Hello, I am doing some filler work on my 69 Chevelle. I have a door with a dent along the body line. I ground it to bare metal, and beat out the dent as best I could with body hammers etc. I have now gone over the dent with duraglass, and then covered the entire door with rage gold. I next blocked the door with a 16 inch long board using 80 grit. I almost have the door smoothed down. What is my next step? Smaller grit? Smaller block sander? a final filler over the top... I'm sort of at a roadblock now. This is my first real dealing with sanding filler.

Not trying to make you backtrack, but your first step after the grinding should have been an epoxy primer, then the filler. This eliminates problems in the future as far as rust getting between the metal and the filler. It's your call as whether you want to grind the filler off and redo it, but I highly recommend it.

If you want to keep what you have than just long block it with 240, seal it, block it again with 320 and begin your painting process.

If you really want to see what's going on while your sanding, after all the 80 grit work is done and you think your shape is right apply a light mist coat of spray on guidecoat or use the dry guidecoat powder from 3M. Now change your grit to 180 and longboard the door untill all the 80 grit scratches are removed. If any low spots are found you can take care of them with more filler or some polyester glaze. When all is good-(no low or high areas and the 80 grit scratches are gone) you can then apply your primer surfacer.

I agree on applying epoxy primer before doing any polyester work however, if you've put this much work into her already it'll be tough to force yourself to remove all the material and start over. I use epoxy as a base on any job that needs to last longer than me. Will you have problems proceeding the way you have been without the epoxy as a base?-probably not-most production type shops do this all the time. Odds are your work will hold up for a fair amount of time. Does epoxy add adhesion, corrosion resistance and flexibility?-yes for sure. The choice is yours.

Personally I would guide coat it with the 3M dry guide coat and block with 180 grit. If you find any low spots you can touch them up with a glaze product like metal glaze, but regular filler will work just fine.

Dont move to a smaller block you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

Once you have that filler right spray on your urethane primer.
This may or may not be of use
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2097339548

Is the door on the car ?. If so, and you are also painting the fender and quarter, I would then see how the edges of the door fit against the fenders and quarters. Some doors might also have a twist in them in that the front edge of the door may meet just fine against the fender but then either the top back edge or the lower bottom edge of the door against the quarter may be high or low. If it has a twist in it sometimes you can place a 2x4 in the jamb where the door is low and then push inward on the high edge to twist the door into shape.
When you look at a car you want the reflection to show that it looks like the gaps were cut into the different panels. This is why you need to block sand over the gaps with a long board. Since some of the edges are thin like on a door you can tap in or out on those edges to lower or raise them so that no filler is on the edges just primer and your final color and clears.
Personally I would stay as much as you can with the longest sanding block to keep the surface flat. Smaller blocks can ride up or down more easily and not level a surface as fast.
Jim

Personally I would guide coat it with the 3M dry guide coat and block with 180 grit. If you find any low spots you can touch them up with a glaze product like metal glaze, but regular filler will work just fine.

Dont move to a smaller block you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

Once you have that filler right spray on your urethane primer.
This may or may not be of use
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2097339548

Excellent link Sevt. I'm getting into the body work on my 68 right now, and your pictures are worth a thousand words. Good luck with the videos etc. Definitely a valuable service. :yes:

John

I agree with the above. I've 80'd the 1/4 and door till my arms almost fell off. I think with a couple more hours I'll be ready for 180 then guide coat and some metal glaze.

Is it better the metal glaze the entire area being worked, or just known imperfections? Do I want to use 180 in the metal gaze? or start with 80? Also, I have duraglass, followed by rage gold and then finally there will be some metal glaze on top. So there will be 3 layers. Is it ok for the door to look like a jaw breaker, with different fillers showing thru in different spots?

Thanks, Shahreyar!

I think an easier way to do this would be to use a poly primer like evercoat's feather fill. Basically you are appling body filler with your paint gun. A few pros about this method, you get fast even coverage.
If I had a complete door or 1/4 in filler, Id use a poly primer for my last filling. Trying to spread glaze over an area that big is just too much work.
To use poly primer you need atleast a 2.0 tip gun. You can get a gallon of feather fill G2 for around 40 bucks.

If you go the metal glaze route, you will find you get the best results if you coat the entire surface. If you try and nit pick at this point you will just sand low spots into other areas. Coat the whole surface and be done with it.
You can use 80 grit on glaze BUT and thats a big but, just use it to knock the top off the filler. Knock the skin off the filler then move to 180. You do not want 80 grit left in that filler when you go to prime as it will come back.

The door WAS covered intirely in filler. I've sanded the majority of that off to where there are just some areas that have filler. I need to get pictures and just show you. The quarter panel was skinned and has a seam about 8 inches or so running along the body line. The entire car is not slathered in filler (anymore).

There are a couple of dings in my roof, hood, header panel etc. Would this metal glaze be the thing to use there, or do I need to use another type of filler?

Filler will absorbe some primer, metal will not.
If I were you, I would spray the whole door with the filler.
block it with 180 using the guide coat method. Then pimer again and block that out using 350. You could primer once more and block with 420 or 600.
This will seal the edges of the filler that blend into the steel.
This may be a little overkill, but, when I do my car again I'll do it this way.
I have places where it is shrinking and starting to look bad. This is after 5 yrs. !

A word about the guide coat.
You can use a spray can of black or white of fast drying primer.
Hold the can 12" from the surface and just 'dust' the surface.
There is no need for a solid coat.
You will see where it is low and high. If you have consistant high spots, get them down.

Well, I've been making progress. I keep forgetting to put batteries in the camera to take pictures. I don't know if I will ever be done sanding. I am getting some high spots in the metal. I've been using 180 grit on a file board after I spray a light guide coat. It doesn't look like it's ever going to end. My quarters were lap welded on about one inch above the body line (don't ask ME why he did it that way). The old metal is on top. How much filler should I end up having on the seam? What I mean is like how wide should the filler seam be? Will the factory body line define itself on it's own?

One way to check your check is to wet the surface with a surface cleaner. The best cleaner to use would be a water borne cleaner like PPG's dx103. It will put a shine on the panel like it was clear coated, it will give you a visual effect of how straight the panel is.

If you keep sanding in one spot etc it is possible to undercut your filler. That would give you a false reading of high metal even thou all you did was sand your mud too low.

It all boils down to a game of touch, how the panel as a whole feels.

As for your how much filler, no real answer so many different things come into play. You can help that body line come around by using tape. If you look at my link you will find an album labeled working with filler. In that album there are some pics of defining the body line with masking tape.

Since your whole door was covered in filler and you still getting metal spots you NEED to tap those spots down. Adding more and more filler will do nothing til the whole surface is brought up to the high spots level.

The high spot I am talking about is on my driver side quarter panel. The high spot is right above the body line and is in a place where it is impossible to get something behind it. Do I just start tapping it with a hammer and pray? LOL

When I first started doing type of work someone once told me "you cant f* it up worse then it already is"
Just take a body hammer and tap it, no need for something behind it. We are only talking thousandths of an inch all it takes is little love taps.

There is always a way to get something behind there. It can be a board, a piece of steel pipe or tube. You need something to hold tension against the quarter panel and do the "off dolly" technique. If there isn't any filler there you could try to shrink it which you may have to end up doing anyway.

Dave

I was finally able to get some pictures of the doors today. They are coming along ok, but lord is this filler deep. I don't know why the guy put it on there so thick!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/YenkoChevelle69/HPIM0364.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/YenkoChevelle69/HPIM0363.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/YenkoChevelle69/HPIM0362.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/YenkoChevelle69/HPIM0361.jpg

It's getting to be pretty smooth. Just getting tedious around the door handle and mirror areas. Finally getting the door off and onto something where I can sand it comfortably is going to make quite a bit of difference.

Personally and this aint the answer you want to hear but Id strip that door down to BARE metal.
I can see 3 different paint layers red, dark gray and a white. Now you have body filler applied over that paint. Do you KNOW what kind of paint that is, is it lacquer or enamel? Not a good foundation for a paint job.

You said you had some problems with some high low spots, strip the door see what you got and cut your loses on your time invested and start over. There is nothing worse then fighting high low spots in metal when its covered in three layers of paint and filler.

If you striped that door, spent an hour or two working the metal you would be soooo far ahead of the game. The straighter your metal is the straighter and faster your filler work will be.

OMG! that's a mess, definately strip it all off and start over. If you paint over that layered mess of old paint and filler it'll definately haunt you down the road-just a matter of time.