painting a vette?

J

jaf

I have repaired the structrual damage and replaced the right front panel. I then started sanding the entire care with 80 grit on a 16" board. I found that most of the car had paint and a redish brown primer. Except for the rear quarters which had 2 layers of grey primer under the redish brown layer. My plan was to sand the entire car down with 80 grit. Then go to the short strand fiber fill where needed, top with evercoart body filler, sand w/80, then shoot the car with SPI epoxy. Follow the epoxy with a high build primer like evercoats feather fill. Block again. then shoot with 2K. Block again. Then BC/CC. Does this sound like the right path? Any suggestions are appreciated. Also do I need to sand all the old primer off before epoxy?

vette017.jpg
 
First you need to sand all the old paint and primer off..
Second you need to ask someone like Shine, Jeremyb, Barryk or Bob about vettes..

These cars are a different breed and require a different approach than their metal counterparts..

The above mentioned guys are all Pro's, all have worked on vettes and all can give you great advice on such.. There are plenty of other Pro's on here who Im sure could give u great advice about vettes as well, Ive simply seen them in the discussions the most on vettes..
The forum core is made up of some outstanding Pro's that turn out high dollar work as well as the home hobbyist and backyardagain like myself..

Once you get this thing stripped, its going to need to be put in epoxy..

everything else I will leave to those who do these cars... I know seams and the materials used for bonding panels are very important and just because something says its for smc or fiberglas does not mean squat..

Lets get shine in on this thread.. He is the vette goto guy here in my opinion and his work speaks for itself
 
Bondoking;10954 said:
First you need to sand all the old paint and primer off..
Second you need to ask someone like Shine, Jeremyb, Barryk or Bob about vettes. . .
Click to expand...

That right there is some real sound advice. Good Job BK!
 
As you can see in the pic, I've sanded thru the brownish red primer into the fiberglass/body filler below. My concern is that if I keep sanding with my long board untill all the primer is gone I'm going to really get into the fiberglass. I could go to a shorter sanding block but am afraid that will just cause me to go backwards regarding making the panels flat.????????
 
my way of doing corvettes is off in left field and generally considered wrong . i'll check to barry or flynams on this one.
 
Shine, your results show your procedures work well. I would definitely take all that old primer off, I've never seen any problems applying epoxy before the fillers and polyprimer and never have any problems with polyprimer. I know there's a few schools of thought working with this old glass but epoxy primer in the process is definitely the key to long life IMO.
 
x2 on the stripping and epoxy.

All that existing primer needs to come off. You need to have clean glass to start with. Apply epoxy then do your bodywork. some ask whats the reason to apply epoxy first? Fiberglass is porous and anything in the air can embed in the glass possibly causing problems later down the road. There's no way anyone can tell what your environment is and the only way it is going to stay clean in bare glass is put it in a sealed bubble. Just like it does on metal, epoxy protects the glass from getting any sort of contamination in the glass. Those who say you dont need to use epoxy...fine. They must be able to get all their bodywork done within day of stripping. Hell, running a business its hard to do that, let alone someone in their garage on spare time. There's high quality work, then theres just enough to get you by. Why wouldn't ANYONE strive to do the work to the best of quality they can do? Epoxy first is simply the best and higest quality way you to do it, period. You can do all of your bodywork over the epoxy.

Another option is to seal the body with the epoxy, let it set for a day, then apply polyster primer over top. Block the poly with 80 to find your low spots and proceed to do any bodywork over the poly. I do this alot. I'm still a fan of using polyester primers. I'm slowly phasing out the use of 2k primers on my restoration jobs. The last vette i did was poly and epoxy only.

I know, sounds like i'm ranting......but vettes are a different breed of paint jobs. There is more than one way to skin a cat right....only listen to the guys that actually do these cars for a living and keep doing them. Of the others on this board that were already mentioned...im certain i'm the least experienced out of them with vettes. But the way i've listed above hasn't failed me yet.

Of course...all of this is just my opinion. :)

shine...dont be afraid to put your 2 cents in!!!!! i think we need a dedicated corvette sub-forum here! lol.
 
Yup, a dedicated Corvette section would be a great idea!
 
i'm gonna throw this in here because he didn't mention cleaning. i don't care what the corvette forums say , lacquer thinner is not a cleaning solvent and has no place in the restoration of a corvette unless mixed with lacquer paint .
 
Well, my words of wisdom would be to strip and see what you,ve got...however, that usually means doing the seams and a bunch of other stuff........the amount of work to restore these cars is getting off the chart...I wonder what a 2 coat epoxy with 3 build coats of 2K sounds like to you....at least a day in the sun...don't paint it dark....see what happens....might be good enough for your application...otherwise, you need to do it all, with no shortcuts...sort of shortcut at the get go.....
 
I haven't used any lacquer thinner on the car. Just washed it real good with dawn dish soap before I got started. And used acetone to wipe down areas when doing fiberglassing.
 
If this is your car and you want to take some chances, then 2 coat epoxy, 3 coats high build, at least 1 day in the sun, then start to block....then more 2k, more sun and repeat until satisfied....I can,t get away with that because of the POSSIBILITY of problems that I will have to fix, resulting in loss of revenue and reputation...however, these possible problems are the result of doing many, and having a few problems percentage wise...so I have to overkill every job to offset the possible every yime...too bad to, because these cars are becoming garage queens and never driven because of all this....course, it makes a market for what we build...
 
flynams;11014 said:
If this is your car and you want to take some chances, then 2 coat epoxy, 3 coats high build, at least 1 day in the sun, then start to block....then more 2k, more sun and repeat until satisfied....I can,t get away with that because of the POSSIBILITY of problems that I will have to fix, resulting in loss of revenue and reputation...however, these possible problems are the result of doing many, and having a few problems percentage wise...so I have to overkill every job to offset the possible every yime...too bad to, because these cars are becoming garage queens and never driven because of all this....course, it makes a market for what we build...
Click to expand...
Yes it is my car, I'm concerned by what you mean by taking "chances". I'm just trying to paint it my self, I'm not to concerned about how long it takes, I want to make sure I do all the neccessary steps.
 
jaf;11017 said:
Yes it is my car, I'm concerned by what you mean by taking "chances". I'm just trying to paint it my self, I'm not to concerned about how long it takes, I want to make sure I do all the neccessary steps.
Click to expand...


Well with that said, let the information begin to flow..

Let these boys tell you all about it.. It will make a nice thread on here if you so choose to continue updating as you go!!
 
Yes it would be very interesting to have you start a thread in the Restoration Section and then allow these guys to direct you step by step to a perfect paint job on that vette.
We all could learn something of value I'm sure.
 
Well, to do it right, you need to totally strip and redo the seams....period
 
I'm curious, tell us more! What do these seems look like, how are they treated? Are procedures pretty standard, regardless of year? My boss just had his '66 Vette done by a local shop. It was a budget/favor deal. About a month after getting it back, little bubbles started appearing on the left fender. I remember there was some spotting there from brake fluid before it was sent to the shop. There looks like sags on the deck lid, all kinds of little junk.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top