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I took the surface rust off with stripper disks (while handy they are not nearly as much fun as they sound) I started with glass beads as that is what i had in the blaster. It was taking a lot of time so i switched to aluminum oxide. The beads were the shiny area. The pot blaster i am using. On a sidenote, I am on the border of idaho and washington, if you ask for media for a pot blaster in washington your question may get misconstrued...
I am about sick of sanding but am getting closer. Found this little gem..... guess i get to replace it.. Masked off ready for epoxy primer.
I am getting closer, next to prime, sand, finish the bodywork, and then I should be ready for paint after spraying my high build primer and blocking it.
Epoxy primer on I skimmed pretty much the entire vehicle. I plan on black below the body line and black shows every single discontinuity. Fulled and ready for high build primer High build on I grossly underestimated thw time needed for block sanding... The donor rig had a fender that was rotted in a different area so i cut the piece i needed off of it. At least it was rotted so i didnt have to feel bad about cutting it up. The lines matched pretty well but the creases were sharper on the original piece Welded in place and ready to be skimmed.
Epoxy onto the hood I sprayed another coat of high build onto the doors and fenders just to be sure they were smooth. Judging from the reflection in the wet primer i should be ok! Light skim coat on the hood.
I am now pretty much ready to seal coat and paint whenever I get a couple consecutive days to do it.
Been awhile since I was able to update, but a lot of progress has been made slowly. I am not a pro by any means but at least it is slowly coming together. I sprayed silver first so that I could put a single tape line down and base all of my other lines off of it. Masked off ready for blue Even with a dull finish as it does not have clear coat yet Hood looking pretty good Remask now ready for the diamond black The black is on Last photo before clearcoat! Good looks pretty good with clear coat, if you zoom in you can tell that I have some pretty severe orange peel. The outside temperature was around 10 degrees Fahrenheit so I could only get the shop up to about 55 while shooting this gave me pretty severe orange peel and I had some problem with some running Silver ended up being a lot more of a silver - White than a silver-grey. Would have been nice if it were touch darker but at this point I'll be damned if I'm going to take and repaint the whole vehicle for it The black that I used is Diamond Black Metallic, so far I haven't had it in the daylight so it has been almost impossible to get a good picture of it however if you look at it there's a lot of different colors of metallic flake in it I went through and resprayed all of the door jambs to ensure everything stayed even. I thought about wrapping all the colors around on the inside of the door but the amount of tape work at that would have necessitated I would never have been able to finish in the time frame that I had. Due to the cold temperatures I ended up getting several runs none of them were terrible, most were easy to remove with a razor blade but they did necessitate that i wetsand the vehicle and make sure that it was smooth. I could just run it but honestly at this point I might as well take the extra time to ensure that it looks good and is done right My thumb's in the picture to allow the camera to focus but you can see the difference between where I have begun wet sanding and the original pits in Orange Peel that were mostly due to the low temperature at partially due to using a s***** paint gun. Lesson learned It seems sacrilegious to go through and put sanding scratches in something that you just painted And this is why I care must be taken when wet sanding, I went through an edge. I will go back to touch it up and reclear it after I finish wet sanding just in case I need to do that at other spots as well Hit this corner with the polishing wheel very quickly to see how it was going to look there still swirl marks so I have more to do. Honestly it turned out pretty well
Your "bad" orange peel is actually pretty normal on the new cars i see at work... lol
Your work is amazing by the way. you give me the inspiration to actually work on my truck and not get discouraged by the small things that make work difficult, like rust and stuff.
Thanks for the compliments! To be honest, paint is not one of my specialities. Most of it has not been due to skill, most of it has been due to pure stubbornness and refusal to give up. haha
I primarily used ppg omni+ paint and primers but I did what ppg strongly recommends against and mixed lines. I used a ppg deltron clearcoat as it should provide better scratch resistance and uv protection.
The blue is ppg omni + blue flame metallic. (Used on ford f150 and raptor)
The black is ppg omni+ diamond black and the silver is fords silver grey used on the focus. The grey turned out a lot lighter than I planned but it doesn't look too bad all considered.
I plan on building a flatbed for the truck. I would like to incorporate a roof rack and integral loading ramps for motorcycles. I don't have the design quite hashed out yet but will probably build a solidworks model prior to actually building it so as to get an idea of needed materials. I will probably build something like this:
Most likely I will use steel due to cost and because I currently don't have a spool gun setup since my contactor took a crap.. I do like the idea of being able to throw spare tire, gear, and gas cans on the roof and leave the bed free for hauling bikes and whatever else needs to be moved. I may put a small gas tank in the front of the bed as shown on this one. It would be handy for re-fueling the bikes when camping. In addition, I would like to have bumper pull and 5th wheel capabilities as well as boxes on the bottom for jacks, chains, etc.
Any thoughts or input for what else to consider?
Finish sanding with 2000 grit I left this section as a before and after wetsanding. Left is the clearcoat as sprayed, right is after wetsanding Still plenty of swirls, this was after hitting it with a wool pad and step 1 of presta 2 step compound.
I still have plenty to do, the entire roof needs sanded with 2000 grit and the entire vehicle needs polished. I will likely go back and sand a bit more in a few spots where you can still see some orange peel in addition to fixing the edge I went through.
Tires came in! Now I just need to wait in the back ordered wheels.... The hood is ready for the final polish after having been wetsanded 3 times. I found that i had gome through another edge on the roof while wetsanding. I touched it up yesterday but forgot to take a picture. The remainder of the vehicle is pretty much ready for the final polish.
And i went through another spot while buffing.... Damn..... Finally got a mostly swirl free picture of the black though! It is looking pretty shiny at this point!
