'02 Suburban re-paint thread

Washed the whole thing with Dawn soap, rinsed, and masked it off (did I mention this is a BIG vehicle?)
Black epoxy is mixed and inducing.

710-1 wax and grease remover, wait 45 minutes, tack it off, then let the painting begin.

Finally!

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Epoxy came out good, no runs, hose strikes, craters, bugs or other misfortunes.
2 good coats.
I mixed up 1 sprayable gallon. Too much.
I have 2 pints left. Have them in sealed containers and will hustle to use it for the "smalls, (door handles, mirror covers etc.)"
12 hour day of cleaning, masking, spraying. Tired but satisfied

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Hope I'm not over posting on this project, it's just fun to share with other "paint fanatics." Most people in my daily encounters aren't that interested.

So, tonight's post is that I got the filler work done and then sprayed 2 coats of 2K.
Front fenders and tailgate are perfect, so didn't 2K them. They will get minor blocking of the epoxy.
Doors and quarters had 20 years of minor parking lot scars (plus one dent from me "kissing" the shop door opening) so some filler and blocking needed.
After all the blocking, reduced epoxy sealer coat on all, then base, clear.

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First round of blocking the 2K done. Pretty happy with it.
Hard to find/make the perfect blocking tool for the concave body creases. Sometimes a finger seems to be perfect, carefully of course.
Plan is to spray 2 coats of 25% reduced black epoxy and do some minor, final blocking on that.
Then base.

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Just my 2 cents, I sometimes do 2 coats of 25% reduced, goes on with less texture. But this doesn't give quite enough for real blocking, what we do is just use a soft pad to remove texture and dirt. Nice thing about the soft pad is you don't have to worry about the block edge making a cut mark in the soft primer. But it won't do any straightening, just helps smooth out transitions between primer types and give a uniform surface. Everybody does things a little different, I guess.
 
Just my 2 cents, I sometimes do 2 coats of 25% reduced, goes on with less texture. But this doesn't give quite enough for real blocking, what we do is just use a soft pad to remove texture and dirt. Nice thing about the soft pad is you don't have to worry about the block edge making a cut mark in the soft primer. But it won't do any straightening, just helps smooth out transitions between primer types and give a uniform surface. Everybody does things a little different, I guess.
This was a good discussion. Glad I posted my plans. Made me stop and think about the purpose and goal for this stage.
I just don't have the experience to know if the transitions between primer types is smooth enough or not.
So, I wanted the smoothness of reduced epoxy, if all was well, and enough material to work with if minor leveling is needed.
I decided to do a hybrid. 1 good coat of 1:1, than the next reduced 25%.
I'll check it with a soft sanding pad with 400 grit. If it is good, good. If minor leveling needed, should have the material to do ti.

It is ready to go. Did a fresh water wipe down just now and will let it dry overnight then proceed.

Now I can go watch the game I recorded and hopefully watch Russell Wilson school "The Pack." :)
 
Well, turns out Russell didn't school anyone...
But I did shoot the next phase and had a little disaster.
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The vehicle is 22 feet long and in my tight quarter booth there is just no way to "walk the car" when spraying. So I tried going panel by panel, and predictably got too much material, and craters, at the overlap.
Freaked out a bit but Barry talked me down.
It sanded out just fine.
Blocked the 1:1 epoxy with 400 grit and then sprayed 30% reduced epoxy sealer tonight.
Decided to rotate the air cap 90 degrees for a horizontal fan and do vertical passes. Worked much better.
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Will hit it with gray scuff pad tomorrow and shoot base. Then if all goes well, clear it Saturday/Sunday.

For base and clear I will do 1/2 of the truck at a time with horizontal passes.

I have Norton 12 foot plastic and can open the front doors, tape the plastic in the jambs, close the door and then paint front half, then back half while never putting tape on fresh paint, and not having overspray cloud in my makeshift booth.
That is the theory anyway.
Wish me luck!
 
Front and back done in clear.
Seems like the "clear cloud" issue I talked about in another thread is going to be OK (whew!)
Have it outside for some UV before cutting/buffing.
Have some trash and a few minor runs, but I think it will clean up.
Really happy with the depth, gloss and flatness.
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Now working on the plastic fender flares ans misc parts.
These are new "Pocket" Flares. Cleaned with wax and grease remover, Sprayed with adhesion promoter, then sealer coat of black epoxy.
Next is SEM texture spray, black base and finally matte clear.
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My buddy, the owner of a custom paint/restoration shop told me it takes him a week to cut/buff a full car paint job.
I blew that off, "yeah, right."
Now I get it! A week is rocking and rolling.

I have 4-5 hours per day to put in the shop. That gets one panel through all the stages of grits and compounds.
And all that does is show the spots that I need to go back and some more work on.
10 panels on this truck . . .

It is paying off though. I can see how it will look in the end and I'm encouraged.
Scale of 1-10, I'll give this paint job an 8.5.
Not bad for my first "real" full car paint job (the three I did in driveways in the '80's with Acrylic Enamel don't count.)

Here is the obligatory "measuring tape shot" on the tailgate:

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Here is side shot with quarter and back door "done."

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What I am really pleased with is the filler work.
I'm terrified of bondo. All the work I did 30 years ago, the filler showed in the final paint. I remember how discouraged I was.
I guess better products, more patience with age, and better information all paid off.
The worst dent on the truck was on the drivers side rear lower quarter, where I hit the shop door opening while backing a trailer in.
About a 6" x 6" dent, 1/2" deep.

I sanded it to bare metal, then used a dent puller stud gun to get the worst out, then epoxy, filler, 2K, blocking.

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It came out good!

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Also the areas around all 4 door handles had minor ripples from 20 years of use. Skimmed them and now really flat.

Only about 40 hours left and this will be done and back on the road .
 
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