9/22/09: Car masked to prime

These pictures illustrates how very little filler is needed to be applied to body panels which have been properly straightened.

Attached panels (doors, hood, trunk lid) are next. This door is stripped and ready for processing. Surfaces are being worked as much straightening of the metal before filler as is possible is done.

A great restoration such as this is mostly metal before paint. There is nothing wrong with polyester body filler (AKA Bondo), but a good tech, doing a great job, should only need to apply a very small amount to smooth out body imperfections which are difficult to straighten "in the metal". Pictures here show the car prepped and masked off for final priming.

Finally, the main body is in primer.

To get the beautiful lines of the car even better, all the surfaces are block sanded in the primer.

A skim coat to start to find the highs and lows.

The removable panels are being worked to find any highs or lows that were not taken out by the metal working process.

The underside of the trunk lid has been chemically stripped-the best, least intrusive process-particularly for complex shapes like this.

With the doors off the car, the jambs can more easily be done. These areas harbor rust and usually degrade faster than more exposed surfaces. Sandblasting these convoluted areas works much better than abrasives to remove old paint and rust. It also greatly increases paint adhesion.

Door bottoms are an area difficult to work on with the doors on the car and are often the rustiest part of the car because water enters the door at the window ledge and may not always drain out of the drains. We blast this area thoroughly and rust proof inside the doors when the job is done.