A Bit More Progress

I gotta share this because it works so well and saves a ton of work.

Masked off and body filler spread. I had masking tape around the outer perimeter.



When the body filler firmed up a bit, I sliced through with a razor blade.



And removed the door mask and filler together.



This even leaves the body filler a bit proud so you can work it down. And I never once had to deal with filler getting into the gap.

 

Pretty neat Choppinczech.

 

You do amazing work! It'll be a unique looking t bucket when you're done.

 

Hmmm. I keep eyeballing this Mazda in the parking lot at work. The color is Soul Red Crystal 46V.

It's absolutely gorgeous in the sunlight. I might have to rethink the charcoal grey.

I've heard that it's a tough color to spray though.

 

Agreed, That is a beautiful red that Mazda is using right now. It would look stunning on your car too.

 

I believe you're correct. Some of the new metallics require a deft touch with the spray gun, and can be a bitch to match if repairs are ever called for. But I expect that you're up to the challenge, so don't let me deter you!

 

It is a 3 stage paint, probably the closest to a true Kandy color without going with House of Kolor. It is not that difficult to spray, just an extra step in the process
It is definitely a beautiful color!

 

Nice. I found with reds, your base color of primer/sealer must be uniform and will affect the outcome. Talk to a trusted paint sales rep or experienced body shop painter to get suggestions before spraying it and potentially being disappointed.

 

With all the curves on your car that red will be STUNNING.

H of C Candy is not an easy job either. We used to spray horizontal and then vertical then at 45* each way to even out the potential patchiness. Five coats minimum of clear followed by hand flat and polish. The 'newer' water based paint I have no real experience of, but have been told they self level and rely on the top coat for a finish.. as above talk to a experienced guy.

Of course you could always do the prep and have a body shop put on the color. An oven always helps and they would have one. With the cost of paint these days one mistake could cover the price of a shop doing it. I have no doubts about your capabilities, but I would not try to paint a car any more. Technology and equipment has moved on a lot in recent years and the cost of a good gun is not cheap.

G

 

Agreed. I'm in no way set up to spray in my garage.

 

What are the three steps, base coat, metal flake and clear coat?

 

you have a #1 ground coat which is generally your metallic base color, then you have a #2 tinted clear/tinted binder coat which gives it the "candy" depth and then obviously you have #3 clear.

 

That is the color of my bucket , I love it . It has almost a copper base coat and a clear red and clear . The copper shows up in the sun at just right angle . Have had a lot of positive feed back at shows .

 

The next step was to get a consistent space all along the outer door sills. I'll use a 3/4" tall bulb seal on the doors later on.



At the fronts and around the hinges it was much easier and cleaner to use some premade flat pieces.






Some 3oz. mat made the rest of it pretty quick. I was able to use the doors to cut the needed shapes.



The width varied. So I laid on layers of glass up to the marked tape edge.

 

This 1/4" burr with a stop collar and washer is really helping to fine tune the depth.

 

Great ideas always...

 

Tedious... nice job!

 

Here's another way to apply body filler that saves a bunch of work.

Instead of spreading it out and then sanding to get it flat or contoured, I use non-stick tape covered panels to cast it. I use either flat, curved or flexible material. Whatever can be covered with this VentureTape.



I thin the body filler with polyester resin and mask off any surrounding area. Apply the filler to BOTH SURFACES. This is important or you'll get air bubbles.

Letting the excess ooze out isn't a big deal if you've masked well.



After a few minutes pop off the mold, carve off the ooze and remove the mask.





In this photo the taped backer was about 3" X 12". The hinge was masked off along with the whole surrounding area. You can see in the photo the high and low spots I needed to take care of. If I had done this the regular way of spreading and sanding it would have taken a few applications, lots of time and lots of headache.



It's still just applying body filler. But it's flat right from the get go. And it's a one time clean method.

 

Hey guys. The last mechanical thing I needed to do to these doors was to add some door checks. My doors are so long that there's a lot of leverage on the hinges when fully open.

I used these Mazda 6 door checks and shaved off some of the humps so that the detents aren't so aggressive.



And used some Jeep Cherokee pivot mounts.



I mounted them the same way as the hinges with the hourglass holes.





But this time I added some countersunk rivets also.



All in all they came out pretty good.