Matthew Taylor's Journal

12-7-14
While the body work was stretching my patients, ability to learn, and Jerry's laugh lines, Cole and I decided to tackle some of the wood work. Now the dash in the 70 U.S. version had a plastic overlay - somewhere along the line, someone "upgraded" the dash to all wood (veneered plywood). Unfortunately, the years had taken a toll. I am no stranger to wood working, and replacing it would give me a chance to teach the boy a thing or 2 about wood working as well. The other item I had in mind was the steering wheel. It had started to decay, and would need replacement. I shared the idea with Cole - make them both out of the same thing to match. He loved it. The search for the correct wood was on. Cole is a particular fella, and the search lasted from early November until mid December. What he finally decided was the "right" color for his car - Walnut with a custom stain. So, I ordered enough Walnut to make a dash, steering wheel, and have enough left over for the shift knob. All back burner pieces, but, I needed a little break from the endless dents and dings on the body. The first item of business was to reduce the thickness from 1 1/4 down to 1/2 inch. Sure wish i had a plainer! I do have a bench mounted router - on the end of a cast iron table saw. So, we chucked a good sized bit, and took off about 3/8 at a time. Once it was down to size, we laid out the pattern (simply traced the pieces of the old dash), and cut it out with the scrawl saw. Cole went to work sanding and shaping to get it all just right. We figured out a way to cut the holes for the speedo and tach using the router as well. Staring with a hole saw, he used a Rabbet bit to cut about 1/2 way up. Then flipped the piece, and used the new cut as the guide for the bearing on a trim bit. We could adjust the finish hole size by changing the bearing size on the end of the Rabbet bit. We had a great productive day. But, then Jerry showed up and made me work again....

12-31-14
The going got a bit slow here. Jerry's expert inspections often began with "close, but...." Cole even got fired once. He took it well. While my technique improved, so did my ability to tell what wasn't going to fly. My own inspections started to begin with "close, but..." Cole kept the body filler sandings on the floor swept up - and that was becoming a full time job. However, the body WAS taking shape. It seamed everywhere I touched, there was a mountain or valley - or the contour wasn't quite right, but, we stayed on it, and eventually...Jerry fixed it in a minute or 2. Well, it seamed that way...

The body was exposed metal, and although blessed with dry weather, the days were dragging by, and rust was a real concern. We still had allot of work on the bonnet to do, but it was decided we would get the rest of the car under primer, before we had to deal with rust mixed in with our new body work. I learned the proper way to tape and paper, and did that correctly - on the second or third try. We were all set for primer.

1-4-15
The "after New Years" sale on fireworks must have been incredible, and my thrifty neighbors have taken full advantage. Its like the 4th of July - every day! My dogs are as rattled as I am when Jerry looks at my body work. I do drool a bit less though. So, after another intense inspection - all is ok - time to prep the car. A light sanding to expose fresh metal, lots of compressed air - and a final wipe down with "Whip Out" - and I am ready for the "primer class". Another "suggestion" on the primer, we are using "Slick Sand", and a fairly high end version of that. We go over the plan:
Its explained that it is like spray body filler. We are going to put a bunch of it on, and take a bunch of it off. Using the 80 grit sand paper, and the paint sticks we just used on the body filler. So, its kinda the same as what we just spent a month doing...."No", Jerry says, but it sounds like it to me...All along Jerry has been telling me we will use 3 coats - sanding the first one with 80 grit, the second with 180, and the final with 400 wet. I got all that. Now he is talking about hitting the car 3 times right now. With no sanding in between. As lost as a Second Lieutenant with a map and compass, I point out this glaring discrepancy in the plan. Turns out I wasn't paying proper attention - my idea of a "coat" and a painters are not the same thing! We are going to cover the car 3 times for EACH coat. That's 9 times, for those of you as dim as me. But, if my body work doesn't suck too bad, we may only go around twice on the last coat. Have to wait and see...

So, now its Chemistry 101. But without the Bunsen burners this time. The primer is reduced to the desired flow rate. And we decide thick for the first coat. We will reduce it more each time, so the final is about 20%. Then the science of hardener vs temp/humidity comes to play. It seams as exacting as a politicians moral compass. Kinda like the harder in the body filler. Primer is mixed, and the clock is ticking.

Jerry and I had made a dry-run rehearsal, so we both knew what was coming. He would shoot the first pass, I would shoot the second, and he was going to "clean up" on the 3rd. The only part we didn't practice was that he was going to do his "Drill Instructor SGT Simpson" impersonation over my shoulder during the second pass. It felt like I was home...on Parris Island again. His instruction was easy to follow: "FASTER!!!....SLOWER!!!....FEATHER!!!....MORE TRIGGER!!!....". I expected to get the command "MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS TILL YOU DIE - GO!", but it never came. Instead we had a debrief on what went well, and what I needed to work on - there were 6 more passes to go - and then color and clear coat. Jerry said he wasn't yelling, just talking loud enough to be heard over the compressor - but he never did explain the "bony maggot" reference...

Last step was the paint gun clean up. Turns out, if you ask a bunch of dumb questions, and that delays cleaning out the gun, the primer will harden in the gun. I got the bonus class on how to break the gun all the way down and clean it. I didn't bring it up, but, I kinda wanted to grab a stop watch and blindfold, and have Jerry put it back together.

1-29-15
I have no finger prints. Strange feeling, but, my finger tips are a smooth as glass. Picking up wet stemware is a bit dicey at the moment. How did this happen? I will get to that in a moment.

I intended to make 3 entries for the month of January - one for each stage of the primer process. However, it has been pointed out - the steps are almost identical, the pictures ARE identical, and this journal is already boring enough...So this one will cover it all.

Once the primer was set up, we used cheap black rattle can paint to "smoke" the car - a light dusting, everywhere the primer was. The smoke did 2 things for us. 1 - The "master of all things paint" Jerry had taught me, paint doesn't stick to paint (or primer), it sticks to scratches. Very fine scratches to be sure - but scratches non the less. Our primer was nice a shiny, and needed to be "scratched" for the next layer. Anywhere that was still smoked was not properly scratched. 2 - We would be removing the "smoke" with flat tools - and any place that was not "flat" would still be smoked - more shaping was required, until it was flat.

After smoking the car, it was time to "unprimer" the car. I've been told that's not really a thing - but that's what we did. 80 grit sand paper, our paint sticks, and a long board - and lots of elbow grease. And lots of "no, not like that, like this". I felt like I was corrected more times than Lois Lerner. But, learning how to shape the car was exciting - we could really see the results, the lines were popping, the curves were rounded and flowing, and the edges were sharp. It was the same car - just better defined. Once our inspector gave us the thumbs up, we were on to coat 2 of the primer

Coat 2 was similar to the first round. We reduced the primer a bit more - it came out faster, and Jerry had me move the gun faster - with his genital real time feedback - I don't remember exactly what he was yelling - I think it was something about his Grandmother paints faster - or I was painting like old people screw - but I got the idea, about the time I finished. We smoked it again, and blocked it again. This time with 180. Most of the shaping was done, just a few touch ups, and it was ready for the last coat.

Coat 3 was much thinner, and it went on real fast. After smoking it this time, Cole had a brief moment of "how about a stealth fighter look" - it did look cool. The blocking was with wet 400 this time, and we switched to sanding pads. We were very happy with the results, the car looked great. After a month of sanding away our evenings and weekends, and our finger prints, we were ready for color. At this point, with the aid of the internet, I self diagnosed my right arm with a triple injury - tennis elbow, golfers elbow, and mouse elbow. It was done for a while. Jerry offered to clear out a space in his garage to shoot it, he reasoned he was more comfortable with his rig anyway. I took him up on it - mostly because it meant I could drive the car 2 more times. I think he was glad for the injury, he was going to have to tell me I sucked too much with the gun to clear coat it. We had a plan, and were off to the paint store....

2-1-15
Color choices were made. Cole long ago had decided on a blue with silver scheme. With some guidance, he picked "Blue velvet pearl" - with lots of pearl, and a shot glass worth of it in the silver to help it blend. And a sleeve of 1/8" blue tape. Jerry had volunteered to lay out the stripes. The stripe package had been a 3 way discussion for a couple of months. I presented the general ideas, Cole culled out the ones he didn't like, and Jerry laid out his interpretation of what would look right. Being Cole's car, he had final veto power - and was not afraid to use it. He explained it best "this is a once in a lifetime gift (Jerry's assistance), and I want it to be exactly right". The idea that survived - A Le Mans inspired stripe at the bonnet, rolling along the sides, and having a modified version of the very rare dealer installed side strip up the rear quarter. Jerry liked it, but, insisted it needed pin striping outlining everything. And through the raised part of the bonnet. He laid it out on the primmer, and it was obvious, he was right.

We lowered the car, and stripped off all the primer covered paper. I bolted in a seat, and fired up the old girl, and drove the 1/2 block to Jerry's. We got her in his garage about mid day Saturday. The plan was to drive her home, painted, Sunday afternoon. Allot of very hard work was about to get covered up - and an incredible transformation was about to happen. Back up on the stands, we papered the car again. Sweep, blow, mop, blow again, let it all settle - adjust the doors, masks on, mix the paint - moment of truth!

Jerry started on the raised portion of the bonnet. First a stripe of blue. When that was ready, he taped off the stripes - under very demanding supervision from Cole - and shot the silver. O-my! This was going to be fun!

2-1-15

So much changes so quickly on the color step, I decided to break this up to allow more pictures. After the bonnet stripe was done and the bottom of the car was painted silver, the rest of the stripes were laid out. To get the stripes to line up across the bonnet seam, I installed the latches. Both Cole and Jerry paid attention to every single inch of tape. Jerry spent about 5 hours on the tape alone - but when he was done, it was perfect.