Thread: Followed Me Home, '33 Build

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You poor beggar!

A worm!

Who would've believed it?

Ya know, I'm more than sure there's a fella sitting around looking over people's shoulders with a handful of spanners to throw in the works!
(Or in your case a worm!)

Originally Posted by johnboy

You poor beggar!

A worm!

Who would've believed it?

Ya know, I'm more than sure there's a fella sitting around looking over people's shoulders with a handful of spanners to throw in the works!
(Or in your case a worm!)

i do every Pro painter knows very well you have to offer up some thing to the paint gods. nailing down one more coat is 101 in painting or what is also that we called flooding the the panle with another coat if that fails washing it all off with thinner if it pulls the primer then next setup is to throw the gun or go to the bar or both.. i never beat on my guns but i seen it .. worms no.... but i had many spiders or the years small flying things to bugs the size of a 747 that love to do the death march 1/2 the way threw a top panle for the world to see hood or deck lid then lay down in the clear . most the time a moth with them chalky white wings that stick down in the clear and it.s always a dark paint job

In the process of putting the car back together I'm trying to solve known "issues" as I can. One thing I was unhappy with was that I had mounted the Edelbrock ECU to the back side of the firewall with a couple of strips of industrial velcro tape. It worked "OK", but several times I had found the ECU loose, likely due to the "pull" of the two big wire bundles. One of the beauties of working with a fiberglass body is that one can use bondo or construction adhesive as "glue" for most any material to install a base. Bondo sets quick and seems to be more permanent in my experience. I had envisioned a steel plate with a couple of tapped holes and a metal strap over the ECU, but one thing led to another and I ended up in the wood shop area with some old walnut panels that are at least 100 years old. The area is pretty tight, but I ended up with a base with a top overhang about 1/2" taller than the box, and a bottom support about 1/2" shorter with a 1/4x20 threaded insert inside. The top overhang has a rabbeted groove that the cover slips into, and then pinches the ECU with a polished socket head bolt. Left the bottom edge "natural" for grins. It's functional, and if anyone sticks their head under the dash the look's not too shabby for a quick banged together contraption

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That's a nice piece of wood! Now you can say you have a '33 Woody.

Very creative, nice job-you give a new meaning to "it gives me wood"-

I have been working in Wood for years, and have thought about how to integrate it in my build-with my "theme" I can't think of how to do it, but it fits well in you Car-looks good!

Roger---we used velcro to fasten lots of stuff on the Indy cars back in the 80s------
And the ceilings are held up with velcro on Boeings

was it the velcro came apart or the tape pulled off the fiberglass or module????and can you do a pic of the type velcro you used?????Maybe then I'll start a thread

Originally Posted by jerry clayton

Roger---we used velcro to fasten lots of stuff on the Indy cars back in the 80s------
And the ceilings are held up with velcro on Boeings

was it the velcro came apart or the tape pulled off the fiberglass or module????and can you do a pic of the type velcro you used?????Maybe then I'll start a thread

Jerry,
I no longer have the package - got down to a foot remaining and tossed the box but from the backing it is Velcro Brand, and is their "Industrial Strength" product purchased in a bulk package from Lowe's, 1.875" wide and I think 5 feet long or more, link Industrial Strength VELCRO® Brand Tape, Coins, and Strips I now see from their website that they also have "Extreme Industrial", as well as "Low Profile Industrial" which might be cool.

I painted my fiberglass (and wood) surface(s) with fiberglass resin to provide a smooth surface, then attached the loop side with the adhesive backing on the tape. On this module the velcro remained attached to both surfaces, but the module would come loose (Velcro released) occasionally.

Starting a new thread for a "How To" on Velcro would be a great idea, but with all respect I'm not asking for that input here. The purpose of my post was to show the woodwork option, not to discuss why my Velcro didn't hold.

Well, two steps forward but then again, one big step backwards today. I re-sanded the doors & quarters this morning to get rid of a bit of funky surface reflection and polished them out again. As I cleaned things up I kept finding little spots that were kind of dull, so I attacked them with the foam polishing pad, too. Now a couple of days back I was really disheartened as I looked at the hood after it had been out in the sunshine for an hour or so - a bunch of little shallow low spots reflecting light every which way. I was about ready to take a long block to it to mark the lows but waited until morning and to my surprise the hood was perfectly flat!! Then after a few minutes in the hot sun I could see the lows forming. Seems that the inner panel, which has two wide ribs side to side, and the upper, exterior panel are pulling on each other as it heats in the sun, soooo I decided there's nothing I can do about it and I finished polishing it out. Now today, as I got all the interior back in and buttoned everything up I look at the hood and see a pair of ugly bubbles raised up near the back of the hood!! This is in the area where I ground down past the gel coat to glass in the extension in the back, filling the gap to the cowl, and after the heat I can clearly see that line where new glass meets old. Not sure what's off-gassing, but it looks like I'm going to be re-doing the hood sooner as opposed to later.... Not a happy camper today.

Here's a couple of shots after the cleanup.

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But it's such a Damn Beautiful car!

I guess unless we're Chip Foose, we all become disheartened with our own work. I still have lots of "should haves" every day. You did a lot of work and ended up with a head-turner ride, Roger. Be proud of all you've accomplished. (BTW, black cars belong in the shade anyhow. )

Ah, yes, Roger, "perfection" is a narrow and most challenging road to travel. My eyes & heart always want to go there but it seems my hands often make me take detours....

I guess the key is to find joy in the journey because even if you do make it perfect, somebody or something is going to come along and put a flaw in it!

The car definitely looks SWEET and we've all learned a lot and appreciated taking the trip with you! Thanks for the virtual ride now come and take us for a real one.....

That thing looks like it will run too fast for anybody to see any flaws in the paint anyway!

Roger, The old "masking tape on the run" trick worked better on old Alkyd and Acrylic Enamels than it does on modern Urethanes, but it's still useful. For small runs in the clear, I just let them harden completely and then "shave" them off. I have a piece of an old Vixen file about 1 1/2 inch long. I wrap each edge with a strip of masking tape and then shave the run down until nothing more is coming off. At that point, the remaining part of the run is only as thick as a piece of masking tape, so it sands and buffs easily.

As for the hood - where the old 'glass meets the new and shows up - that's called "read-out". I worked at Eckler's Corvette years ago; any area of a car or fiberglass part that had the gelcoat disturbed got re-gelcoated before final sanding and paint. If you didn't gelcoat the new 'glass work on the hood after you finished working on it, that could be the problem. If you gelcoated it and it's still showing, it could be a difference in the resins (whatever you used may be slightly chemically different than what the hood was made of) and the new and old 'glass have different shrink rates. My advice is leave it alone for about a year until the new 'glass is "seasoned". If it's still showing read-out then (or if it gets worse) and you decide you just can't live with it, strip the hood, give the whole thing a fresh coat of gelcoat, and repaint it.

Originally Posted by J. Robinson

Roger, The old "masking tape on the run" trick worked better on old Alkyd and Acrylic Enamels than it does on modern Urethanes, but it's still useful. For small runs in the clear, I just let them harden completely and then "shave" them off. I have a piece of an old Vixen file about 1 1/2 inch long. I wrap each edge with a strip of masking tape and then shave the run down until nothing more is coming off. At that point, the remaining part of the run is only as thick as a piece of masking tape, so it sands and buffs easily.

As for the hood - where the old 'glass meets the new and shows up - that's called "read-out". I worked at Eckler's Corvette years ago; any area of a car or fiberglass part that had the gelcoat disturbed got re-gelcoated before final sanding and paint. If you didn't gelcoat the new 'glass work on the hood after you finished working on it, that could be the problem. If you gelcoated it and it's still showing, it could be a difference in the resins (whatever you used may be slightly chemically different than what the hood was made of) and the new and old 'glass have different shrink rates. My advice is leave it alone for about a year until the new 'glass is "seasoned". If it's still showing read-out then (or if it gets worse) and you decide you just can't live with it, strip the hood, give the whole thing a fresh coat of gelcoat, and repaint it.

many years ago i pick up one of them vixen files sold by stec ? made for paint drips came mounted in a small wooded block .i did not like it. still in the top of my tool box .i use to take a razor blade single strait blade and round the corners off and use that. they work good and what we call... a snot block ..it was like 1200 girt in a small block that you could sand to form it to the shape of panle you where sanding what was nice about the block as it was soild grit it could be sanded if it started to load up
use to do alot of SMC and used fiber gell made by swiss had very good hold out . the good old days alkyd and enamels with no kicker will weed out the good painters fast

Pat - I have one of those little blocks, but mine has teeth like a Bastard file. I don't like it either. It leaves scratches that are as difficult to deal with as the run I'm trying to remove! I've seen other painters shave a run with a razor blade, but when I try that it always digs in and leaves a divot in the paint that has to be sanded and repainted. I guess I don't have "the touch" needed to make it work. I've never seen what you call the "snot block". Do you know where it came from? I'd like to try one.

You're right about old-time enamel. I remember old Dupont Dulux; no hardener, no cross-linker, just paint and reducer. If you could spray that stuff and get a good gloss with no runs, you were a MASTER PAINTER! Life in the paint booth was suddenly much easier when acrylic enamel hit the market...

Jim,
I like your tip with the short section of a file. I use the razor blade in much the same way, with a couple of pieces of tape on the ends to limit the cut, as long as the blade remains upright in a scraping action. My "paint guy" gave me that tip, and I've found it works good but the tape does get cut down pretty quickly and needs to be changed as needed or the whole blade starts cutting.
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I also found that rounding the corners of the blade, like Pat mentioned, is not a bad idea, as they can punch through and dig in quickly on inside curves.

I think what Pat is calling a "snot block" is pumice stone that's kept soaking in water. Meguire's made mine, called a Uni-grit Sanding Block - comes in 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit.

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It's about 1x1x2.5", and as you use it grooves wear into the surface and it has to be "re-surfaced". A piece of adhesive backed sand paper on a piece of glass works great for this, but they wear quickly. This is mine, in 2000 grit now 1/4" thick, after using it a bunch.

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I'm interested in the gel-coat information, Jim, and really appreciate your insight. I did not know that the gel-coat could be re-applied to blend repairs - thought it was only an initial layer inside the mold, which then got the fiberglass laid in on top. I'll have to look into the option of a new top coat of gel-coat if that's what it takes. I'll definitely be re-painting the hood in the Fall/Winter, as I have two (at this point) bubbles that I need to puncture and glue down with super glue in a syringe. After the summer fun I'll look at working down those areas, prepping the whole hood and re-spraying primer, color and clear.