owelly
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 07:39 PM |
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Bare steel 'shell. What primer?
To avoid the tredious story behind this request, scroll down to the *
A few months ago, I gave my MG Midget to Mrs O's uncle. He ordered a new 'shell from Heritage and began to strip the old one. After a
while, he contacted Heritage for a delivery date. They explained that as they contracted out the making of tghe 'shells to LDV who had gone
bust, they couldn't say when or if there would be any more made......
The old 'shell was pulled out of it's hiding place and a list of panels made. Then he found a "rust free Californian"
'shell.
He paid a guy to convert it (badly) to RHD and then took the advise of his mate who suggested taking it to another mate who could blast the
'shell back to bare metal and powder coat it.
Most of you guys will be pulling exactly the same face as I did. Shot blasting a thin steel shell is asking for ir to be damaged. Heating it up to
200*c to powder coat it is definately asking for trouble.
The blasty powdery guy insisted that he's done loads of cars, the last one was a Healey 3000 and it was excellent.
We dropped the shell off and went to collect it a week later. He hadn't coated the car because there were some bits of underseal the blasting
wouldn't shift. He was paid for the blasting (£150) and we agreed to take it back after the underseal was scraped off for the powder coating
(for another £250).
Under the lights in the workshop, it was lear that the panels had been warped. Badly. We decided the guy wasn't getting the car back for
coating.......
I have a chum who is hit shot at paint jobs and he came to have a look at the car. His fist response was for us to scrap the shell and start again.
The shell stands Alasdair at £2k so that is not an option! He's quoted £4k to prep and paint the shell. We've had two other quotes at
£4600 and £5200. Most of this is labour to fill and flat the panels. I have decided to have a crack at the work myself. I've done a fair bit of
bodywork and restoration and apart from being slow, I get the right results.
*
What I want to know is:
What do we prime the shell with?
Initially, I thought an etch primer but my painty mate says it won't work in the folds and seams where the blasting hasn't reached and
there could be rust. He suggested two coats of a red oxide primer, then a few coats of normal primer then a wheel barrow load of filler before the
high build and then top coats.
Is there a product that will treat the nooks and crannies and give good protection?
And what about under the car and in the engine bay?
Any suggestions will be welcomed!
Thanks in advance, Owelly.
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk
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Mark Allanson
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 08:17 PM |
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If it is totally bare metal now, rust will have set in again, but not too badly I hope. If only a mild dusting, get proper bodyshop red scotch and rub
down the shell. try to get cromate acid etch (full PSE, its not nice) and dust coat, once and then a really light coat. If you cannot get chromate,
use 2 part etch (that's not 2K!)
Get Upol high build primer, and bury the shell, guide coat with satin black and gently block. get Upol dolphin glaze and float in all the low spots
and block out. Back to the Upol high build again with 3 heavy coats, guide coat and block out.
Get PU creamy seam sealer and brush in all the seams (thats internal ones!), and external seams, brush in PU sealer and then wipe out with a spirit
wipe soaked cloth.
You should now be ready for basecoat and clear.
Lots of work (60 hours?), but gets good results, and but uprated shocks to cope with the extra weight
If you can keep you head, whilst all others around you are losing theirs, you are not fully aware of the situation
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Volvorsport
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 08:19 PM |
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may i suggest a sebring conversion?
i dont think hes far wrong , you could use reface as the high build filler .
any of the rust converters will work on the seams .
www.dbsmotorsport.co.uk
getting dirty under a bus
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StevieB
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 08:26 PM |
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Not sure about the prep bit, but if you need any body panels let me know - I have a stack of them in my garage taking up space and are free to you if
you want them.
There's also a rear clamshell attached to the car that's already been fully repaired and 90% prepped that is coming off and heading for
the skip. Again, yours for the price of all the help you've already given me in the past.
Body prep wise there's been an ad in the last few PPC's for a place in the midlands that does a chemical dip and primer job - they have a
vid on their website of the process and it looks good. I got a quote of 645 plus VAT for the chemical strip, but they couldn't quote for the
coating at the time due to them getting a new process (Nibond, apparently) installed.
www.surfaceprocessing.co.uk
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hicost blade
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 08:46 PM |
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http://www.rust.co.uk/epoxy-mastic.cfm
That one
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owelly
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 09:08 PM |
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Thanks for the replies guys.
SteveB, thanks for the offer and I may take you up on it! The blast guys in the Midlands use a spray on finish which sort of defeats the point of
having it dipped. The paint won't get into the niggley bits where the dippy stripper did. The reason they don't dip-coat is the same
reason Heritage and a few others don't and that's because they all used the same place which has gone bust.
I've just come off the phone to Alasdair and he's gutted. He's taken advise of 'experts' and it's left him out of
pocket, out of patience, out of enthusiasm and on the verge of scrapping the car along with the £3k+ worth of bits he's already bought!
I'll let you know how we get on.
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk
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fha772
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| posted on 21/10/10 at 09:09 PM |
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Aye up Owelly, my dad has just finished painting his 1962 Alvis shell, with Finnigans No1 rust beater.
A guy who works as a panelbeater, restoring vintage Rolls Royces and Bentleys, told him about it. He said to brushe it onto the bare metal, then give
it a light rub down with very fine wet and dry, then undercoat it. But you can just leave it on while you get the rest of the work done before
painting.
I'm using it on my Haynes chassis.
[Edited on 22/10/10 by fha772]
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=6743&start=105
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owelly
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| posted on 22/10/10 at 09:13 AM |
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Frank, I'm not too keen on Finnigans No1. A few years ago I stripped and cleaned a kit chassis and gave it two coats of No1 and then a coat of
smoothrite just as explained on the tin. Within three months there were specks of rust showing. By the end of the season, the paint had almost
completely dissolved!
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk
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StevieB
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| posted on 22/10/10 at 04:31 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by owelly
Thanks for the replies guys.
SteveB, thanks for the offer and I may take you up on it! The blast guys in the Midlands use a spray on finish which sort of defeats the point of
having it dipped. The paint won't get into the niggley bits where the dippy stripper did. The reason they don't dip-coat is the same
reason Heritage and a few others don't and that's because they all used the same place which has gone bust.
I've just come off the phone to Alasdair and he's gutted. He's taken advise of 'experts' and it's left him out of
pocket, out of patience, out of enthusiasm and on the verge of scrapping the car along with the £3k+ worth of bits he's already bought!
I'll let you know how we get on.
Part of the reason I was put off using them was that they weren't doing the dip anymore.
I may consider soda blasting then powder coating my midget, but that's based on the fact that the shell will be vastly reduced from what it is
at the moment by the time I'm finished (or even started).
Let me know - midg bits are all there and in my way, tea always hot and the finest battenberg imported when needed.
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fha772
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| posted on 23/10/10 at 08:53 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by owelly
Frank, I'm not too keen on Finnigans No1. A few years ago I stripped and cleaned a kit chassis and gave it two coats of No1 and then a coat of
smoothrite just as explained on the tin. Within three months there were specks of rust showing. By the end of the season, the paint had almost
completely dissolved!
That's the problem, he said it works really well as a primer, before using normal car undercoat and top coat. It's better than using the
finnigan's top coat, which in his opinion is rubbish.
He restored his E-Type 2+2 and used it on the original panels and where repaired, and never bothered putting it on the new replacement panels, that
was 25 years ago, and now the only panels showing rust are the "new" panels.
[Edited on 23/10/10 by fha772]
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=6743&start=105
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