Back in beige

[miles5]

Paints a funny thing - it's primary function is to protect the metal!

What Barry's done should last an age. The paint is easier to change.

Focus on what makes you happy now!

[squirdan]

silver all the way. with a small tasteful decal "little b*stard"

[jamie]

Thanks guys. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas day. It was parents and mum's best friend over at our place for the first time ever. Girlfriend did an amazing Christmas lunch - especially given it was a first attempt.

I love the comments. Not one argument for staying original, and all of them about head vs heart. Mark Slade telling me to stick it to the The Man. The Man can go f*** himself, so no worries there. Given that I miss my old car so much, and the amount of work that has gone into this one so far, I do expect that I will keep it. As Andy said, not much else on the car is particularly original anyway, and it's not like painting it beige would make it desirable to the next person. It appears to be a colour a lot of people love... on other people's cars. I do still love it though.

Jason - I like the notion of doing the inside in original colour, but my car is a 1968 build and so was black inside from new. Easy to repaint if / when. I've already decided I'm coating the whole of the inside in sound-suppressing paint (called Lizard Skin, or likely DIY some derivative thereof), so it will be black and a maybe bit gloopy in places. The car has to have carpet, and a headliner. I've had an idea for the headliner, but it's not worth mentioning till I find out if it works or not.

When I say a '£10k paint job', what I really mean is an £8.5k prep job and a £1.5k paint job. I don't care that much about the paint finish itself - I can accept a few runs, some orange peel under the gutters, and a dust speck here and there, but I absolutely couldn't deal with a wavy horizon line in the side of the car. Or a car where the reflection rolls into the shutlines from an inch out into the panel. I've seen enough cars with shiny, pillowy doors - high-build primer buzzed into a curve by a DA-wielding barbarian - and it looks totally cheap and rank. So the £5k paint job isn't going to work for me here.

Obviously, with matte paint and no reflections to worry about, less prep would be required. Barry dressed a lot of old damage to the front of the bonnet and the rear decklid, but there are some small 1-1.5mm dents present near the double-skinned edges. These obv need to go, but 200-hours of block sanding the thing into a glass slab would be overkill.

The other nice thing here is the advent of epoxy primer. Epoxy seals the steel from water entirely, so unlike etch primer of old, impermeability of the top coat is no longer an issue. Perhaps from durability of finish, but not in terms of the metal going rusty underneath the paint. This could allow for some more interesting finishes, but I think I'll probably opt for a Hot Rod Flatz colour, which, it transpires from reading a bunch of stuff over on the HAMB forum, is just PPG Omni with a flatting agent added. At the moment I like Sterling Silver.



I also like the light colour and texture of Eastwood Aluma Blast:



If anyone has seen anything that looks more like metal, I'd love to hear. I'm interested in lighter, rather than darker, shades of silver.

[mrk]

If anyone has seen anything that looks more like metal, I'd love to hear. I'm interested in lighter, rather than darker, shades of silver.

Hi Jamie

Most "like metal" painted finish I've ever seen is on the Eagle E-Type Low Drag GT coupe. Not sure if that's the sort of finish you're visualising, or if it would dull down with matt lacquer...first time I saw it I thought it was naked polished aluminium.

[sladey]

Hmmm, I did seem to get a bit Marcellus Wallace back there. Must have been the Christmas spirit. Hey ho, and glad to see you seem to be making it your own - awesome


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[shoestring7]

Is this the sort of thing you are thinking of? I know BMW made some of the M cars available in a 'Frozen' matt metallic silver:


I don't know the technology involved, ISTR it was an expensive option from the factory, but it probably wouldn't be as a one-off job.

Of course you could always wrap the car and change its colour with the seasons

>C

[Mitch]

Great comments and love the way the theme develops... nothing to add 'cept the obvious; do what'll make your heart beat faster every time you open the garage door. Whatever that is.. even if it's matte!

FWIW, I'm not a fan of matte cars and love strong colours that emphasize the shape of our early cars. But, different is GOOD and doing what you want is BETTER.

[Darren65]

I wondered - what had happened to the flat silver hot rod dream from all those years ago...?

I certainly empathise with your dilemma regarding cost/spend....the guilt factor I've gone through this year is like nothing I've ever experienced but then I resigned myself to the fact that once 'you're in it, you're in it'.......compromise is just as difficult.

I think I also 'get' what type of finish you're looking for.....Beige/Silver is immaterial on my part, it's what'll make you happy that counts (I do love silver though )......however I'd be wary of 'manufacturing' a finish....the silver hot rod you mention probably earned it's look through possibly faded clearcoat, age and use....to paint your car matt just wouldn't be right imo....

...I'm looking forward to the day that my Tangerine 'iPhone' Mongrel will look like the car below although it'll take a bit of time and a LOT of hard driving to get there.....



....whatever you decide, just do it right!

cheers,

[squirejo]

Have you considered painting it cheaply and cost effectively and then wrapping it in a different colour of choice? I realise this would add another layer of cost, but, the finish to the eye can be better than paint while further protecting the metal and car beneath. You can also get matt wraps that I dare say will be more uniform finish than a paint job. One other matt consideration is that I have read about is it can be difficult to clean.

[Ralph]

One other matt consideration is that I have read about is it can be difficult to clean.

Years ago I painted an old VW with matting agent added to the paint mix - It was awful to clean especially oily traffic emissions and even hand prints were difficult to remove. I ended up cleaning the whole car with spirit wipe!

I guess that these modern finishes must be easier to clean though?

Ralph.

[johnM]

Of course you could always wrap the car and change its colour with the seasons

>C

That's proberbly the best of both worlds. Wrap would protect the paint from stone chips and the finish could be what you want. When the time comes you can pull the wrap and have your original coulor.

Kind regards.

[jamie]

Most "like metal" painted finish I've ever seen is on the Eagle E-Type Low Drag GT coupe. Not sure if that's the sort of finish you're visualising, or if it would dull down with matt lacquer...first time I saw it I thought it was naked polished aluminium.

I shot that car for Eagle and it is a very shiny finish, and tricky to shoot because on an E-Type there are no sharp lines in which to hide your reflection!

Here: https://jameslipman.squarespace.com/eagle-speedster-gt

It was also apparently a total mission to paint. And if you scratch it, the whole car has to be repainted as you can't get a decent blend - you literally have to hit the whole thing in one go. I love it on the Eagle, but, but it's not what I'm looking for - too reflective. Think the reflectivity and tone of brushed stainless (Delorean-like).

[cubist]

Mrs C's RCZ has an excellent satin grey finish - limited 'asphalt' edition. It washes up a treat and has a deep non-reflective lustre rather than reflection, but still lights the modelling and flow of the panels from any angle. It may be worth some research? I'm told that it will be a bugger to match if scratched and, as recently said, will need a full respray when that day comes. Only a minor Tesco ding so far that is hidden to a point by the satin finish...

[jamie]

I spent this evening tiling the bathroom floor, which gave me a few hours to think about what exactly it is that I am after. Having had the idea of a satin silver car in the back of my mind for a few years, I knew I liked the idea, but I hadn't bothered to rationalise why. It wasn't difficult.

[Warning. The following paragraphs contain introspective thoughts and subsequent pretentious art-ditherings]

This isn't about creating a 'look', or faking patina (As previously discussed, I really, really hate that bollocks).

This is about celebrating the absolute perfection of the early 911 (or, err, 912) as a piece of industrial design. There's that pretentious statement, but I'll stand by it. My 912, in bare metal, is insanely beautiful. Utterly pure and perfect. I walk into my garage, and I can't help but stop and look at it. I am aware that it's only a f***ing car, but my god, they totally nailed that rear 3/4 aspect from the off.

Same feeling with the engine. It's now very near to finished and it looks magnificent - pared-down from standard form to the basic essentials, or perhaps less, and looking more-or-less sculptural.

And so there's the paint explained - by eliminating the influence of colour and reflections in the bodywork, the form of the car can be appreciated without distraction. Like a piece of sculpture.

If I could, I'd run the car as it is, in bare metal, and it would look amazing. Back in the real world, it's going to need painting.

[jamie]

I also had a good old think about the fact that, when you put something back to original, you aren't ever really putting it back to original, but creating a pastiche of what the original car was, since something can only be original once. Nothing wrong with that, but it did make me realise that my car could never be original, and even less so since many of the parts (including the engine) have been swapped-out over the years.

This car isn't an 'original shell' any more - it's a perfect whitewashed canvas, ripe for a bit of experimentation.

Ouch.