Matthew Taylor's Journal

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....