat panels, and thin steel, are not good for applying heat to melt lead. After application, you'd need to vixen file the area down to remove excess lead, and that will thin the surrounding areas more. It would probably work better if you could use a big soldering iron, and fill each individual pit. Probably way too time consuming, though. Even though I like lead, I wouldn't use it here. I would clean it thoroughly to remove the rust, put a few coats of epoxy on it, and go from there. If the epoxy fills most of the pitting, just block and re-epoxy. If not, fill with Evercoat glaze...bondo is probably not even necessary, due to the thinness of the repairs. Oh, yeah...lead is really not that dangerous, at least compared to other materials we use! Isocyanates, epoxy, even bondo. You just need to understand the dangers, like NOT sanding or grinding it, to create dust whcih can be inhaled, absorbed into the skin, or ingested accidentally. Using vixen files keeps the "extra" pieces large and easy to manage, and not get into your system.
You could also use All Metal-it has a high Tensile Strength (70,000#) and sets up like J B Weld-it's tough stuff and is designed for Body Filling-
Any of the new fillers will last an incredibly long time in an application like this where it would end up being in such small, thin amounts. Plastic fillers fail when they are too thick, or are applied over an un-prepared surface. If it were mine I would have no problem using a light skim coat of rage, then sand it down so the only filler left is just what's in the pits. It will probably outlast you...
If it's just pitting, why not use a good 2k primer surfacer? I love the stuff, and if your planning on a nice paintjob you need to high build and block the whole thing anyway. The stuff builds really good, and gets hard as a rock! sands alot quicker than bondo too. But it depends on how bad the pitting really is.
I agree with Swithblade. A couple of rounds with a good high build primer should work. Granted I don't know exactly how deep the pits are. If they are too big for regular primer, check out Evercoat's Slick Sand. I've used it before and it works really well. It has a very high build. http://www.evercoat.com/productDetail.aspx?pID=28
It was late 50s or early 60s for sure. First I remember seeing any was about 64 or 5 in a store called White Front ( kinda like Wally World) near San Carlos, so it must have been around before that. It was a bitch to work with as I recall. Oh the idea behind painting it with resin first is not to fill the pits it seals it up, primer bondo, or paint will not do that and it will eventually bubble ( continue to rust).
thats exactly what i'm looking for!! lol!! If it develops problems in 50 yrs fine,..otherwise,...screw it!! lol thanks guys!!!
You will have less chance of wavy panels using a high build primer than lead or bondo. The key is to stop rust before any application. Clean to the bottom of the pits, then kill the rust. Rust is not, nor has it ever been, traditional. After sealing, begin applying and sanding between coats of high build primer. Block sand until all traces of pits are gone. You will wind up with a better paint job than you would any other way. Lead is absolutely the wrong choice for wide area pitting. If you don't think so, look at the video of Bill Hines leading.
Probably a simple solution and one that will last long, would be to spray it with polyester filler. There are a few good ones on the market. Surface would need to be prepped good, etc., but overall, a faster, longer lasting fix. Minimum gun to use is 2.5, to get it to spray and flow evenly. Stu
definetally bondo. Primer is not designed to be that thick, and will be less stable then bondo and you will get "shrinkage". Primer is supposed to fill some light scratches (like 80 or finer). Plastic filler (bondo) will work great in your application. As long as it sandblasted clean, you can then put on your epoxy sealer, let it dry for a couple days, scratch it up a little bit, and then skim coat wih bondo and then put your primer filler over that. I just got done doing this esact same thing. My process was this- Sandblast perfectly clean DA with some 120 Couple coats of metal etch filler Couple coates of epoxy sealer Plastic filler (bondo) in thin coats to level out the surface of pitting 3 or 4 coats of polyester primer filler 3 coats of urethane primer wetsand and paint this will last a very long time. chris
2K primer isn't designed to be thick? Are ya sure? Wonder why I have to spray the stuff I use with a 2.0 tip? I stay away from the polyester primer fillers, heard way too many nightmares about it wrecking a paintjob from shrinkage, poor adhesion, etc. Just seems to be really touchy. I still stand by the 2K, unless the pits are severe, then you need to use another method. Without pictures this debate could could on and on...
Don’t use fiberglass resin, it does not expand and contract at the same rate as the metal its sitting on, this means eventually it will crack. Clean it, filler, and primer. You should be fine.
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