First Look at Patriot Blue Paint!

We spent a lot more time putting the plastic sheeting up on the paint booth than we thought we would, but it turned out pretty well. The little duct-tape pieces on the door keep some magnets in place. The door has two flaps, one that tucks into the booth and one that stays outside. By sticking the magnets together, the flaps are sealed to the wall, thus sealing the booth. It works well, but takes two people to properly seal the door. The white squares are three furnace filters designed to trap overspray before the air exits the booth.

We sprayed sealer on the doors and the nose of the car (because they both fit in the booth) on Friday, and that evening we had a decision to make:

With rainy weather closing in on Sunday, we were not going to be able to spray sealer on the body AND paint the whole car in one day. We decided to paint the doors on Saturday, figuring we could learn from the experience to be better prepared to spray the rest of the car. So...

We modified the door buck to have less interference when spraying, then we carefully cleaned the doors and fired up the fan...

We mixed up a total of 20 ounces of PPG Patriot Blue paint and covered the doors in just two coats...

Then we mixed another 20 ounces of clear coat and applied three coats to the doors!

These pictures were taken with a flash to show the way light plays on the paint. It was too dark Saturday to take pictures once the doors were dry enough to handle, and today it has been dark and rainy all day.

They look even better in person, and we're pretty proud of the way they turned out. We do have a little bit of trash in the clear coat here and there to clean up, and there are a couple of small runs to be addressed. Still, it was a great weekend!

The 10-day forecast does not look good for paint, so the best we can hope to do is to get sealer onto the body so that we're ready for paint when the weather improves. Maybe by then I'll have the blue paint out of my fingernails! :-)

Inching Closer to Paint

We did some final inspection and sanding of the doors, and switched our attention to the paint booth. The pictures below show the "short version" of our booth". It is 12 x 16 feet. We'll enclose this with plastic and shoot our final sealer coat.

Once the sealer is on and we've had a chance to "scuff" that sealer with special 3M gray scotchbrite pads, we'll extend the paint booth another 10' so that we can fit the entire car inside. This obviously won't fit in the garage, which will make for some interesting lighting challenges.

We're watching the forecast for the long Thanksgiving weekend and hoping to make the most of it. Watch this space next week!

Quick Update

We have sanded almost all of the car to 500 grit, with just one door and a few small spots on the body left to do.

As we were sanding, I was examining the surface created by the first coat of sealer, wondering if I will be able to spray a smooth enough second coat to go directly to paint. After talking with the paint supply shop, I will spray the second coat of sealer and scuff it with a special scotch brite pad before we start painting. This should knock any imperfections off of the sealer coat.

This weekend, we emptied the garage and cleaned it. We washed the walls, mopped the floor a few times, and blew the dust out of everything before putting it back in the garage. This is all preparation for building a paint booth, as dust is the enemy of a decent paint job.

We will spray the sealer in the spray booth, then take the car outside to scuff it. Scuffing it is just like washing the car with a scotch-brite pad, so we'll have to remove the dust once we're done.

Then we'll be ready for paint. We have 2 long weekends in the next 3 weeks, so be on the lookout for some blue and white stripes soon!