Vintage Red/Yellow SS Resto, Prototype / Early Ad Car

[guggles]

mineral spirts and the longer time it take to dry points to an enamel! very interresting. I may have to give it a go.

[jonboy1]

@Scorchio - I'm blown away by your painting, in particular the chrome! Can I ask please, what settings did you use on your airbrush?

I've tried Alclad chrome before and only managed to get good results once and tried Molotov through the airbrush and got a lovely flat aluminium. (which very annoyingly looked perfect chrome in my airbrush paint reservoir when I'd finished!!!)

Any tips would be most appreciated.

Thanks and again, amazing resto you've done there!!!

[Scorchio]

10 hours ago, jonboy1 said:

@Scorchio - I'm blown away by your painting, in particular the chrome! Can I ask please, what settings did you use on your airbrush?

I've tried Alclad chrome before and only managed to get good results once and tried Molotov through the airbrush and got a lovely flat aluminium. (which very annoyingly looked perfect chrome in my airbrush paint reservoir when I'd finished!!!)

Any tips would be most appreciated.

Thanks and again, amazing resto you've done there!!!

Thanks Jonboy! & no problem.

My compressor is set to between 18 & 20 psi and I'm generally around 2/3 trigger, I've sprayed both neat and with 50/50 isopropanol mix and results seem much the same.

You have to hit what your spraying hard and fast, you literally have to ignore the overspray warnings in your head and just keep spraying past the flat aluminium phase until you see chrome appear then move on.

Then I give it 4-5 days drying before Alclad ALC-310. Again straight out of the bottle, don't do a mist coat, go straight into wet coat but this time listen to the over spray warnings in your head.

On smaller parts I think I'll just brush it on in future, as the self levelling qualities of Molotow are quite incredible.

Hope that helps!

 

[jonboy1]

thank you so much @Scorchio - that's a brilliant help!!  👍

[Scorchio]

Back at work so progress slowing down. I decided there were parts of the bonnet where the lines were not following the cutouts as I'd like.

So its been re done, this time with 40mm Tamiya mask and cutting around tight curves with a scalpel rather than trying to follow line with 2mm masking tape. Naturally this led to some overspray roughness so wet sanded and gave it a clear coat. x2 dust coats and x2 full coats.

Happy with result so onto window frames etc

.

[MadAnt]

Looks so sharp! I have an OG SS, the body was pretty bad when I got it. I tried to restore the body, but my repair skills did not hide and everything, but it looked good from 10 feet away, lol. Then one day I was doing something with the sand scorcher indoors, which I forgot what and I got some random radio interference and damaged the paint job from a reck going into some chairs and a table. I wanted to throw up, it was bad. I attempted to fix some of it and blended the french blue paint, but the white paint I could not fix because I did not have a match for it. So a big sticker now hides it's scar. It was never going to be perfect anyway. It did not have the correct mirrors, door handles and glass, but at least it still looks good from 20 feet away, lol😂

[Scorchio]

7 hours ago, MadAnt said:

So a big sticker now hides it's scar.

 

My 1:1 bug, back in the day used the very same sticker philosophy on rust spots 😂

They look good on the shelf though! Wow you have a lot of transmitters!

[Scorchio]

Fiddly fiddly times, window rubbers. Not my favourite task so doing one window a night. 2 left to go on drivers side (UK) so hopefully doing decals over weekend.

Heres my current technique and it seems to be serving me well! looking a lot sharper than my blue white SS that I did freehand some time ago. Tape pressed into groves with clay modelling tool then line draw round with .5 clutch pencil, which helps when cutting with scalpel.

 

[Scorchio]

So close!

Window rubbers & decals done. My first time trying soapy water decal application, so nice to have a bit of slip & slide before committing to position. Will be painting over overspray interior the windows & final body details to do.

 

 

[Scorchio]

Winter is here and I'm done!

Since my last post I have painted the interior with an "approximation" of a beetle interior freehand,  but it looks ok through the windows. Saving full shots for showroom entry (which would have been last the weekend, if not the micro surgery that follows)

The auction listing contained the following helpful photo (I've cropped it) and I knew this would be trouble, but the bracket was there and complete so I was up for the challenge.

The broken tab was held on by nothing but chrome plating, and low and behold the bracket would not just slide back in.

Only one thing for it then, carefully split the mirror, and obviously the tab fell off in the process. I could see it was over glued with polystyrene cement, as the mirror was distorted front and back (unlike other mirror which was perfect). Once I got it open I discovered the remains of another bracket buried in the sea of glue which would have to be excavated.

Once I'd got the 1/2 bracket out, behind it was a pool of glue. I was determined for the new bracket to sit over the dimple as the original should have. So out with the magnifier & micro tools to excavate back to original plastic without amputating the dimple.

Job done, after much grunting "stuff" this (paraphrasing) and storming off to make a cup of tea / pour a glass of wine.

Did some more filing & sanding to get parts perfectly de-glued and flat at mating faces. Decided to use epoxy putty for rebuild instead of polystyrene cement as I think it's seen enough of that.

no

Then back on with tab, fill slight gap and Molotow chrome now exposed plastic where chrome plating peeled away.

And over the last couple of evenings, last but not least my nemesis, the slightly worried looking guy behind the wheel, who usually ends up looking a bit "freakish".

Thanks to all who have followed & reacted! Showroom entry soon.