I had decided even before starting that I would spray the car myself in the garage, and did not worry about it any more. I started planning many months before, as with anything on the car. Leaving the decisions until the time came meant further delays while stuff was sent for.
I had read and thoroughly enjoyed John Day’s series “A twin cam called Ratty”, a real craftsman restoration of a beautiful machine. Having seen the finished car in the flesh, I decided to adopt the same procedure and materials he detailed, as the deep gloss and period look of the paint finish was truly beautiful. Cellulose of course, none of this 2-pack tosh which gives a modern plasticy finish. Eurgh. Not to mention the difficulty of repairing and blending in paint chips, scratches and things, of which there will be plenty given the rough intended use this car will have.
A good a plan as any, if it worked for him, it should work for me. Hey ho, let’s go.
The rather fantastic paint company, called Nu-Agane, were contacted, and lots of stuff was purchased.
1 litre sand coloured etch primer, and 1 litre special thinners for this.
5 litres grey hi-build primer
15 litres standard thinners, for thinning the primer and cleaning the gun and other things.
5 litres of high gloss Glacier white top coat. Wooot!
5 litres high gloss, anti-bloom pure virgin cellulose thinners, for thinning the top coats.
1 litre of panel wipe
A lot of tack rags
A huge stack of paint filters
An even huger stack of mixing cups
And this lot came to about £320. A lot? Erm NO!
How much would it cost to get someone else to pay you car? Not only that, I was more than happy with this price. The quality and standards of these products was absolutely superb. The service from the company was of a standard rarely found these days, with friendly and knowledgeable advice which was of real help while determining the order.
The next consideration was how to apply the paint to the panels. I particular, the compressor, spray gun and air line and filter set up. This is of vital importance to give good results. A cheap, naff spray gun, or a set up with allows water to condense in the air line will give an abysmal finish that looks home-done. Like this particular car used to have.
I bought a Clarke SP14C spray gun. What a good decision that turned out to be. It was fairly cheap, it is very well balanced full or near empty. They quality is superior to anything else at the price, and it is easy to clean. It is also just about the only spray gun that will fit my stupid hoooge hands. All in all, it’s ideal and used correctly will do the same job as something costing £200, which I do not have at the moment.
At the risk of sounding a little strange, I adore this gun, it is superb and reliable and effective. Machine Mart do sell some good stuff, in time you end up being able to tell the difference between good and bad.The compressor was not an issue, I borrowed one. At 2.5 horse power, the motor and compressor were up to the job, but it had a small tank for the power output, I was very worried with how it would keep up especially on the larger panels. No need to worry though, I never had to slow down or pause to let the air supply catch up, it worked out ideally.
Getting air from the chuggy whirry thing to the hissy thing was the next issue. Everyone puts a filter on the compressor, then fails to admit one from the back of the gun. DURRRR! Basic science here folks!
Air gets hot when it is compressed. When it leaves the tank, the water and oil from the tank is filtered out by your tank-mounted filter. But as the air travels from the air line to the gun, it cools down. The water condenses out. The water gets into the paint, and gives a shoddy finish. Even if all looks well, when you get the car out into the sunlight for the first time, the water heats up, and leaves the paint, cracking it or making blisters and craters.
The answer to this problem is cheap and simple. Fit a small in-line filter between the air line and spray gun. And regularly check and empty it while spraying, it will improve things so much. Please go and do it, please.
I went for a filter-regulator on the compressor, a decent 15m length of rubber air hose, both to reach both sides of the car, and to allow as much water to condense out, before it arrived at the next item, a small inline filter just before the spray gun. Simple, and worked perfectly.
Right, one last area of decision making. The garage, having been home to major bodywork for over 9 months, had thick layers of grinding dust all over it. This had collected everywhere, over everything and was 1/16” deep. It had even got into the loft. So how to turn this into a sterile environment for spraying? Firstly get it as clean as possible. Perfect timing, a windy day. Open the back door of the garage. Open the big front door. Air blow gun… compressor… good, no one is watching. Blow the dust up, then out of the garage. Great, it’s someone else’s problem. The process was repeated until less and less dust settled after each time.
Still nowhere near clean enough for painting. There should be no dust, no loose particles, no fibres, nothing. The garage floor was plain concrete, I had considered sealing and painting it before starting to strip the car, way way back months before. ( A LOT of thought went into every stage of this project!) but it would have cost a bit, and I hardly had any money. So I decided to thoroughly clean the garage ceiling, shift everything over to one side of the garage (The side with the opening to the loft, still a big dust trap) and make a room within the garage. The spray booth.
Three packs of thin, translucent polythene dust sheets did the job. Three 9’ x 12’ sheets in each pack. These were pinned to the ceiling, each pin going through a duct tape patch to spread the load and avoid tearing. The sheets made up a room around the bodyshell, as large as the garage would allow to give me adequate working space around the car, vital when spraying. The sheets were taped together where they met, and weighted at the bottom with large smooth rocks from a pile in the garden, each one cleaned first (this kind of attention to detail is vital). The garage door had to be opened slightly for more room to spray around the back of the car, and to let a bit more light in. This meant that the slightest breath of wind would flap the entire spray booth terrifyingly, but it held together. Ripping it was another pain, but it was very successful. The sheeting covered the floor, and up to the underside of the car, any of the underside paint showing was masked off. The interior of the car was masked off as well, however a cunning system meant I would be able to open the tailgate and get some paint in the boot area without disturbing the masking. Access to the fridge and freezer in the garage had to remain, so more thought was required, but in the end I had a dust proof enclosure, masking off absolutely everything except car body panels which were to receive paint. Apparently it was of some interest in the local area as to whether I was going to try and paint the car myself, this was confirmed by me with the garage door open rigging up the dust sheets at gone half two, one night!
Lighting had to be considered, with side lighting as important as overhead lighting. The fluorescent tubes in the garage were joined by several cunningly placed inspection lights, and Nige’s huge floodlamp on a tripod was positioned prior to painting an area. Well thought out lighting is highly necessary, otherwise you cannot see how much paint you are putting down.
I had decided to temporarily fit the doors and front wings, for painting. This was a huge mistake, as we shall see later. I was keen to ensure that where the scuttle joins the front wing, both the entire scuttle and wing were painted, otherwise bits would be missed at the join. (They would still be in primer, just not as much). For that reason, the wings were temporarily fitted but too far forward, bolted on using the next hole along on the inner wings to keep them forward of the scuttle. This meant all of the surfaces got paint, and the wings were done at the same time as everything else.
All set, then.
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