Been working very hard on the grill area of my car. Im taking this week off of work, so I should have all of the little things worked out, and maybe the entire car primed in one color by the end of the week.
great work,, looks like it belongs there,,,,,, at first when i looked at your pics, i thought you had the car on jackstands on the front bumper!!!!,,,hahah,,,upon closer inspection, i can see that its just holding the bumper in "mock-up" position ..
Ahhhh... One color is a wonderful thing. All your work either becomes severly evident or melted together. I think yours calls for the latter.\ I was doing the same thing today, making a '47 Ford one color...
You dont like the different colors? It looks like rainbow sherbert! I think I'll prefer when its all grey primer! Now everyone can easily see how much of a bondo hack I am! The grill area has a skim coat (some places probably reach 1/4") all over! Have you tried the new Evercoat Quantum? I roughed out in rage gold, then skimmed lightly in the quantum filler (red hardener), followed by a little touchup with the Quantum Glaze (blue hardener). This stuff spreads really smooth, and sands SO nice.
No I haven't but maybe I will. Whenever I order stuff online they throw ads at me from every angle for the stuff so maybe its worth a try. I'm still on Rage Gold and Metal Glaze.
Its pricey stuff, but its really awesome. I like evercoat "easy sand" glaze as well, but this quantum stuff is great. The biggest thing going for the quantum glaze is how it spreads, it has a much "creamier" consistency than the other fillers, and it seems to have a longer work period, and it doesnt "pull" when you run the spreader over it several times.
The car looks incredible. That grill looks like it was made for that car. The two hardeners for Quantum are for different cure rates. It allows you to retain similar work times over varying tempuratures or give yourself more work time if needed without having to vary the amount of hardener being used. They also have some epoxy in them so they have increased corrosion resistance as well. They will pass the OEM 500 hour salt spray test.
I have both hardners, and have found that the red leaves somewhat of a sticky top layer. A friend of mine who's a pro bodyman has had the same results. He's gone to just the blue, and used a bit less when needed. Regardless, nothing sands like the Quantum products.
Lookin good as usual Chad! That grille was on my list, but I decided to give a nod to Winfield w/ the Olds grille. You can't beat the Cad grille for that heavy, early custom look. Can't wait to see it all one color. I will be in your neck of the woods next month and would love to come by and check it out. D.
What is the temp like where you are working? It may not be completely curing. The break point for temp on the hardners is 80 degrees so the red is ideal suited for Temps above that. Also have to make sure you use the right amount of hardener. It is a 10:1 mix ration rather than 50:1 like traditional fillers and putties so you need to use way more hardener. If you are still having problems let me know I can look into it for you. You can mix the hardeners as well if you need more work time from the blue.
Man! That's lookin great Chad! The narrowed hood band looks perfect,just right and a lot better looking than just a smoothed hood . I showed Herb Your last pics and He loved it ! You're making great progress.keep it up... Bill S.
One of the BEST looking grilles on a Custom 41-48 Ford! What will you be using for caps? I'm so tempted to use the 40/41 Packard grille on my 40' Mercury coupe, a node to one of my favorite Westergard Custom, Bruce Glen 39' Ford. I'm with every one else, looking forward to the next updates! Ken
Cool! Would love to see more pictures of it. How did you do the frenching of the headlights, after you had welded the rims to the fenders?
The gap between the rim and fender is very slight. Some do it with a strip of sheetmetal, 50 years ago it would have been done in lead. Mine is filled in with Duraglass after the rim was fully welded to the body. The material reaches a max thickness of about 3/8 maybe in a few spots. As long as you have the metal perfectly clean, and sanded with 36 grit, that duraglass is not going anywhere.
Hey Chad! the car is looking so nice.......I`ve been looking for a caddy grill for my 46 for about a year now....but no luck so far If anyone know of a grill for me please let me know.
Thanks! A 48 caddilac grill just went on ebay for $590! I paid $50 some for mine maybe a year ago, on ebay. Mine has some damage that will need metal finishing to get it ready for chrome, so I bid on the ebay one, as I thought it would cost less to get a perfectly straight one than to pay for the metal labor, but the sale price was about $200 over what I was willing to pay.
Well, that fool was me, actually. After searching for one for over three years, and not seeing a single one on Ebay for like a year it's hard to tell what the true value is on an item like that. Oddly enough, I have had people tell me I got it for a fairly good price, it's all a matter of perspective I guess. I could have kept searching the ebay and elsewhere, kept bugging every owner of a '48 Cadillac ("A spare grille? -If you only knew how many that have asked me that question...") for another year or two, maybe I would have found one for a better price. Most likely I would have to pay more, as there was someone else bidding just under $590 on the same auction. Sorry for distracting from the topic, I have followed your project for a while and look forward to see the progress you do.
So your the guy that got it! hahhaha. My snipe was set for around $406, and it wasn't even enough to place, a higher bid had already come in. My question is, why are these so rare? Should parts from a 48 cadillac be so hard to come by?
Are any old Cadillac parts easy to find? I would think that as they were a high end car there would have been alot fewer of them sold thus making it harder to find parts these days but I may be wrong. It's happened before.
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