Look man, just give me the gun!

This is the story of my friend Ron.
I had always seen him working on his coupe in his garage, and about a year ago,
I stopped and talked with him, and he hasn't been able to get rid of me since.
Ron unfortunatly lost his wife and best friend to cancer about 5 1/2 years ago.
After a period of moping around, his daughters told him to get off is ass, go to the farm, get his car and build the hotrod he had always talked about.
So he did!
It is a '32 Hudson 5 window.
He has owned this car since he was 16, and although some aspects of his build are not HAMB friendly, or to the way I would build one, the grin on his face when he drives it makes all that irrelevant to me.

He went into it with the mindset that he would do everything on this car himself, and for the most part, has.
About 1 year ago he put it into primer and got it certified and licenced.
I knew him then but decided to let him do it himself.

Me,being in the autobody restoration business, I was easily willing to offer advice, and told him the proceedure to follow from this point forward.
I offered to give him a lesson and help him longboard the car out to carve it as straight and true as possible,and then would help him reprime it.
After a few weekend days and a few nights of sanding and bondo work, we were ready to reprime.

Today was that day.

I went down this morning to be primer mixer/tech support guy.
After loading up his gun for him and doing a bit on the back panel, I handed the gun to him and stood back.
Well, being somewhat of a control freak in certain situations, I found myself telling him things like, slower, farther away, slower, etc...
I held out my hand a few times with the unspoken "give me the gun"
look on my face. I did hand it back to him more than once, but I did do the whole last coat myself.
He can really see the difference that all the nights and weekend work has produced, and is so grateful for my help.
I am more than happy to help this guy out!

I was going to be his paint mixer/tech support guy when he does paint the car, however, I may just find myself saying
"Look man, just give me the gun!"

 

That is going to be a beautiful car when finished. You don't see them at every car event. You might not be able to pry him out of it when it gets the final color on it.

 

Maybe he'll learn better when you show him first. We did a buttload of test panels before we could shoot a whole car. How many poop brown K-car fenders did I spray? It takes time to learn, if he doesn't have the patience, ask him if he wants you to shoot it.

 

Flowmeister,, Great read.. Nice car your buddy has too.. when you going to get that COE done.. ? its been long enough,,

 

Great story...that what it's all about. Really cool lookin' coupe too !! Has he picked out a final color yet ???

 

You are a good friend to help him out.........nice story

 

Ron lives around the corner from me, he's a great guy though we've only chatted a couple times. I'm going to pop over and see him again.

 

Nice, good friends are hard to find.

 

He is really leaning towards yellow.
But his color choice seems to depend on what day you ask him.

 

Now that you say that, I have seen your car in the neighborhood.
It's sweet!

 

I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can go sandblast.
Starting to think I should be building an ark instead of a COE!

 

Coool !

 

Hey flattie,

He does not know I put this thread up, so I will surprise him in a day or two
and show him people are diggin' his car!
I just wanted to expose him for his effort of building this car

 

Good of you to lend a hand to that fella.. That car has some beautiful body lines too. Can't wait to see it with some color on it and all shined up!

 

funny how these old cars can bring people together.good on you for jumping in there.

 

Hats off to you flow, and yes that ride is going to be very nice once all freshly sprayed up, good on you for teaching him and not just doing it all for him, u desevre a medal my friend, keep us posted and put up some pics of it when in colour
A-tub

 

Helping the fellow just seemed like the thing to do.
I admire him for taking this project on,and want to see him
end up with the best possible results.

 

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

 

Good friends-sweet car-nice story. You're a stand-up guy, Flow. Eager to see the car when done.

 

Yellow......Hey I like this guy already! I should drop by and take him for a boot

 

Ha ha.
Your yellow font hurts my eyes!

 

Update Update !

It's been some time since I started this thread, so here's
the progress report.

After the primer that was applied in the pictures, the car was all blocked out by Ron
and we got it ready to spray urethane primer on for the final sanding.
While Ron was priming it, things weren't going well and he was pretty frustrated,
I took over priming and after we came to the mutual agreement that I would paint the car for him. He was stubbornly insistent that he would be getting me a flathead for my '33 truck project in exchange for that.

Ron sanded the whole car out again and the body got lifted off to paint the floorboards.
While it was up in the air, I painted the recess part of the firewall black.
Once it was bolted down for good I decided to block it all out one more time and check over everything, fixed a couple things and shot a bit more primer on.
Pulled the doors and trunk off and painted the jambs in his garage.

Yesterday we put it on a trailer and hauled it out to a friends shop that I rent the booth at.
This morning we finished up masking and setting up parts, blew it off, washed it, blew it off, mixed paint, blew it off and tacked it and pulled the trigger.

Ron had really liked a blue that I had used on a Toledo scale I had restored for a customer. So I told him , that's what his car was going to be.
Kind of in the Washington Blue vain.

He has been so angry and miserable through various parts of the whole bodywork/prepping stages, I started calling him Mr Cheery.
I think Mr Cheery is happy now.

I will post more pics when the car is together and after he stitches and installs his interior.

 

Looks smoooth. Right on.

 

Looks great, man!!

 

Damn that is just very nice. What wheels is he going to use?

 

He's is running the 5 spokes that are in the first pics.
I am going to try and sway him towards painted steelies with big and littles.
Or at very least turn the tires around
He is already on the heels of the next build, he bought a '29 A Tudor sedan body from me that will be flathead powered.
I have assured him if he strays too far off a traditional build, corrective measures will be taken ie, chair, duct tape and phone book, you paint the picture.

It is nice to see Ron smiling

 

Flowmeister; you're a good man. Carry on.

All the best,
Dale
Cleveland OH

 

all these paint is so tough stories kill me---the second car i painted was done under a street light at night and it always looked great---at night ,if i kept it away from the light---you are a good friend...

 

Painting ain't hard...
About 50 years ago I gave my brother a 1953 Chevy sedan that needed paint...
So we got out the paint and a roller ...
Hardest part that evening was keeping the mosquitos off the drying paint.

 

Cool story 'meister, your a good dude.