After nearly 6 months of waiting my coupe turned up today and its a little rougher than I hoped but that's typical when buying cars unseen and them spending 6 momths in storage and shipping. Anyway Im looking for some suggestions on how I can approach this. I've not really done body work before and Im not really interested in stripping the whole car and starting again, more so tidying it up and preserving what's there. Initial thoughts was sanding the majority of the rust out and applying Gibbs or similar??????
That's a lot. I'd consider that an all or nothing car. On my car, which is almost the same, I did nothing. I don't store my car out in the weather, so it doesn't get worse. But the patina is an acquired taste. I just happen to have the taste.
I have that taste too but this will need to go through an inspection here in Japan and will need to look tidier than it does
If you can keep it dry, you're probably better off doing nothing, until you can fix it right. What is the inspection for? Is it for appearance? or structural integrity?
That's a little beyond 'tidying up'! The paint needs to be stripped, the rust addressed and completely redone. On a positive note....the chrome and chop look good!
IMHO, the paint that's still there isn't bonded to the metal anymore, and is just waiting for gravity to finish removing it. That car deserves better. You can strip some of it with your fingernails. There isn't anything to save. Time to roll up your sleeves.
Lots of thick bondo, cracking like old lacquer maybe. I think it may be a "primer" paint job for a while until its done right
That paint is toast, looks like it never had good adhesion to the metal and now it's just flaking away as rust forms beneath it. You're not gonna be able to get a nice patina out of that.
Buy yourself a buffer- mine was A$70 at Supercheap, and a pile of 3M stripper discs- about A$25 each and get rid of all the paint and bog then spray a good 4 coats of 2K epoxy primer on it which is waterproof. You'll have a nice grey coupe then. Round here we use Lesanol brand which is $180 for 4 litres, comes from Indonesia I think. Can't remember the number but I've got a can in the shed. Don't pull it apart, just do some hand sanding in the delicate areas, like that beautiful grille, mask it and spray it. That should hold it until you're ready to go further.
I agree with the others, that paint is toast. The question is, will primer pass inspection or will you need to go all the way?
I´d strip off the loose stuff and hit the bare areas with OWATROL, that´s a Linseed based rust inhibitor.Looks great too!
I guess I may be in the other camp here. I say clean it up as best you can to pass inspection, then you can decide what to do with it later. Best to get it “approved” and then figure it out. Just my $0.02
That’s a neglected car, not patina . samd it best you can and hit it with flat black for a quick and dirty clean up. might want to “ create “ patina,” a somewhat clean “ ratty” car would look better then what you have and could be done in a week end
I'm thinking putty knife and wire brush to remove as much of the loose stuff as you can, the some Rustoleum flat black from a rattle can.
My newly found '41 Cadillac convertible has a big patch of paint missing with rust like that, but luckily it's only one big spot on one front fender and the rest of the paint is much more intact. I plan to tape off the whole surrounding area and sandblast the rusty spot, then prime and paint over that area, blending in the edges as best I can. I don't mind if it looks "touched up", I just want to keep the paint. Your car is going to be a lot tougher though, since there's way more than 1 spot and the rust looks pretty heavy there. You could attempt some of the rust dissolving chemicals like stuff that Eastwood Company sells, although I don't know if that will discolor or ruin the surrounding paint or not, and I'm not sure how good of a job it will do on deeper rust like that. Worth a shot, can't possibly hurt it any. Some of those spots are big enough you could do the masking and sandblasting thing, but it looks like some of the surrounding paint is ready to fail as well, and you're going to have some very large areas of filled in paint. I know all too well the allure of saving very old paint, and if I were you I wouldn't be afraid to try since if you end up having to strip it anyway, nothing you try is going to hurt it any. But you've got an uphill battle with this one.
Dang, dude! First a Model A and now this?!?! How many cars did you get in that shipment? I'm jealous.
What's the difference between patina and neglect? Some spots look OK from a rust standpoint but others are getting bad.. but you can always add new metal and let that rust as well
You should do what you want as everyone here has an opinion on what they would do. Patina is on old brass lamps. I’d take it apart and remove all rust and filler then repaint to your desire. Clear coated rust and paint cracking is just that and personally not for me. I pass by them a gatherings unless it has something else interesting. Good luck with your project and delema.
New shiny paint all the way..*****...........................The're zero ways to make "patina" be anything other then gone bad an is rotting! Even the word "patina" is a fake way of saying"Needs fixing"so pretend to like how it looks,,and pretend they are not just to lazy too fix. If you can't do it your self,maybe make a trade to some-one who can,for something you can do for them.
Now that I have looked at your pics on a computer screen instead of my phone I ´d change my opinion from " hit it with Owatrol" to hit it with a die grinder... looks like most of the paint is cracked and already lifting and I bet there´s quite some rust under the lifting paint almost everywhere... If it was my car, I´d grab a few cold ones, spend a night or two in the garage and see what a great idea I come up with after finishing the last one. That´s what usually works for me That is still a beautiful car after all, it just needs that paint removed. I even think it could look great in bare metal...
Please do justice to that car with a nice paint job. Back in the day, you wouldn't be seen driving a hot rod around that looked like that.
That is not patina, its rusty metal with terrible paint and filler. Strip it to bare metal, the treat it with a rust converter and prime it until you get ready for the inspection. Will a good coat of uniform primer pass inspection?
The salt in the air at your location has got no mercy on the bare metal, get some protection on it A.S.A.P.
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