1963 Dodge Dart for the Wife....

I give up on that trunk.... I sanded the crap out of it today and when I hit metal I slapped (and I mean slapped it LOW) it low and kept sanding until I was spent.... Sprayed it with 2 coats of epoxy and this weekend I am going to skim coat it ALL with filler and shape it flat..... The hood is now perfectly flat and ready for the final blocking.... Body is fully blocked with 320 grit... once I get the hood and trunk to that point it is time to spray one coat of reduced epoxy, sand it with 500 and she is ready for paint! What a LONG, LONG, LONG battle this old girl has been...... but when done it will be worth it.... I hope.... the wife has found restoring them is not as fun as she was hoping and I am basically alone in the garage.... She likes the shows so when done she will enjoy it.
 
Jim, I don't know if this has been mentioned, but sometimes we have a devil of a time with hoods and deck lids, supported as they are from below by the support structure. What happens is that material will be sanded away too much wherever the skin is supported, and in the areas where it's not, the skin will flex away and not get sanded as much. It can create waves so bad they feel like dents! There are partial solutions, like using very light pressure when sanding, but this means staying with coarser grits until very close to the end. Also only using fresh sandpaper will ensure that some cutting can be done even when you're just skating the board across with only its own weight to do the sanding. I don't know if this might be contributing to the problem you are having, but it's something that has definitely haunted most of us at one time or another.
 
Jim, I don't know if this has been mentioned, but sometimes we have a devil of a time with hoods and deck lids, supported as they are from below by the support structure. What happens is that material will be sanded away too much wherever the skin is supported, and in the areas where it's not, the skin will flex away and not get sanded as much. It can create waves so bad they feel like dents! There are partial solutions, like using very light pressure when sanding, but this means staying with coarser grits until very close to the end. Also only using fresh sandpaper will ensure that some cutting can be done even when you're just skating the board across with only its own weight to do the sanding. I don't know if this might be contributing to the problem you are having, but it's something that has definitely haunted most of us at one time or another.
Yea I know about that crash. It does have to do with the structure. The skin is high where the structure is pretty much everywhere. You can feel it with your hand or the block, the trunk is just totally f'ed up. I am trying by best to put zero pressure while blocking. I am using 80 and 180 grit, I have not even thought about moving to anything finer yet. With me splitting the bottom edge to blast it an the failure of the original adhesive to the structure it is just old and tired (like me).....
 
Here is 2.5 hours of my life I'll never get back... but the trunk is flat and feels flat....

I ran of out 3M Platinum so I had to use up the rest of the Platinum Plus I had....

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Blocking Round 1

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Blocking Round 2

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Blocking Round 3 and 2 coats of SPI high build..... will block it with 150 tomorrow night and see how close I am....

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Thank goodness..... never want to do that again... thought it was never gonna end but she looks good.... Also masked straight lines on the hood bulge and sanded it in so it should be nice with a coat of primer over it.

BTW I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for products as Arizona is shut down till the end of the month....... I think I can just make it....

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I may have one or the same one.

Ive been trying to figure out if I should comment and if so how to say it for over an hour.

Either way I think you've done a great job thus far.
 
Man I shouldn't have posted I hate doing stuff like this. I mean this in the most positive helpful way possible.

Everything to me looks great with the exception of the second picture something looks amiss with the raised panels of the garage door. It only shows in that one picture, the next one below it looks good in the area Im looking at so Im unsure.

I inserted some lines to highlight what Im looking at. Hopefully what I see is nothing and just how your garage door is.

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Man I shouldn't have posted I hate doing stuff like this. I mean this in the most positive helpful way possible.

Everything to me looks great with the exception of the second picture something looks amiss with the raised panels of the garage door. It only shows in that one picture, the next one below it looks good in the area Im looking at so Im unsure.

I inserted some lines to highlight what Im looking at. Hopefully what I see is nothing and just how your garage door is.

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Oh, you were talking about the deck lid. :oops:
 
Man I shouldn't have posted I hate doing stuff like this. I mean this in the most positive helpful way possible.

Everything to me looks great with the exception of the second picture something looks amiss with the raised panels of the garage door. It only shows in that one picture, the next one below it looks good in the area Im looking at so Im unsure.

I inserted some lines to highlight what Im looking at. Hopefully what I see is nothing and just how your garage door is.

View attachment 10675
Interesting. I’ll be blocking it with 320 today on the epoxy. I’ve found I find more when using the finer paper. You may have something there. Question is will I care!

Thanks
 
Looks beyond great to me but if ya wanna go nuts..
6 coats of clear, block with 400, 6 more coats of clear, block again & buff.
I never did it cause i can't spray & all my coats are always runny thick anyway :)
 
Man I shouldn't have posted I hate doing stuff like this. I mean this in the most positive helpful way possible.

Everything to me looks great with the exception of the second picture something looks amiss with the raised panels of the garage door. It only shows in that one picture, the next one below it looks good in the area Im looking at so Im unsure.

I inserted some lines to highlight what Im looking at. Hopefully what I see is nothing and just how your garage door is.

View attachment 10675

You are right @sprint_9...... a few low spots in that area.... there was enough epoxy to get them mostly out but it will need a few more coats of high build to get them totally out.....
 
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