Luv2Wrench

Tub has been wet sanded with 800 and is ready for clear. As I thought, this week hasn't been conducive to spraying 5 coats of clear waiting 30 minutes between each so I'll be waiting until Saturday. I bumped up the air pressure to 25 (from 22) for the last two coats of base and the resulting "orange peel" is very fine to the point of really only being visible once you "cut" with 800. If I should be lucky enough to get the clear to do about the same thing it would certainly save me some time. One thing to note... I mixed the base with a slow urethane reducer as advised by SPI. I can see a big difference in the way the base laid down and flowed out. When I did my daughter's car door the base was drying before it flowed out. I didn't know that at the time of course and just saw the normal orange peel that you see on any car you'd buy today. I'll be mixing the clear with a slow activator as well and hope that I get the same results. The downside to the slower reducer and activator is longer flash time and longer time to "dust free". My booth is working well so I wasn't worried with trash getting in the drying paint. I mention this to those doing this as more of a hobby and don't have the skill and/or the equipment of the pros. The slow reducer really helps get the paint to flow out better. Highly recommended.

Wet sand some problem areas with 600 and then went over whole tub with 800. Shot two more coats of base. Went as well as I could possibly have hoped for. If I have time, tomorrow I will wet sand with 800-1000 and then clear. I'm probably not going to have time until next weekend... but we'll see.

I think you'll find that making the shapes in the areas you need to cut out is not as difficult as you'd imagine. You don't need bead rollers and English wheels and all that fancy stuff. I'm sure if you look around your shop there are all kinds of shapes that, in some small part, look like some small part of the patterns in the trunk. I think the trick is to get a thin sheet of aluminum and, with wild abandon, start beating it into the shape you need. You might do that a couple of times and then you'll figure out a technique that works... grab the correct steel sheet and repeat. I'm not there and can't see the whole trunk so my advice might be pretty bad... but hey.. it was free!! I'm not completely sure that was clear. You can cut patterns out of hard wood or, if you have it, thick steel and use those to hammer the sheet steel against. You can get the sheet nice and hot and it become very easy to form. In addition to an anvil, things like railroad rail, bowling balls, vintage shoe makers forms, etc can provide a bunch of shapes to help you form what you need. It takes a good bit of trial and error which takes time, but so does welding rusty metal.

I always think back to my 10 speed bike. Biggest gear on the wheel was the slowest but easiest gear. I'm really impressed with the base. It is Motobase from Automotive Art Paints. It covered great and was trivial to get it to lay flat. It is dark so I guess that helps coverage. Will definitely use this base again.

Smaller pulley on fan shaft would make it go faster. A smaller pulley on motor shaft would make it go slower but it is already as small as possible. Bigger pulley on fan shaft would work and if the vanes don't get things perfect then that's what I'll do. It is certainly the right problem to have.

First two coats of base are on!! I will wait until tomorrow to see if any correction work (nibs, orange peel, etc) needs to be done and then I will do two more coats. If things go well I will be shooting clear on Tuesday. The paint booth is great! It definitely exceeds my expectations. There is probably a little too much air flow but I was able to move the tub toward the front wall (ie; at the garage door away from the fan) and it wasn't as bad. I think adding the vanes in the shroud will help and probably get it just about perfect.

Wow, what a great looking project! That truck is super cool and I'd have no trouble at all dating it.

Yeah, that's a good idea. A strip of wood or heavy gauge wire across would do the trick. The fan is a beast.

Works perfectly, many thanks! Is there a reason it cannot be supported long term? I have my images hosted on IMGUR and using that link provides a wonderful hi-res image. These are the formats it provides

Got the filter bank installed and built a shroud to connect the fan. The shroud ended up being huge.. 82"x40"x24" out of 3/4" plywood and it weighs a ton. I gave up trying to find a clever way of connecting the fan to the filter bank and just went with the basics. The panels are screwed into the shroud and the fan sits into the other end. Once I cranked up the fan I was glad that I went stout. While there is nearly 23 sq ft of filter it still provides a significant flow restriction. The fan is 36" blades swung by a 1/2HP motor so it more than provide the force to deliver a big volume of air. I think if it wasn't 3/4" plywood tying the panels to the fan it would have either blown the panels out or the shroud apart. The air filters are visibly bowed out when the fan is running. The air flow seems about right though it may be a touch too much. That's a good problem to have. The tub is masked off, plastic is on the floor and tomorrow I'll give it a final cleanup and wipe down with wax and grease remover. After a light tack I'll be ready to shoot the base!!

Wow... you're gonna be an expert after you finish with that trunk!

Hey Peter - I think the new look is great. The only issue I might be having is that my image embedding doesn't appear to work anymore The following is what I used to paste into my posts to embed an image from my Imgur site. [img]https://i.imgur.com/4c1oUzU.jpg[/img] Previously, and in all my existing messages, that would result in the image being shown inline. Any ideas?

Still clunking along. I went ahead and did another couple of coats of sanding primer and blocked it down again. When I was getting ready for the sealer coat during the week I noticed a couple small spots and some areas on the door sides I didn't like. Once those were fixed I felt like another round of 2K primer was the best bet. That blocked down very quickly and very nicely. I then shot the sealer coat of epoxy primer and wet sanded it with 600. I think it is ready for color!! I started putting the booth together this evening and it has gone very smoothly. There is a little bit more to do than I thought because somehow I remembered mounting all the panels to the hangers but that didn't actually happen. I will also need to modify how I'm going to hold the filters in place but I have a great solution for that and it shouldn't take too much time. I have a busy week at work so I'm not sure how much I'll get done but I do think, again, that I might be shooting color next weekend! ruh roh... looks like the updated bbs doesn't like my image linking. I'll try to get that fixed. I've found a workaround but the images are smaller and I'm not sure I like that. I'll try to get with Peter and figure out what is up.

I feel the same way. While not underestimating his skill (which is evident in nearly every post) the process certainly looks more doable than I would have imagined. It certainly opens up the number of projects one might do as I would have rejected any project with cracks like Harm had. I might *still* pass on them but at least I know I have options.

Really? I thought we were supposed to save everything 🤪

Excellent work as usual Chris. You're doing a great job of getting consistently getting something done even if time only allows a little to get done. That's a big weak spot for me and I need to improve on that.

lol. oh man we must be brothers or something.

I've already block sanded the door and tub and I'm thrilled with the flatness. I found 3 spots on the tub that I want to address and that will be it. The doors were even better with zero spots on the outside. Unfortunately I forgot about parts on the inside edge and top and I'll need to address those. I might need to shoot them again in 2K after that work but since it is just the doors it should quite easy to do. I think I should be able to get the booth fitted out next week and then shoot base and clear over the weekend. I'm very excited to finally get to this stage.

Using a dry guide coat I went over the doors and tub again and found a few more spots that needed a little filler. Today I shot another 3 coats of 2K primer and will, hopefully, do final block sand and guide coat check. If all turns out well then I'll shoot a sealer coat of epoxy primer, base coat and clear coat. I'll need to assemble my paint booth and work out the fan mounting and filter bank. Awhile back I made all the panels but I haven't had everything together and the fan in place yet. Probably will take a few days.

I certainly didn't need more motivation to get the MG done... but it does add to it. I have plans for reworking that back third of the shop (25'x12') to make it a machine shop. That will involve moving the air compressor and dust collection system into a separate building outside. I'll also need to expand the shop some more to add storage for materials such as wood and steel. I do think, however, with those changes I'll be able to have all the room I need for future adventures. As per the machines I've gotten the last couple of years I've been very lucky. I've certainly put in the effort to find them but it still takes a lot of luck to get it all to work out.

My Hendey machine tool collection is finally complete!! I've been searching for a long time to get a Hendey planer from before the turn of the century. Prior to 1877 Hendey made a hand cranked "bench top" planer. In 1877 Hendey made a "powered" planer which was unique because it had a 42" stroke and 16" working width. A lot bigger than the hand cranked planer but much smaller than the planers to come later. At just under 1800 pounds and footprint of 32"x64" it is a great machine for a home shop. Since a lot of these early planers were smaller they became somewhat obsolete pretty quickly and ended up being cast aside. As such they are very difficult to find. I only know of 4 Hendeys of this type. I am very, very lucky to be able to acquire this unit at this time. I've known of its existence for about 8 years and, really, this was the only one that might be available. One of the three has an unknown owner as is only a picture in a forum. The other two are well loved by their owners and not going anywhere soon. I'm extremely thankful I was able to work with the previous owner and acquire this wonderful machine. While it looks a little rusty, it is just surface rust. I put and indicator on the bridge ran the table the full length. I found that the middle was about a half thousandths low and at the far end it was a full thousandths low. For a 143 year old machine to be within 1 thousandths of an inch over 42" is incredible. All the gears look great and it seems to be complete. Among the many interesting things about something this old is to note on the bridge it say "Wolcottville Conn." which is were the headquarters of Hendey was. In 1881 that became Torrington Conn which is what one commonly thinks of as the home to Hendey's headquarters.

It is humid here in the south, but even more so in our yard. I have a constant battle with moss covering a patio that we don't use a lot as well as mold/mildew issues on the back of the house. We are close to the river and have a lot of trees in the backyard so not a lot of air movement. I got the front end completed so that wraps up the work I needed to do. I've decided to go ahead and wire up what is needed to fire the engine again so I can test the clutch/pressure plate. I should be able to get that done early next week so I'll be back to paint prep by next weekend. Right now I need to clear everything out of the shop because I'm expecting delivery of another ancient piece of good old American cast iron. I hope to have some pictures later today. I'm particularly excited about this latest acquisition because I've been looking for it for many years and it is one of 4 known to exist. It will be by far my oldest machine and by far the most I've ever paid for one (including shipping).

Agreed, that's an amazing job! I'm really excited to see the progress on the car lately, thanks for keeping us up to date.

Here's a shot of the rear after it sat outside for a couple of days. As I mentioned before, the hardware I used here was original and I didn't realize it needed to be re-plated. I took everything off and re-plated the hardware this weekend. I also swapped out the handbrake cables for some new ones. They don't look like the originals but they are a pretty substantial upgrade so I feel it is acceptable. I will need to do the same thing to the front but after that is done that will complete the plating working and it'll be back to paint prep. Unfortunately I am behind on service for our daily drivers so that's going to take up a few days next week.

Breaking complex parts down into 2 or more pieces is a game changer for the home machinist. I've been rethinking a few of the pieces for the Metz and I can see much easier ways of getting them done that I'll be able to handle rather than farming them out. Thanks for sharing your secrets!