Just wanted to thank all who contribute to this site. I just painted my 68 malibu yesterday and I have never used BC/CC before There is alot of good info & experience here. I got a lot of good info from the posts here. Now I'm ready to start the sanding/buffing. Check it out here http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1268913&uid=608404

Congratulations! Your car looks nice.

Just curious how many hours it took you to get it to that point?

Jack, I spent the last couple of months really hitting it hard. A couple hours in the morning when I got off work every day and one of my days off every week. The car was pretty solid, I had to weld in repair panels on the lower aft corners of both front fenders. There was no other rust but some one had taken the vinyl top off but left the moulding that goes with it so I had to pull that off and weld up the holes. I had a few dents to fix also. It is not perfect by a long shot but I got this car with the intention of making it go fast and look good, its not a show car. I probably could have primed and blocked it a few more times but I quickly loose interest after I am doing body work for a while.

looks good, be sure to post pics after you color sand and buff.

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Michael

www.geocities.com/msctech2002/chevelle

T.C. member # 758
ACES member # 4292

69 malibu convertible
69 malibu h/t 307/pg
<<this space reserved for 66/67 chevelle 4spd>>
01 gmc sierra

Cooooollll!!!! Seeing your work is getting me pumped about my 68. In primer with a little bit of rear quarter patch work and some blocking remaining. Love your color choice though I think I'm going to do a non-metallic for my first attempt at a complete paint job. Did you spray that in your own shop??? If so, am interested in what you did to prep your shop for the painting and how well you were able to prevent dirt/debris from getting in your paint.

ssbums: I built some framing around the car in my garage and covered the car on all sides with plastic, the top was also covered with plastic about 8 ft high. 2 box fans sucking air out at the garage door end with furnace filters, door was up about 6 inches and used cardboard to seal out the air on either side of the fans. Then I tape a tarp to the outside of the garage door and let it lay down on the driveway to make sure I don't **** off the neighbors ! 1 fan at the other end of the "booth" (with filter) mounted about 6 ft up from floor, pulling air in.
I wet the floor down about 1/2 hr. before spraying, that really helps. I also ran 3/4 steel pipe up from my compressor and across the back wall with moisture traps and a 2 stage filter module to make sure I did not get any water. I was amazed at how clean the paint was up until the last coat of clear, then I was starting to get some dirt but very little,I was suprised there was not more. I probably should have changed out the intake and exhaust filters after spraying the basecoat but the exhaust filters were on the inside of the fans and I did not want to stir up the dust. Maybe I should have put them on the outside of the fans so I could have changed them 1/2 way through the job.
I was also afraid of spraying the blue metalic, having only ever painted about 10 cars and never with bc/cc. I used a slow reducer (85 deg. temp range)even though it was only 65-70 deg. in the garage, this is supposed to allow the paint to flow out better. I had no problem at all with the metalics there was no striping, it all flowed out well. I was using ppg deltron dbc, which was expensive but I wanted to use a top quality material and was very pleased with its performance. I would say if you have a good gun you should be able to do a metalic if your carefull, I have a dev. OMX gun which a lot of guys hate but it works very well for me and sprays very nice. I did 2 coats of base and on the 2nd coat after I spayed each panel I backed the gun off about 6 inches further and spayed a lighter mist at 90 degrees to the last pass.( on the base coat only) I don't know if it makes that much dif. but it has worked well for me. although I think that paint would have flowed out either way.
I have some roughness in the clear coat, but I was playing around this morning with some 1500 grit paper and soapy water on the roof and it comes rt out and gets nice and smooth. So I still have some work here sanding and buffing. Good luck with your project and don't rush it, mine is not perfect by a long shot, I probably should have primed it and blocked it a few more times.

turbo: Thanks for the info. I'll file this one away for reference. May have a few more questions when I get to that point. As long as I know I can get decent results doing it in my shop, I'm up for trying it!