I finally picked a color ! After buying A silver, I new the car needed something a little "more". I put the silver up for sale on craigslist and sold it dirt cheap just so I could try another flavor, and im glad I did! Now I cant wait to spray the car. I did do the underside of the trunk and the jambs on the door so Im getting close.
HAha, what a crappy pic, after looking at it , the color almost looks silver. I swear its not the color is a pale green. Lots of silver met w/ just enough green to make it different. The best part,? $55 for color, and $25 for the hardner! jeff
And we finally have color! That is if white counts as a color. This was a long time coming but is also just the begining. I want to screw around w/ some different things on the roof so this coat of white will be wet sanded smooth to prep it for what ever I want to try next. I just coulndt help taking a pic while its still all shiney. the body may even start getting blocked out for the final time this week. jeff
Wow, what a LONG weekend that just was. The roof had already been wet sanded up to 800 grit, so w/ a three day weekend ahead of me I figured it was go time. All said and done, I killed 3 rolls of pinstripe tape, 2 rolls of 1" painters tape, two of grandmas curtains and a butt load of hrs. Sunday alone, I got in the shop at 4am and finally flipped off the lights at midnight! To any of you guys that do this for a living, I respect the hell out of you! Deep in thought: This is sometime Sat afternoon And to think, I said it would be FUN to play around w/ some different ideas :-o not to bad as far as being symetrical either. Now were at about 11 am here on Sunday, w/ 7 hrs of tapping already behind me! Green Scallops! This is the green that will be for the body color, but to change it up a little, I ended up doing the plastic wrap trick to it. also in this pic the panels that will be laced have just been uncovered. The suns starting to come in the window so id say it was about 5-6pm here: The green was barely dry but I was running out of time quick! I thought I had A great idea to tape off the scallops w/ the wifes parchment paper so that the still soft paint wouldnt stick. Little did I know parchment stands for "tape wont stick to me". Add in that the tape is low tack painters tape and you can imagine the fun I had trying to get this covered. Honorable mention goes out to grandma for the curtains and yes, the parchment paper did start to stick, but it peeled of perfectly (good thing I went w/ the plastic wrap finish, it hides everything!) about 11:45pm: 4 coats of clear, 2 bugs, 1 spider, and 3 runs later. (hard to get the pearl lace to show up in pics) Not too shabby, anyone want to wet sand ? Will 4 coats of clear be enough to sand the tape lines totally flat or should I just aim for smoothing them? jeff
Ill be keeping an eye out for some new end caps, but if I cant find them cheap ill just make a pair jeff[/QUOTE] end caps? what a concept I've alway ran straight pipes. what will they think of next?
I swear Ive been busy working on the car! Its hard to show progress pics when it takes so much work to accomplish so little. At this point, the car is ready for paint! All the edges have been "cut in" and now were just waiting for the right weather. Sadly it looks like the humidity will be here for a while so I grabbed a quick side job to pass the time. Sanding down the rims and get them ready for black. And to keep w/ the low cost theme, this was done w/ rattle can black (dupli color) then buried under a "real" clear More to come real soon! jeff
And the Humidity is still rising! 92% rite now and its not going to break anytime in the 10 day forcast, DAMMIT! So I finally ordered my tires. There not exactly what I wanted, but the price was hard to beat. 1.25" whites in 205-75-15 Paid for them on Friday eve, and they were here on Mon! You cant beat that @ $320 shipped! All mounted, balanced and ready to roll (mounted w/ tire irons and bubble balanced in the garage and pocketed the $60 the local shop wanted And while still waiting for the weather Im doing all sorts of prep work so as soon as the paints done, things might go pretty quick! Polishing stainless, Sucks! jeff
the weather broke for one day and I was ready. the paint got sprayed and came out OK. I was pushing the limits of the activators temp. It hit 80* in the shop and the activator was for 80. and below. That, and for some reason my gun didn't seem like it was really putting out the volume. All these excuses add up to the fact that ive got a lot of orange peel that needs to be taken care of. Looks like I know what ill be doing for the next few days :-( heres some pics that most people wont show, a paint job right out of the gun! Full of all its flaws and all its ugliness. It took me a several angles to get some pics that didn't look too bad and the after math And now I know were some of my 2 gallons of clear went time to wet sand! jeff
Ive been sanding till it hurts! Sad part is im so used to it that now it really doesn't bother me too much but I still hate it! I got the body to 1200 and now im letting it shrink for a couple weeks. In the meantime I was able to knock the roof out. It didn't look to bad out of the gun but had all the sings of a typical amateur paint job. I hit it w/ 1200 then 2000 then buffed w/ the wool pad and followed up w/ the foam glaze pad. The 2000 grit paper I bought was junk! The min. I touched it to the car, most of the gray grit wiped right of the paper. I went through 5 sheets on just the roof trying to make progress and now that its buffed I can see several spots that I need to back track on. But hey, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. Heres where the roofs at: jeff
Wow. Part body man, part seamstress (sorry, seamSTER didn't sound right) a little artist..... amazing work!
Busting my ass wet sanding still! I did learn that I wasted a ton of time trying to to skip from 1200 to 2000grit. After I buffed the sanded finish, it looked pretty good untill I put it under the florescent lights. Scratches everywhere! So I had to backtrack to 1200 then 1500 then buff. That did the trick! Even under the fluorescent lights , (which make everything look bad), the paint now looks great! heres the before again, right out of the gun: and now the hood, front end, cowl, and passenger side front fender are buffed and looking good: Ill probably just double back w/ the 1200 again then hit it w/ 1500 for the rest of the car. Im hoping to have that all wrapped up next weekend so I can move on to the more fun parts of the build. Jeff
one of the biggest milestones so far! The Iron curtain finally came down the other day! For the last 3 yrs my garage has been partitioned off w/ plastic that used to be clear And I finally have my garage back. (wow, now I have to clean up all the stuff ive been hiding behind there) The cars starting to come together too, all the shiney pcs are coming out of the attic and getting bolted up for hopefully the last time. jeff
things are shaping up wiring is all done too and everything even works! this is also the first time ive had side glass in the car since I chopped it about 6-7 yrs ago. The glass is just like the old Coke bottles w/ a slight green tint to it (should look great when all the white interior is in. And just when things start going good I knew a stock headliner wouldn't fit perfect "right out of the box" because of the choptop, but this "replacement" headliner wouldn't even fit the car if it was stock :-( Ill be calling the company in the AM to see how the want to handle this. jeff
That thing is turning out beautiful. Great job. Especially on the grill/hood/headlight treatment. And the color choice was fantastic. Can't wait to see some wide angle finished shots.
So, things were made right w/ the headliner purchase. Lebarron bonney stood behind the oops and I had a check in my hands 2 days later. They saw my order was for 51' ford seats and the 51' plym headliner but ended up sending all ford stuff. Oh well, it would take 2 weeks to get a plym one and I really didn't want to wait. Several trips to the fabric store and I finally decided I was going to SEW MY OWN! Some people hate to put in head liners, Tonight I will try to get up pics of my first attempt at making a head liner out of wedding dress fabric :-0 stay tuned............. jeff
Holly cow...I haven't read this thread since you did the shifter...Wow! This is pretty amazing work! I'm subscribed, and I'll be steeling lots of tech from you! I love this car!
Ok, as promised , the headliner is done. The cost was $32 for the wedding dress fabric (yup, I had a coupon, and 20 for a sewing machine off craigslist (ha, blew up the last one on the pleats for the door panels). My first step was to figure out some dimensions, may as well use up some old bed sheets as a template. W/ promising results from the bed sheets, it was time to start laying out the good stuff (just as a reference, most fabrics cost about $4-$5 yrd, this crap was $14 yrd! (glad I had the coupon "torque" is just waiting to put paw prints all over it, haha Its really not that hard to do and I gotta admit, it is kinda fun to sew, Mostly since you can say you did it. All the bows had to be cut and widened to fit the chop top, so now there all welded up and going in for the last time. Or so I thought, they ended up having to come apart a couple more times to fix some ooops's. trying to work out the wrinkles (this stuff dosent stretch and that makes it tuff to work w/ as a headliner) not too bad for a first attempt, and I kinda like it. (my Grandma says its beautiful so that has to count for some thing.) next on the todo list , is to fit all new gaskets to the front and rear glass. Im a little bummed, I just looked at he rear glass and never noticed all the grinding sparks that had stuck to it from the inside. A razor blade helped to clean it up a little , but if any one has a good one for cheap, let me know. jeff
Dam, I gues you are subscribed! it took me 30 mins to post that and you replied within 2 mins , LOL Thanks,
Good timing and this damn phone app has me constantly in the loop so to speak! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The last three days really tested my temper, Doing the glass is my least favorite part of a build. One second everything can be going great, the next, POP! and then $$$ off to the glass shop. Well, just to stay consistent w/ that, the rear glass went in fairly well and all the stainless looks lined up pretty good. There were some scary moments when I knew I was pushing too hard, but I got it done! Then the front glass never even made it to the garage :-( I stopped at the hose to wash 2 yrs of dust off and decided to just drop the slippery glass on the side walk. $30 later and w/ a much tighter grip, the wife and I got the two pcs into the new gasket then the 2 pcs of trim also onto the gasket then the whole floppy assembly somehow onto the pinch weld. (still have to get the merc divider bar cut down to fit the center) A quick little tip when the threads are damaged or too short on your trim clips. (yeah, I know I pry could've just bought new, But Im too cheep). cut the stud off and drill and tap for a new bolt. tighten up the bolt real good then grind the head down a little so it fits in the trim. Jeff
The Jalopy Journal
