DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

911hillclimber wrote:You have it easy!
Mine has, on both sides, Porsche rear wings, Dansk door skins, Dansk sills, Dansk front wings, a fibre glass bonnet and a glass front valance.

Had to compromise in places, but it is a hot rod...(so ok)

Haha Ive been to repro land and got that t shirt on other cars! Thats why I bought this one! At least my knackered old jigsaw pieces are the real deal!

Finished assembling my grille, all went well.

Now Im moving onto the exterior the first thing I need to look at before fitting anything is the paintwork. The car has clearly been DIY painted using the "slap it on and cut it back later" philosophy, which to be fair would also be my philosophy when painting things as doing anything else at home is not very easy. The paint is full of orange peel, micro scratches, some runs etc etc because unfortunately the cutting back later never got round to happening.

So this means I have to flat back and polish every inch of the car, and I've never done this before. Youtube to the rescue! This is a huge labour intensive job, but at least it is a cheap task to do which is good as I'm totally skint.

I started with the engine lid. My technique was:

1) rub it down all over with 2000 grit and soapy water by hand
2) wash all the residue off with a hose pipe
3) let the panel dry in the sun aided by lint free cloth
4) once dry you can now see where the paint is smooth and where there is remaining roughness, runs, peel etc etc
5) repeat this until the whole panel looks smooth and uniform
6) rub down the whole panel with 3000 grit for about 5 mins, make sure you spend the same amount of time on all areas of the panel
7) wash down with hose pipe
8 ) rub down the whole panel with 5000 grit for about 5 mins, make sure you spend the same amount of time on all areas of the panel
9) you should have a uniform looking dull mirror-like shine

this all took about an hour and a half and the panel is now ready for polishing...except I dont have a rotary polisher, I will have to see if I can borrow one from someone.

I repeated the process on a door panel. Im pretty confident I can get this paint looking really good with a lot of elbow grease, which Im really happy about because I was worried that the paint (and my inability to finance a respray) may have ultimately let the car down in the future. Now I think I can get it looking really good! Doing these loose panels will be the easy bit though. Doing the car frame in a garage will not be the same deal. Its a very wet and messy task and theres so many fiddley bits around the door frames and engine bay it will take forever, and getting a heat source to keep drying out the panels will need some consideration. Ideally I could do with a infra-red heat lamp on a stand, and a garage big enough in which to stand one!

Completed grille - note the orange peel in the paint I started with.



This is all you need!


After first go over with 2000 grit, you can see where the orange peel is remaining and where it has rubbed out.



2nd go with 2000 grit


3rd go and its all smooth



transition area


door after first 2000 grit rub


smooth door!


after a 3000 and 5000 rub down I got a nice dull mirror shine I was hoping to get! Only 8 more panels and a full car body to go! then i only have to polish it all as well! Who needs a 10k paint job!

This takes me back to painting my first Beetle when i was 18 under my Mum and Dad's car port. I used 1 gallon of cellulose paint and end up rubbing most of it off. I didn't have a polisher either so did it all by hand.

I think that yours is going to end up looking a whole lot better than mine though.

Looks like you've got your work cut out there - but at least you are getting some good results.

I would suggest you buy a Dual action polisher, to make the final stage easier, and less risky.
You could also use compound to possibly cut out some of the later stages of sanding.

You can get a cheap DA polisher starting from £50 from the likes of Argos - so a bit of a no-brainer in the grand scheme of things.

Keep up the good work.
Andrew

Paint has come up well ... don’t envy you though, you’ve got some hours ahead

I was similar to Ralph and painted an old 61 beetle but spent most of the time wet flatting it

Putting the hours in

I got the Argos DA polisher to try and recover the mess that was my sons MX5 and coupled together with an Autobrite pad and compound it came up really well. I’m no car polisher, but this was desperate!

Polisher:
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8647300

Compound:
https://www.autobritedirect.co.uk/produ ... p-machine/

And the green one of these:
https://www.autobritedirect.co.uk/produ ... h-pro-pad/

I remember when we were all rather excited as 1500 grit came out ... a new level of fine-grade sandpapers! John

Spent a LOT of time rubbing stuff down. Finally got the body and all the panels done as good as I can get them without going crazy over imperfections. Some areas there are runs and deep scratches im not going to be able to get out, and there is a limit to how much paint I can take off but overall it has gone pretty well. Itll certainly come out much better than it would have done otherwise.







Just got to polish it all now! Started with the engine bay...

Looks like a great result for all your elbow grease! Look forward to seeing the whole car. Al.

Good work!

Yes, well done. Difficult to do around those edges without going through to primer.

Looks great

Well ??

Progress ??

I expect you should be close to driving it by now !! ......................

Cortina wrote:Well ??

Progress ??

I expect you should be close to driving it by now !! ......................

Hi Alan, hope all is well with you. Discernible progress has been slow of late, firstly I went on holiday for 2 weeks and secondly I have spent most of my time battling with the paint work without much to show for my efforts. Much of the paint has come up well but one of the doors and the rear wing that needed repair have been a pain in the arse. Both of these panels have quite a thin layer of paint on them originally and when trying to blend in fresh paint ive been burning through, necessitating more paint, which takes a week to cure even vaguely hard, trying to blend this in burns through somewhere else, its like a game of cat and mouse in super slow motion. Just really glad I have the original paint to match.

That said, fingers crossed the shell, doors and engine lid will all be ready by the weekend paint wise. Then I can start to look at getting some panels fitted, but im further delayed by cash flow, all the missing fiddly bits are like death from a thousand cuts. Take the engine lid alone, missing the special hinge pivot bolts, missing the "911x" badge, the script badges are gunmetal which is no good, missing the rubber buffer stops, one of the number plate lights is smashed, missing upper and lower latch mechanisms. I had a quick look over the doors today, just the basics for fitting the lower sections, I have no striker plates for the latches, so I can fit the doors but cant shut them! Its all part of the fun though and nothing I wasnt expecting, certainly not complaining. Seeing it come together slowly is fantastic, still pinching myself to be honest. Im hoping to drive it next year sometime but it will be cash dependent, how much is a kidney worth these days?

if your burning through paint,its generally because your not keeping the mop moving and/or mop is too fast.It musnt stop as heat will build up very quickly, plus mophead,(white foam) and panel must be kept wet.I dont know what mop your using, but Id recommend a Farecla unit.It has replaced my 30 year old Makita recently and does a great job,has a large grip on top plus its very light with variable speed which matters when doing large areas.
When your flatting use a thin flexible rubber block and another one to wipe away the water as you go, you can then see how flat the paint is and whether you have removed imperfections.You really dont need to go finer than 2000/2500 especially considering the paint shade.If your burning edges (it happens) a thin length of masking tape along edges will help.You can then polish edges by hand.WATCH the paint as you go,as soon as it shines leave it.It will help you stop mopping through.
Ive no experience of the compound your using.Generally industry standard is Farecla, 3M or Roar.

coomo wrote:if your burning through paint,its generally because your not keeping the mop moving and/or mop is too fast.It musnt stop as heat will build up very quickly, plus mophead,(white foam) and panel must be kept wet.I dont know what mop your using, but Id recommend a Farecla unit.It has replaced my 30 year old Makita recently and does a great job,has a large grip on top plus its very light with variable speed which matters when doing large areas.
When your flatting use a thin flexible rubber block and another one to wipe away the water as you go, you can then see how flat the paint is and whether you have removed imperfections.You really dont need to go finer than 2000/2500 especially considering the paint shade.If your burning edges (it happens) a thin length of masking tape along edges will help.You can then polish edges by hand.WATCH the paint as you go,as soon as it shines leave it.It will help you stop mopping through.
Ive no experience of the compound your using.Generally industry standard is Farecla, 3M or Roar.

Sorry im probably not using the correct terminology Its not when polishing, it when flatting with 2000grit, when trying to smooth out the transition from new paint to older paint, in places i have been going through the older paint because its quite thinly applied in particular areas, I then have to apply more new paint and try again, Im getting there though!