After 3 years, finally got the 300 painted...

WissaMan

WissaMan

My hovercraft is full of eels
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The last time I posted on this project was....2022 lol What I've been up to...

But I've been working on it diligently right along. Had to repair the trunk lid edge with new metal, had to fix some other rust holes in the front fender. Other dents and low spots. and on and on. there are some other slight imperfections in the body work but I had to at some point call it good enough or I'd miss the temperature window to paint and it'd run into 2026 and I just couldn't take that. This isn't a resto project, it's a driver, so I'm not shooting for perfection.

I FINALLY got it painted and cleared this weekend. The results are...decent. I'm a total novice and there are runs and peel in the clear so it will have to be cut and buffed, but I expected that. The base is okay, but I can see some unevenness in the metallic flake. Not terrible, but I can see it. My technique is not real great and my arms are only barely long enough to reach the mid-point of the trunk and front hood.

Now I gotta get it out in the sun for the clear to cure so I work on that. I also want to polish the trim before it goes back on. Then paint the jams. Then it will BE DONE and I can finally work on other projects without feeling guilty about having this one hanging. This took waaay longer than I expected (don't they always) but I will say that I learned a LOT and if I did this over it'd probably only take me 1/2 to 1/3 the time.

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Love the color. Very nice job. The prep work, especially setting up the garage for painting is impressive. The largest thing I have spray painted was metal lawn furniture using Rustoleum rattle cans. Can relate with trying to stretch over the body panels of these big C-Bodies.
 
It feels good in that it's a huge weight off my shoulders. This started out as fixing some rust on the rear fender extensions and just masking and painting that area with rattle cans. Just a quick(ish) driver quality repair. But it morphed into doing the entire car which included learning about welding, metal shaping, filling, sanding, paints, clears, guns, preping, practicing, conceptualizing and building a retractable paint booth (and on and on). But I think the most stressful aspect, hands down, was sealing, base, and clear because you have to do the whole car at once and within a short period of time before the layers fully cure. I like being able to do things in manageable pieces but it's not really an option when painting metallic.

I could give tons of newbie advice to anyone that would like to paint their car (and who has no prior experience, like me), but if I could give just one piece, I'd say take a night course at your local tech school as a jump start. I spent lots of time doing and redoing things because I was learning as I went and had no one to ask questions to other than online forums, which are good, but nothing like being able to talk to someone in person in real time.

Took the masking off today. The paint looks way better than the rest of the car, lol. Looked into sending the bumpers away for chrome but the quote was thousands of dollars per bumper.

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Samplingman said:
I'd love to hear more of how you built the booth and exhaust fans. Did you use any filtration?
Click to expand...

It's like something from Willy Wonka. I have a frame suspended by cables and then 3 more frames suspended by cables that run through pulley back to a long metal pipe mounted in bearings on the wall that acts like a spool. That pipe is driven by a winch to wind up the cables that are connected to the 3 lower frames to pull them up against the top frame. I attached plastic to the sides and draped some tarps across the top, but it's not a sealed enclosure by any means and there are no filters. But I think the majority of the air comes in from the top, which is partially opened, so at least it's not sucking air in from along the floor. I only noticed 1 contaminant in the base coat, but the clear has probably a half-dozen nibs and such, but nothing that won't get taken care of as I woking on fixing the runs and peel.

It's quite a contraption and looks pretty rickety, but it works. I was doing a version2.0 I'd make some different design decisions (like not using flimsy PVC). I was going to somehow put a door in it, but gave up on that idea and I just crawl in and out through a gap in the corner when it's in the lowered position. If you look at the 5th picture down from the top you'll see that :rolleyes: I would also like to mount some LED lights on the side frames for better lighting. Current I just have lights mounted up top and sat some on the floor while I was painting.

For the fan, I just have a 36" fan I bought at Tractor Supply which works decently to evacuate the overspray. With primer and basecoat, it keeps up well and there's no lingering overspray. Clear really results in a lot of cloudy overspray but that would clear up within 10 seconds once I was done shooting.
 
That's a cool idea, thanks. I have a 10 x 20 party tent with sides that I had to cut down to lower the height. It's just not big enough to move around the whole car, two feet in each direction would be perfect. My garage is only 20 foot long so it barely fits the car lengthwise. I'm thinking I could do something along the lines of what you have done to lengthen the garage a bit and create an evacuation system for the over spray.
 
Nice!
I also took a evening paint class for three semesters. Learned a lot but I really only do repairs and individual panels now since "I'm old".
There is a tool to help with paint runs to level them before buffing, a "denubbing" file or block:
Run Removal Tools – Motor Guard

Some are rougher stones, some sort of look like a multiple blade razor.
Hope this helps.
Mark
 
Thanks for the tip, I'm all about time/labor saving devices now. That's one of the many lessons I've learned -- gladly spend a few bucks on the right tool for the job if it can save even just a few hours of labor.
 
Unfortunately with the front bumper a lot of the chrome plating is actually worn off. But I think the gray that is showing is the nickel which maybe can be polished -- is that what you're saying?

And that makes me wonder....if it's possible to get that nickel shiny, maybe it can be clear coated. Not as nice as chrome would be but a helluva lot cheaper!
 
WissaMan said:
Unfortunately with the front bumper a lot of the chrome plating is actually worn off. But I think the gray that is showing is the nickel which maybe can be polished -- is that what you're saying?

And that makes me wonder....if it's possible to get that nickel shiny, maybe it can be clear coated. Not as nice as chrome would be but a helluva lot cheaper!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was just thinking that even if it was perfect or new looking, it would still be much better!
 
I'd love to hear about that. Every chrome paint I researched always fell short, but last I looked into it was a couple years ago.
 
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