Thread: Everybody that is currently building a car...

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I was told the reason red is so exspensive is because they use real gold to make red colors ? So pearls seem logical.

The Haskin's Shop (owners first name) recently hired Kenny Bishop as the main painter and the front office is run by Haskin's wife Lee who was a big help in the paint selection. No need to keep going over this, but Lee says that pearl is really "mica" which is a natural mineral with a chemical formula of (Si(O2))x which forms extended sheets of planar hexagons similar to the honeycomb sheets of graphite. It is evidently the little flat platelets that reflect light and make the dazzling effect. Fortunately mica is a pretty common mineral so I suppose the cost cited by lt1s10 comes from purfying and grading the flake size of the mica, and of course the usual specialty markup of "you want it, we got it". I will also look into the use of gold for reds. Gold has many unusual properties like incredible ductility, but mainly is almost totally unreactive, although a mixture of HNO3 and HCL (aqua Regia) will dissolve Gold and so the chloride of gold is possible to make. I would have guessed that reds have either organic dyes or Cadmium oxide which is "vermillion" in color. Hey this is interesting to me as a chemist, but it sure does look purty on the car.

In edit mode I add (to gild the lily, hah!) we were not able back out the paint formula to learn what it came from but it is BASF with Nason clearcoat. The shop wants to call it "Haskin's Merlot" to get a little publicity, but actually there are a lot of late model cars out there with similar colors whether GM wagons or Mustangs. I just have to remember the formula in the event of a need for touchups. Another consideration for mica is that maybe the formulas is (SiO)x since the hexagons have alternating Si and O atoms around the ring, but it is one of those repetitive two-dimensional crystal structures that just extends very far.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Okay Don, here's a little help for you in your quest. My former paint reps told me that the red pigment is mined in So. Africa, and because of the popularity/availability limits/difficulty of acquiring it lead to the high cost.

thanks don, learn something new every day. it just dawned on me what you were talking about biltmore nc, I just had Baltimore no my mind and I didn't know about Biltmore. you have to work with slow people a little. but one thing i can do is wire that car of yours in less than 10 hrs. with my feet bound , one hand tied behind me, and with a blind fold on. i dont have to spell or type to do that.

Right on Lt1s10! We do what we do and fake the rest! HeHeHe!

Originally Posted by brickman

Right on Lt1s10! We do what we do and fake the rest! HeHeHe!

or "everybody can't be good at everthing"

Hey no problem, I have already run into a lot of things I am not very good at, but I won't flunk the course in "Cut it with a hacksaw and file it smooth". Still this is no threat to the AMBR contest, that's for sure! lt1s10, I just thought you would know about Biltmore since you are not too far from it, but actually I did not know about it myself until about a year ago. It would be a nifty place to go to for a rod run but sadly the tickets are $42! The way to do that is to not enter the grounds but meet in the town of Ashville at the neat McDonalds. It has to be the best McDonalds in the world. It has a fireplace and a Wurlitzer piano playing constanty and instead of modern plastic decor, the whole building is Tudor style wood. I had to take a picture of the piano in the McDonalds. Hey don't pay the $42 ticket, just meet at the McDonalds and ruum-ruum around the town. Let me know if someone sets up a rod run to Ashville. Beware, however of Bilks, my wife almost picked up a sweatshirt top in Bilks, but dropped it when she saw the price of $175! I haven't seen such prices since I stopped in to Clint Eastwood's store on the West Coast! Apparently Bilks is the right name! Why you could buy Model A headlights for that much! My nemesis is spray paint and that is why I farmed it out. I talked with a guy at "Rust-to-Rods" in Utah about the Mr. Roadster lights and the '83 Camaro column and he guessed the Camaros went to separate amber turn signals and that is why the wire to the stoplight trick won't work on that column. I just need to think about how to add separate lights for the rear turn signals. For Brickman I have a story about a bricklayer we brought in to match our outdoor wall brick in an indoor fireplace installed over a wooden floor. He said "no brick on wood", I guess because of the weight, but my son, son-in-law and myself put in a metal firebox in a wooden wall corner, boxed it in with drywall and then used rough tile on the face of the wood surround which is much lighter than real brick. It looks like real brick and we have had fires in it safely several time! Thanks all for all the hints.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don, I put in a fireplace with real brick. nuttin' to it. just cut a hole in the floor (best to cut the hole the same size as the finished fireplace), dig a hole in the crawlspace (best to line that up with the hole in the floor) & pour a footing. Lay up a cinder block box to the cieling and face it with brick 1-2-3 yer' done.

ProZ, you are undoubtedly a man of many talents! Yes, the footing is needed for the weight of real bricks. I am just amazed we could put a metal fireplace in a wooden wall with a double-sleeve stainless steel chimney pipe and it is supposed to be guaranteed for 20 years on the firebox lining. "Steel is real, but brick is thick?" Back to McDonalds in Ashville, NC; if you live within 300 miles of Ashville, it's worth the trip! Also maybe Bilk is Belk but it's a bilk anyway!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don, today I learned there is no pearl paint, and there is a place called Biltmore, nc, but I got a feeling the next time you say you went to biltmore I'm gonna read Baltimore into spite hell.

Funny, I have been putting hearth's on wooden floors my whole career. You just have to go by local codes and make sure the floor is strong enough.

Hey Brick, how's your car coming along?

Brickman, that's what I thought and in fact we put double joists for several rows under that end of the room to support extra weight but the brick layer wouldn't do it. Of course ProZ has the best way with added footings but after we had the room pretty well built we considered abandoning the fireplace idea but then called around and found a Canadian company who made these stainless steel fireboxes with ceramic linings and stainless chimney and so far it works and looks good. You have to ask around and that is why this Forum is useful. Today I talked to John York about installing my steering column and he was adamant that I had made a big mistake with the paint before the column was in because he would have to weld and that would mess up the paint. Then I called Borgeson, Flame River and Speedway and they all said you can install the column without welding just by using a double-d bar and two flex joints. I am learning that when you hear one story you need to check it out and cross check it. I am now confident that I can install the column without any welding and with care I won't damage the paint.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

what yr. column are you going to use Don?

lt1s10, I bought it from Joe Butler who said it was from an '83 Camaro. It had some sort of slick coating on it and it wouldn't take Rustoleum until I sanded it again and again, but I made a mess of it so now the folks at Haskin's are going to strip it and paint it the same color as the body.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder