Paint Finally

January 26, 2004

Page P9

The Plymouth receives its top coat of Sunflower Yellow and Iceberg White paint.

Left: Car sits in the spray booth after final sanding. The large glass windows on the booth allowed me to capture the 'as-it-happens' photos that you see below.

With the bodywork completed, the Big Day had arrived. After three months of on-and-off work to get the panels straight and aligned, the last coat of Dupont gray primer was applied and sanded. The car sat for about two weeks to let the primer 'shrink'. In early December 2003, the car was moved to the main spray booth for setup and masking to apply the base coat of Iceburg White to the roof and sportone color sweep on the side of the car.

Spray Hood

Above: Herb mixes Sunflower Yellow paint with activators and reducers before spraying. A single-stage paint was my initial choice. But after doing sprayouts and color matching, the base coat/clear coat approach was chosen. For this non-metallic color, the match was identical. The two-stage paint has many advantages over the single stage.

Left: The hood is sprayed from the center outward.

After a brief period to let the paint dry, the car was remasked for the Sunflower Yellow base coat, which you see in the accompanying photos. The clear coat was applied to the entire car hours later.

The base coat sprayed out as a gloss, but soon dried to a semi-gloss, eggshell-like shine. In all, two coats of base coat were applied to the car body before the final application of clear.

Herb spent some time arranging the panels so that once he got started, he could move effortlessly from the body to the larger panels, such as the hood or the fenders.

Left: Plymouth with fresh coat of paint sits in spare spray booth awaiting initial assembly before being transported back to my garage in West Hartford, CT.

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