59 Vette - continuation

59vette

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I thought I would've had my car painted by now, but I'm sure others can identify with the best plans, etc. Anyway, we managed to get it primed (white epoxy} & now completing sanding with a few small areas requiring glazing. Then ready to reprime, seal, paint & clear, using SPI white epoxy, Motobase LV tricoat & SPI Euro clear, which is all ready to go. Attached a few pics after completing the last primer work & new stands we made to help with limited work area in my temporary paint booth. DSCF5951.JPGDSCF5955.JPGDSCF5945.JPGDSCF5975.JPGDSCF5981.JPGDSCF5985.JPGDSCF5936.JPGDSCF5935.JPGDSCF5949.JPG
 

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Looking like you are doing a fantastic job.
Is that moto reducer in a plastic jug?
I like the idea and many moons ago at utech before sikkens bought us we put clear in plastic jugs.
Then one day dot comes in and we went to metal cans.
To this day i dont know if legal or not but at the time the dot slapped us
around pretty good.
 
Thanks for your comment.
The Motobase & Euro are all metal cans,they just arrived rather bent up due to rough handling by UPS. Surprised that none were leaking. Notified Chad's that they might consider more packaging, however that might not help if UPS is going to drop these heavy boxes out of their trucks?
 
LOL, I have seen pictures where we ship something and it looks like ups or FedEx flew over and dropped the packages 5000 feet to the porch.
 
We managed to get the Motobase Tricoat base coat sprayed yesterday, will move on to the pearl & clear coat today. We had a little more trash than I was expecting, but will work this out. I would like to thank Barry for is informative answer on timing between the epoxy & base!DSCF6104.JPGDSCF6106.JPGDSCF6108.JPGDSCF6112.JPGDSCF6114.JPGDSCF6118.JPGDSCF6122.JPGDSCF6124.JPG
 
I really appreciate any & all interest in my project & welcome any comments, which I believe are honest & meant to be constructive. As I mentioned when I first joined this forum that this has been a 33 year project. I will be 75 in November. This is generally an age when a lot of owners of these older Corvettes are selling them & not trying to personally restore one. I have always loved the 58, 59 & 60 vettes. When I bought mine it did not take me long to realize that it was not in the best of shape & I should have found one in better condition After trying to sell it & only getting lowball offers I decided to make it into what I wanted. I have questioned this decision many times. The reason I started again 1 year ago in making a serious effort to finish it is I would like to drive this car again (with whatever time I might have left) even though I've had 4 back surgeries & am limited in what I can physically do. However, I am & will continue to work as long as possible. I have done all the work since I started, however my son is doing the painting now. As a note he has never painted a vehicle of any kind, but he is making a very good effort to do a reasonable job. ! told him as long as he gets a 5 foot job I would be happy. Painting a 59 vette & using a red tricoat paint would be a challenge for any nonprofessional painter. Back to the car, I noticed the waves on the top of the front fenders after applying the first coats of white epoxy. As anyone who has worked on these older vettes know that Chevrolet did not make perfectly smooth bodies. I'm sure that most people would use filler or more highbuild primer & block until the body was smooth. I have not due to being more delay ( also physical effort ) in getting my car painted. There is no plan to show it, just drive it. I can say that these cars are rough riding, hot & a pure joy to go down the road in. We did not have enough underbase coat (I did order the recommended volume) to get 2 coats & we had to much trash, which had to be cleaned up. This is not a difficult problem to fix & have solved the problem of what caused the trash. I have ordered more paint & will continue next week. I have no doubt that I'm not the first person to have experienced this situation & problems. I have greatly enjoyed reading all the posts & comments on this forum which is a treasure of info on auto painting, etc.
 
looks exciting to me and it aint even mine :) i agree on the bodies. i've worked on vettes for 40 years and they were wavy pos from the get go. yes you can prime and block them to perfection but unless it is a restomod in the 175k range it is wasted effort and can kill the value of an original.
the only opinion that matters is the smile behind the windshield ;)


and i cant imagine doing one at 75 . well done ironman .
 
I tip my hat to you sir! And hey- if someday you want paint like glass, you've done the back breaking pro resto part. Blocking clear, reapplying base & clearing again is nothing compared to what you've done.
 
There is only one person that has to be happy with your end results and that is you. I love survivors, drivers, back yard hack jobs and most of all, home built cars. These are the kind of cars we had growing up in the '60s. We had to learn mechanical skills to keep our cars on the road. Same for bodywork and paint if we could afford materials. Well done my friend.
 
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There is only one person that has to be happly with your end results and that is you. I love survivors, drivers, back yard hack jobs ans most of all, home built cars. These are the kind of cars we had growing up in the '60s. We had to learn mechanical skills to keep our cars on the road. Same for bodywork and paint if we could afford materials. Well done my friend.
I do not believe I could have said it better! You just explained my experiences during that time. Now you know why it's very important to me to finish this car myself. Hopefully other people will think it looks good, if not, I will know I tried my best. Thanks for your well said comment!
 
Anything done by ourselves is more fun rewarding especially your project. It's a beauty.
The blue car pics i posted is to show your son never worry about runs..even extreme like my mess heh.
Your car can look like glass if yrs from now you desire without months of work. Option's there.
I stopped toweling mine off after rain because i didn't get door dings out and when spi clear is sanded & buffed, every single person and child stares at it and have to get out at store quick or prepare for what yr is it how long did ya have it who painted it lol and then some. :)
 
After 1 year of preparation we finally managed to get my 59 vette painted after 2 long days of work. This is a major milestone & turning point in completing this long term project. The overall results are very good considering the lack of experience for the painter & supervisor. My son has never painted with anything if it did not have a brush or marble in it. We both went through a learning curve on using the SPI & Motobase products. +/- 30 years ago I originally sprayed PPG epoxy primer & regular primer after removing all paint & gel coat. +/- 20 years back I sprayed a PPG 2k primer on & last Oct I finally started sanding this. I had thought I would have it ready to paint in 2 weeks, this turned into 1 year due to finding many things that needed more work. After researching the web I decided to use SPI epoxy primer & clear coat & Motobase tricoat red pearl metallic. This was applied as follows:

2 coats SPI white epoxy w/ med reducer – sanded

2 more coats epoxy - sanded

2 coats Motobase LV bottom base red w/ slow reducer– scuffed & sanded

2 more coats base red (20 min flash ea. coat)

3+ coats red pearl metallic w/ slow reducer (20 min flash ea. coat)

4 coats SPI Euro clear w/ slow activator & slow reducer (30+ min flash ea. coat)

When we started last Oct I told my son, after he offered to help due to my physical limitations, if we could get a 5 footer paint job I would be happy. As of today in my eyes it’s a “five footer”, but there is some trash & light orange peel & 1 small run which I sure will all color sand out & be a “two footer”. Also today after looking the car over I found a couple of areas that was not smooth & needed more clear, not sure exactly how to handle this?. I have never tried this process. I would like to hand wet sand the first part (this is due to many curves & overall roundness of the body) then buff using CG products. I would welcome any thoughts or advice anyone might have on how to color sand this particular shaped car. The added pics quality does not show the paint color well.DSCF6239.JPGDSCF6246.JPGDSCF6294.JPGDSCF6296.JPGDSCF6310.JPGDSCF6312.JPGDSCF6318.JPGDSCF6320.JPGDSCF6326.JPGDSCF6322.JPG
 
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